How I fell asleep last night, I'm not really sure.  I don't know how anyone would be able to fall asleep after being offered a chance to see their family in exchange for killing someone.  I mean, I know I rejected the offer and all, but the fact that it happened in the first place still kind of freaks me out.  I roll out of bed and stumble over to the mirror to tame the wild cyan-and-brown strands sticking out everywhere.  I manage to herd it all into one hand and finally put it up in a ponytail, then throw on my clothes and whatever else I end up doing in the morning because by now, it's all just second nature and I do it all subconsciously.

I slip out of my cottage and see Azrael emerging from his own right across the way.  He's pulling his sweatshirt on when he sees me, and quickly averts his gaze.

"Hey, what's up?" I ask, hoping that he picks up on me trying to coax him into talking.

"Oh, um," he mumbles after a second, looking back at me. "Nothing much."

"Have you been writing poetry lately?" I try.

Azrael's eyes wander elsewhere as his ears turn pink. "I mean- I- I guess... sometimes...?  N-nothing too good."

"You're an award-winning poet," I remind him. "Of course it's good- your stuff rivals, like, Shakespeare."

"Ha."

"I'm serious!"

Azrael buries his hands in his pockets as we begin walking together towards the hotel to grab breakfast.

"So besides poetry, what have you been doing around here?" I break the silence again.  God, Azrael, give me something to work with here!

"Uh... just exploring, I guess?" he shrugs. "And listening to Iris play the flute... and maybe talking with Zeben and Dana too?  They're nice."

Okay.  That's something.

"Yeah, they are," I agree. "What drink did Dana make you for the dinner party?"

He thinks momentarily before responding, "I think it was... maybe a mocha of some kind?  It was good... it had chocolate shavings on top."

Wow, that does sound good. "I'm kinda jealous."

"What did you get, then?  No shot Dana gave you anything gross."

"Warm apple cider.  Had a hint of some kind of spice."

"The why are you jealous of my drink?" Azrael raises an eyebrow. "That's great.  And besides, if you want a mocha so badly, ask Dana when we go inside."

"For someone who was barely talking a minute ago, you're really good at speaking," I comment.

Azrael smiles. "I'm the Ultimate Poet.  What did you expect?  I've gotta have a way with words or my work means nothing."

I open the door for him, and we enter into the hotel lobby.  As soon as he spots Iris, he disappears from my side.  Oh well, at least he has someone to keep him company.  I turn left and walk through the dining room into the kitchen to see-

"Oh, Sophie!  I was just about to go see if you were awake yet!  I had a feeling you'd need this." Dana hands me a warm mug.  While I can't see what the drink is, it's topped with quickly-melting whipped cream and chocolate shavings.

"Dana!" I gape. "I was just talking about this with Azrael!"

"What can I say?" She gives me a wink. "I'm just too good."

I take a sip of the mocha and sigh.  The temperature is perfect, too- just hot enough that it's warm on my lips but not enough to burn them.  I have no idea how this f*cking witch does it.  God, I love her.

Sophie, you can't love ALL the women!  Right.

Dana seems to notice my expression, and her smile widens. "What did I say?"

"You're literally magical," I admit.

"Maybe I am," she teases before turning back to the stove, where there are several pans holding various foods spread out across it.

I don't want to distract her and make her burn anything, so I go and finally make my way over to the foosball table in the lobby.  Now, I know I said that I would stay far away from it, but it doesn't hurt to just try remembering how to play while nobody-

"Oh, hey!  Need an opponent?" Zeben has suddenly appeared at the other end of the table.  Honestly, he's too nice for me to say no to him, so I just shrug and gesture to the rows of handles.

"Man, I haven't played this in forever," he laughs as he tries to get a feel for some of the handles.  "Okay, you wanna drop the ball in?"

"Sure." I pick up the tiny soccer ball and drop it into the middle.  Immediately, Zeben gets laser focused, which makes me immediately go oh no.  It's never good when someone gets into the zone like that.

Still, I do my best, even if my best is just wildly spinning the handles and accidentally knocking the ball into my own net several times. 

"Hey, three to ten ain't bad!" he reassures me after he scores the winning goal.

"You said you haven't played in forever," I remind him. "You left out the part where you're the Ultimate Foosball Player."

Zeben laughs.

"Oh, are you two playing table football?" Marzy asks as he approaches us.

My brain stops braining for a moment.  What is this man on about?  And then I remember.  Right, he's British.

"Uh, foosball?  Yeah, I mean, I like soccer," Zeben says to him.

Marzy's brain seems to short-circuit for a moment as well. "...Soccer?  ...Ah, right.  Football."

"Yeah, if that's what you wanna call soccer," Zeben shrugs.  I'm silently praying for him to shut up.

Marzy doesn't seem to want to back out either, though. "It still baffles me to this day how you Americans choose to call it... soccer." He wrinkles his nose in disgust as he emphasizes the word.

"Well, sorry to hear that, but it's soccer to us," I say in an attempt to end the conversation.

"Sorry, what are we discussing?" Evangeline inquires as she appears by Marzy's side.  To my horror, I suddenly remember that she is, in fact, British as well.

"Just soccer," Zeben says casually.

Evangeline pauses. "...You mean football?"

