The formally-christened Voidfish 1½’s parachute-like sail was strung up by a series of blunt hooks that Quet had fashioned out of the brick of the alcove’s ceiling. She had first attempted to suspend the sail in a bubble of anti-gravity magic, but had determined that while the glyphs produced by Torch’s gloves had a longer shelf-life than their standard Assyrian counterparts, they could only sustain an effect for about thirty seconds maximum. As such, the more mundane method of keeping the Voidfish 1½ upright was devised. It would do.

While Horan sat in the corner of the room, held one of Quet’s glyphs in his hand and quietly conversed with whoever held the glyph’s twin, Quet sat cross-legged behind Waia in the Voidfish 1½’s slightly concave wire-weave basket, casually braiding the Hawaiian’s hair.

“Okay,” said Waia, kneeling and looking ahead so that Quet could continue her work comfortably. “I don’t hate this, it’s actually kind of soothing as long as you fix it at the end, but, like… Your hair barely goes past your neck. I don’t know how to do this, why do you?”

Quet shrugged, the dim light of her eyes turning Waia’s raven-black hair a sickly dark green. “I thought a French braid might look good on me when I started growing my hair out, so I spent about five minutes learning how. I’m shuffling around three clumps of hair, this isn’t rocket science.”

“So, what?” asked Waia. “Did you realize that braids are stupid or something?”

“Actually,” said Quet, “you might not know this, Unhudo, but–”

“Oon-what?”

“You might not know this, Rapunzel, but Primus hair loves to ruin dreams like that. Turns out, our hair grows super fast when it has the room, but we all have a certain point where it just stops. Like, it refuses to get any longer than that. Think about it, when was the last time you got a haircut?”

“August 14th, 1969. 3:28 to 3:41 PM, Eastern Standard Time.”

Quet blinked. “…Wow, you just know that? Off the dome? Down to the minute?”

Waia shrugged. “Just kind of popped in. Sounds about right. When was Woodstock?”

“…Huh.” Quet pulled out a small scrap of dirty linen that had gotten itself tangled in Waia’s hair at some point without anyone noticing. She shuddered to think how long it had stayed in there. “Point is, my limit is where I’m at right now, and your limit is evidently half the length of your entire body. Like, seriously, wow. You won the lottery here. This is gonna take way longer than ten minutes to finish. Actually, hang on.” She flicked a glyph-covered stone on the basket next to her.

The glyphs encircling the pebble lit up with a dull green glow. A tinny copy of Quet’s voice emerged from the stone. “Your timer has – Four. – minutes and – Three. Teen. – seconds remaining.”

Quet nodded as the stone dimmed. “Yeah, okay. Sorry it can’t say ‘thirteen’, by the way. I couldn’t arrange the glyphs any way that would allow for that many soundbites on only a single stone. It’s a minor miracle by itself that I could fit both a watch and a timer on that little space.”

Waia patted her thighs. “Yeah, whatever, it’s… Hey, so, you’ve been bringing up Assyrian and whatever else. I never really got into magic, even though a pretty decent chunk of my Domain was kind of crazy about it. Actually, that might be why I never did.”

“Nah,” said Quet, “I get it. Magic isn’t really something you dabble in. Either you spend years banging your head against all the possible permutations your personal language might take and by the time you actually determine a decent framework, you’ve sunk-costed yourself into figuring out the rest, or you… don’t do that. Unless you’re Horan, of course. Who spends all that time figuring out their language and then learns two spells for it? They call matrices ‘spells’ in Assyrian, by the way. Because that thing is all optics and no functionality.”

“Yeah, uh…” Waia scratched her arm. “A lot of the Polynesian Domains are fans of magic, actually. Were.”

“Oh, really? Didn’t know that, that’s cool. Usually it’s only one or two people per Domain who really get into it.”

“Yeah, uh, I used to hear a lot of talk about it back when we first had to start dealing with Domains from outside the Pacific. We were pretty much all lagging super far behind in terms of power, since, y’know, we’ve all got about half a dozen podunk islands each. At least Hawaii became a whole mess of tourism, so we had that going for us. But that was, like, a century later, so whatever.”

“Why do all the Old Worlders put so much stock in how societally relevant our related civilizations are, anyway?” asked Quet.

“Got me there, man. But you know how it is with magic better than anyone. Flat power level, no fluctuating up or down because someone from your country made a really popular movie or anything. Good for folks at the bottom of the totem pole trying to compensate. Man, remember when Domains went mortal for reasons other than ‘everyone in our civilization is dead’?”

“Vaguely,” replied Quet. “By the way, I have to admit that your hair is super hard to deal with. Why’s it gotta be so wavy?”

“That’s how I roll,” said Waia. “Nice save, by the way. But, y’know, you get the picture. Come the 1850s-ish, I think, everyone was turning into… What did you say earlier?”

“Sorcerers. The word that anyone actually uses is ‘thaumaturge’, though.”

“Well, that. Ended up letting my Domain keep the skies clear for a few years after O’ahu got vaporized, like you saw. But you know how ol’ Waia is. Wasn’t part of my brand.”

“Didn’t sound like it with what you said at the start,” said Quet.

“Yeah, but…” Waia stopped for a moment. “…I–It wasn’t worth the effort. I gave it a shot a few times, scribbled things out a few times a day–”

Quet nodded. “Sounds like how a lot of us do it.”

“Yeah,” said Waia, “a couple of my siblings gave me pointers. Probably thought it would make for a more dignified way to keep me occupied than jingling keys in front of my face. But every time, I would just kind of… drop it. It wasn’t that I got sick of it or anything, it was only something like three minutes a day usually, and that wasn’t long enough for it to get boring. It’s just that after a few days, the part of my brain that thought about that stuff, like… turned to soup.”

Quet said nothing, her eyes still fixed on her braiding efforts.

Waia sighed and continued. “Like, whenever I thought about it for a while after that, I was all, ‘oh yeah, it’s been a while, I should do that today’, but the part of my brain that was supposed to actually act on that was… Yeah, I dunno. And before I knew it, those efforts to figure out magic went from ‘thing I haven’t done in a while’ to gaining official ‘thing I used to try a while back’ status. You know? Do I sound crazy?”

“No to both questions,” said Quet.

“Yeah, I dunno,” said Waia, resting her head in one hand. “Not like I do much better with anything else. Like I said, it’s part of the brand. Don’t get tied down, hop from place to place. Kind of annoying when there’s something that I need to do that’s actually important, instead of just being however I’ve decided to goof off that week. I spent a while training to keep myself focused on a bunch of long-term stuff that I had to do back in Hawaii, since that was something that I was actually kind of invested in seeing through to the end. But… y’know. Results inconclusive.”

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Quet nodded. “Sounds like executive dysfunction.”

Waia raised her head back up and looked over her shoulder at Quet. “…What?”

Quet released the half-finished braid. “Is that a ‘I don’t know what that is’ what or a ‘you sound like a moron’ what?”

“No, I mean…” Waia glanced at Horan across the room. “I think I’ve heard of that. Once or twice? Isn’t it just a mood or something?”

Quet pursed her lips and looked at the floor. “Man, that’s really where the conversation around neurodivergency is at for some people, huh? I mean, I’m really not one to diagnose, I have basically zero expertise with that kind of thing, and it’s not something I have a problem with, but I’ve talked to people who talk about dealing with similar stuff, and… yeah.”

“I mean, I… Sure?” Waia shrugged. “Not totally sure what I’m supposed to do with that. I know it makes me sound like an idiot, but I’m just not big on labels or anything like that.”

“No, no, that’s fine.” Quet glanced at her time-stone. “Classification is far from an exact science, and it’s pretty much impossible to be conclusive about anything, but it’s not like a witch cursed you to have long-term commitment issues. It’s a big enough trend to get an entire term. I think it’s worth pointing out to you, since knowing that there’s actually a whole thing for what’s up with my head made me feel a lot better about that whole deal. You can do what you want with that information, though, I’m not your mom.”

“Hmm.” Waia looked back to the front, allowing Quet clean access to the nearly-complete braid. “Thanks anyway.”

“Your timer is complete,” added the time-stone.

“Oh, sweet!” Quet stood up, taking a moment to find her balance as the shifting weight rolled the Voidfish 1½’s basket around on its base. “That’s ten minutes without a single bummer conversation topic!”

“Had some close calls there,” said Waia, as she stood up and brought a hand behind her head. “Having a friend mess with your hair is surprisingly mellowing. And honestly, at the start, I was worried we’d have to start talking about, like, everyone’s feelings about what happened at the end of that party with the Indians.”

Quet shrugged. “Well, one, that would pretty easily slip into bummer territory. Two, Mark and Horan and…” She lowered her voice to just above a whisper. “…We all know that talking about that would ruin the rest of the day for everyone. So we just kind of silently agreed to never bring it up. Keep things moving forward, y’know.”

“Smart,” mumbled Waia, “that whole thing was stupid anyway.”

“Well, in either case…” Quet bent down and picked up her time-stone. “You feel better about things now?”

“…A little. Thanks.” Waia stretched her back out. “Can you fix my hair now, though?”

“Oh, yeah, sure.” Quet pulled on one of Torch’s gloves and pointed to the nape of Waia’s neck. The back of the Hawaiian’s head was haloed by green light and the braid unraveled in the span of a second.

Quet flinched as an errant lock of Waia’s hair slapped her in the face. “Awesome.”

Waia patted Quet on the arm and wrapped her elbow around the Aztec’s shoulders, leading her out of the Voidfish 1½’s alcove and into the wider hideout. “You’re one of the good ones, you know that? Out of all the Primoi from over the millennia who I could’ve had to deal with in order to make all this stop, I’m glad it’s you.”

Quet forced a smile and subtly tried to squirm out from under Waia’s stifling grip. “Y–Yeah, thanks. I do my best.”

Waia nodded and looked out over the nearly-empty hideout. “Y’know, it’s kind of wild. Nobody out there really gets it, I don’t think. It scares me sometimes, the fact that aside from a few people in this room, everyone’s just out for their own short term. But, well, between your sweet magic light powers, Horan’s… moral support, I guess, and everything I’ve got going on, I don’t think anyone’s gonna be able to stop us.”