"You know what?" I interrupt. "We're not having this discussion.  You guys wanna call it football?  Go for it!  Just a reminder that everyone else here is American, so things can get iffy if we somehow wind up in this conversation again."

"...I'm Canadian," Azrael calls from across the room.

"And I am from-" I immediately sense where Flauros is taking this conversation and interrupt him.

"My point still stands!" I say. "Call it whatever!  Boom.  That's it."

With that, I walk away just as Dana arrives with a plate of breakfast sandwiches.  I grab one and decide to head over to the second island.  A part of what Stolas said yesterday kind of resonated with me, so I guess I'll try to understand where he's coming from and take some time to "better explore the island". 

Despite what he had said previously, I do find a lack of Stolas when I arrive on the second island.  Instead, I see Furfur and Caim by the ruins.  They seem to be deep in discussion- hopefully not about football or soccer or whatever the hell the sport where you kick a ball is called- as I approach.  Caim notices me coming once I'm a few feet away and waves.

"We're just trying to understand the ruins better," he explains. "I wanted to really give the big safe door a good check, maybe even figure out some of the engineering. That might not be very easy, but I'll do my best with the knowledge I've got!"

"And I'm just here to see if I can climb this thing," Furfur adds.

Two different kinds of people, I guess.

"Are you sure that's safe?" I ask Furfur.

She just shakes her head and gives me a toothy grin. "Only one way to find out, right?"

Before I can say anything, she runs over to the base of the ruins and begins tugging on the vines, likely to see which one can support her weight the best. I'm just hoping that she knows what she's doing, even if I'm fairly certain that she doesn't. So to help ease my anxiety, I go check on what Caim's doing. He's... just staring at the door. Great.

I go to ask him what he's doing, but he holds up a hand. "Shh. I'm trying to get an idea of what I'm looking at."

"It's a door," I say dryly.

Caim shoots me a look, but is very bad at hiding the fact that he thinks what I said is funny. Oh Caim, you're too precious. All four and a half feet of you. Kidding. Caim is probably around five feet tall. But he's still small and adorable, and the freckles don't help a bit. It's kind of hard to remember that he's around my age when he looks like a child.

"You're making the face," he observes.

"W-what face?" I ask, jolting out of my thoughts.

Caim rolls his eyes. "Y'know, the face when people think I'm, like, a five year old. But can a five year old do steampunk engineering like I can? No, I don't think so."

"So, why steampunk engineering?" I finally ask the question that's been on my mind. I mean to be fair, it's been the question I've wanted to ask everyone, but I finally have the chance to ask another person.

"I don't have much of an explanation," he admits. "It's nothing really all that cool. I just always liked making things, and had an obsession with how cool steampunk stuff is. So I decided to put my two passions together, and boom! I found myself becoming the Ultimate Steampunk Engineer."

"That's pretty neat."

"How about you? Why digital art?"

Oh damn. He did not just use my question against me.

I let out an exasperated sigh and explain, "I've always been an art kid. Picking up the stylus for the first time was magical. Like one of those weird spirit animal book series that I would read and obsess over as a kid. There was just a connection, and I found myself drawing better than ever on my tablet. I mean, there's so many brushes to explore, and colors at your fingertips... I guess the software itself is just so creative that I found it easier to channel my own creativity. ...does that make any sense?"

Caim nods. "Yeah. I mean, I don't get it, but I get it in the sense that it kind of just clicked for you. It was kind of like your calling."

He thinks for a minute before adding, "I wonder how on earth Zeben got into hydroponics. Did he have some sort of calling, like, 'hey I love fish, they would be cooler if they could help with farming'."

"Or Stolas," I chime in. "I don't know where to start with him."

The more I think about, the more I realize how little I know about Stolas. How did he get into combat on such an extreme level? Was it his choice? Was there reasoning behind it? Wow, I have so many questions. Maybe he'll answer a few next time I have him cornered.

A yelp from outside snaps me back to reality, and I rush out to see Furfur cradling her hand. Her palm is sliced open, and dripping blood.

"The vine climb was great, but I kind of overshot grabbing onto the ruins themselves and cut my hand," she grimaces.

"Um, how about..." Do I offer her my shirt like in those movies? No, this needs proper medical care.

"The pharmacy!" I realize. "Surely they've got some stuff there."

"It's worth a shot," Furfur agrees.

"Do you want me to come too?" Caim offers.

"I've got it," I insist.

I start walking with Furfur towards the pharmacy. She seems really calm for someone bleeding so much.

"You okay?" I ask her worriedly.

She just keeps smiling like the legend she is. "I've gotten worse. Rocks are kind of my thing; stuff like this happens all the time."

Right. Geology.

"I mean, look at this," she continues. I do not, in fact, want to look at it. "I've gone to the hospital for stuff much worse."

"W-what kind of geology are you doing??" I stammer.

"The normal kind."

"The normal- Furfur!"

She just laughs as I say her name. I mean, if she's totally chill about this situation, then I really won't stop her. If anything, isn't it good that she's not expressing her pain? Or is that bad, and for all I know she could be bleeding out?

"Hey, relax, I'm fine," Furfur repeats, reading my expression as I open the pharmacy door for her. "It just needs a little wrapping and-"

She stops dead in her tracks. Confused, I follow her gaze. And what I see makes my stomach twist into knots. I feel sick. Really, really sick.

***
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