“Good to hear,” said Quet. “Can, uh, can you let go of me for a second, please? I need some space.”

Waia released Quet. “Fine, whatever, but still, I think we could do with some pep-talking. I do agree that we should at least pick Mark back up before heading north on our weird magic hot air balloon, of course. Stick with the people you trust through thick and thin and don’t give the rest an inch, all that. But we could probably just go now and be fine, the three of us. We’re not on, like, the absolute knife’s edge of victory and failure. I like having a margin of error like that, for once.”

Quet smiled genuinely, folded her arms and looked the Voidfish 1½ up and down. “It’s definitely been a while since I’ve felt like we’re doing anything other than prolonging the inevitable. Needless to say, I like it.”

“Yeah,” said Waia. “Not to jinx it or anything, but I feel good about where we’re going.”

At that moment, Quet shifted into her human form, her eyes dimming into a completely mundane-looking arrangement of irises and pupils. She blinked and looked around herself. “I didn’t do that. What made me do that?”

Waia sighed. “That one’s on me.”

Horan turned around when he heard panicked shrieking coming from the other side of the room. “…Can I call you back? There’s a thing going on.” He stuffed his glyph back in his pocket and stood up. “Okay, fine, what?”

Quet paced at high speed across the station, running her hands manically through her hair while her fingers drummed against her scalp. “I’m mortal! I turned human! It happened! I was right!”

“Okay, let’s…” Waia jogged forward to keep up with Quet and tried to pull her hands away from her head. “Let’s just stay calm, okay? We were doing great ten seconds ago, we don’t need to ruin the momentum, right?”

Quet pulled her cardigan tight around herself. “Every part of my body is a different temperature and none of them are good!”

Horan flew over to the other two Primoi. “Alright, okay, that’s, uh, that’s a development. No way to reverse it either at this point, my parents said you can’t cross over either way more than once, uh… Waia, keep her calm, please, I need to think about what my parents told me about this!”

Waia made a half-hearted and uncertain attempt at a hug, which she withdrew from halfway through. “Wha–? How should I know how to keep her calm? Do I look like I have experience dealing with fear?!”

The locals exchanged looks with one another, but chose to maintain their distance. They had no idea what was going on with the three… The two immortals and one former immortal.

Quet’s breathing began to grow ragged as she slumped against the wall of the station. “I–I’m going to grow old and die. Even ignoring the worsening state of the post-apocalyptic planet, I… Seventy-five years tops. That’s it.”

“Okay, uh, y–yeah,” mumbled Horan, “that is true, but… I… Tact…”

Waia shielded her eyes with one hand. “We can’t be dealing with this right now…”

Upon hearing Waia’s words, Quet ducked her head between her knees. “And now of all times…! It’s life or death in an hour, and I end up like this!”

A nod forced itself out of Horan. “I mean… Yeah, I don’t want to pile anything on, but I guess that’s any powers you might’ve had officially gone. Not that you’ve been able to do much with them for a while, of course. But hey, at least with those new gloves, it doesn’t–”

Quet pulled her head up and looked at Horan, eyes already wet and shining with early tears. “Haven’t you noticed? I never had anything to lose! Everyone else has their who–whole unique deal, and I’ve had nothing for seven hundred years!”

Horan furrowed his brow and looked into the distance for a moment. “Oh yeah, huh. Duh.”

“It’s… It’s not fair! It’s always me!” Quet covered her eyes and brought her legs up to her chest. “I get stuck with everything in my head that stops me from getting other people, I’m the one-in-a-million Primus with no powers, and I’m the one who turns normal! Just for once, can it be someone else who has to deal with all of this?!”

Waia knelt down next to Quet’s curled-up form. “Look, buddy. Life’s never fair. Can we please wait on this for a second until there’s less stuff going on around us? The gloves still work, and you can–”

Horan pulled Waia up and away from Quet. “Let’s not. Go stand somewhere else and stop making things worse, okay?”

Waia sighed, looked down at Quet, nodded, and turned to leave. “Me and my big mouth…”

Horan shifted into his human form and squatted down to Quet’s eye level. The sound of her shuddering breathing sent a strange sort of chill down his spine. “Hey, so… It’s pretty clear that there’s really nothing that either Waia or I can say that won’t make you feel even worse about everything right now. I get that, yeah. Everything just kind of gets filtered into whatever bums you out more when you’re like this.

Quet whimpered and nodded, burying her head behind her knees so that none of her face was visible to Horan.

“Okay, yeah. Waia and I are gonna be just over there doing our own thing. I’ll make sure none of us do anything too loud. If you want us back with you, just give us a yell and we’ll be back in a second. Is that okay with you?”

Another nod.

“Perfect,” said Horan, rising back to his full height. “My instincts are telling me to leave you alone with some pithy-sounding platitude, but even I’m not that emotionally immature. Talk to you soon.”

Quet didn’t look up to watch Horan leave, but choked out a strangled “Thanks” through the mess of her face.

“No problem,” replied Horan. “It’s what friends are for.”