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Timekeeper "Marian, she is safe, but I- mhmhm, I am not much of a protector, I think."

    "Ah... that's good." Sonetto sighs at Schneider in relief, phlegmy and choked-up from not quite crying. "Then it wasn't for nothing."

"Why don't we... let these people into the Suitcase. Everyone. Let them eat, and drink, and be happy, somewhere nicer. For a little while. Right?"

    With Forget Me Not gone, the forest isn't a battleground anymore. Damp with sprinkling rainfall, old ash and dirt mix together into mud, carpeting the ground where new green growth sprouts for the first time in a decade. The field hospital is trashed, with tents and cots shattered and supplies spilled over, the injured and dead lying around alike.

    But just like the budding plants, regrowth is still possible for them in these last hours. Sotheby's potion is administered by however many hands are healthy enough to help, and the crowd of humans are pulled back from the brink of death, neutralizing Forget Me Not's murderous draught and buffering their health against the illness. The civilians are exhausted, gingerly minimizing their pain however they can by propping themselves against crates or each other, but they're alive. It's a dismal scene, but they're still alive for it.

    Vertin reaches out to take Schneider's hand, squeezing it tightly. They watch as a young human girl manages to push herself up into a sitting position after Regulus feeds her a potion, and the relief and pride that blooms on her face when she accomplishes it. "... Yes. That's a wonderful idea. I'd like to do that."

    They turn to address the Elites, only minutes after the battle, and already moving forwards with the next plan. "Everyone . . . ."

    There's a lot to do, and only 0 1 : 3 8 : 2 5 to do it, but with everyone working together, it'll get done. For supper to be eaten at all, Flamel and Schneider will have to work together to perform his Stormchaser Procedure and smother the Storm Syndrome for this last short period before the rain arrives. Every idle set of hands among Vertin's allies can be put to work rearranging furniture within the Suitcase or carrying the food brought to supply the field hospital down into it. The infirm will need a shoulder to balance themselves against in order to make it down the staircase that follows through the Suitcase's entrance, and it's over a hundred that are still living to go down two by two.

    Woozy as the civilians are in their illness and recovery, they're willing to accept most any premise put in front of them. Once they're physically and psychically soothed, some of them break down into tears, missing loved ones that didn't make it, or expressing remorse and horror over their actions from the past day, some of them are shellshocked, others have already come to terms with everything and are grateful for any comfort they receive. The one thing in common with all of them, and with the Elites too, is that their hunger makes dinner sound like a dream. Wealth, it seems, is best found in food and company.

    The food needs to be cooked too, even if a lot of the supplies are simple or ready to eat. Moissan and Tamamo are likely the most skilled at doing so, but Vertin herself will chip in with Schneider to assist them at their direction, as well as anyone else who volunteers. In addition to the irregular bulk ingredients that were shipped in by convoy, Vertin raids the lower levels of her manor for the stock stored for the Watchtower, and the result is a luxuriously varied feast for even this large number of people.
Timekeeper     During this time of setting up, Sonetto is insistent that she take on as much of the burden as she can, even hurt from battle and over twenty-four hours sleepless. Cosimo and Achille, she says firmly, have done much more than enough already, and need to allow themselves to be repaid with gratitude. She takes on much of the delegative work that Vertin cannot, directing where to collect furniture from and tirelessly bringing plate after plate to the table.

    The furniture can't all match. The long, long table is set up in the massive wildflower-covered lawn outside of the Suitcase manor, assembled from several different tables disguised by tablecloth, and over a hundred chairs gathered from all around the house. The tents from the field outside are hauled down inside and set up in the lawn to cover the table, because even in this strange pocket world that Vertin carries around, the rain still inexorably falls.

    It's more food than most of the poor and downtrodden of Chicago have seen together in their lives. Lentil stew, roast beef with mustard, a dozen different kinds of bread loaves and dips, potato salad, garlic chicken, ham and turkey, desserts like lemon tarts and chocolate cakes and fruit all available at the same time-- and blessedly, blissfully, for the first time in nearly a day, it all smells *appetizing*. The hunger induced by the Storm Syndrome stays, but without its hallucinatory delusions, there isn't a thing in the world you can imagine being more delicious than the food set out right in front of you.

    By the time it's all set up and Vertin takes her seat at the very center of the table, her watch is well below the hour mark. For once, she undoes the straps holding it to her wrist and puts it aside, knowing the time by heart, and knowing just as well that it's better that no one else count it down. The civilians all mostly have their own families to stick to, chattering to their loved ones with renewed energy and excitement and gratitude for the food. Sonetto has one seat beside Vertin, and the other is open for Schneider.

    Ye who have found the living among the dead may finally rest. The trials of the world have been overcome, and this suitcase is the Ark that grants shelter from the closing of the day. Now all that remains is to live life, whether life follows thereafter or not.
Holly Asturias PREVIOUSLY

"Achille, Holly, see what she needs!"

    The irony isn't lost on the doctor that she came to help Schneider and her sister, and now she's the one in need of help instead. Really, White had done most of the heavy lifting for Marian, and getting Schneider back on her feet was a formality.

    "I am... fine..." She isn't, visibly, Achille doesn't need a medical degree to tell. Covered in gashes that are healing slower than they should from the black spears, scorch marks from arcane blasts, entirely too much gore from the exploding humans, burns and singes from that too.

    "Hungry, but it'll... pass."

    The pause makes it too transparent she doesn't really think it will. Not right now, anyway. Not *here*. "My mind tells me I need more blood, as though there won't be any to drink tomorrow, or the day after." There won't, technically. Not in this 'era' anyway. Holly takes a deep breath, and forces herself to sit, with only her left arm to support herself up. "What a ridiculous feeling. Like I haven't starved before."

    It would be so easy to lure Achille in with the promise of gold and then drink, and she finds herself just shocked enough the thought entered her mind to shake her head and snap out of it. Any gold still on her is dismissed with haste, a second time, and with Forget Me Not gone, she hopes it stays that way for the rest of the day. Night. Morning. How much time has it even been?

    "I would not mind a hand up, however."

    Back on her feet, no doubt with Achille's help, Holly rubs the bridge of her nose, stricken by dizziness and a headache she's a bit too familiar with. Still, she can muster energy at the sight of Sotheby and Regulus distributing a real cure. Just a bit of guilt, at the ones she killed. Tuck it behind the notion it was self defense, for now; most of them would've exploded, no doubt, it's that easy to stop thinking about it. Right?

    "... what now?"

    The best she can do is make her way back to the Timekeeper, to Schneider, Druvis and their company, alongside Achille when he does. She's unsteady, gripping her limp right arm with the left, and you could swear her fangs are just a bit longer. "Even if we made it back to the Walden, there's no guarantee it's still safe there. If we rest in the Suitcase, all of these people..." It was humane to give them sane final moments. But it's still a lump in her throat to look at a crowd and see only doomed men and women.

    "Schneider, how are you?" Healed or not, to get right back into a fight after being so close to death... "Do you need care?" Care, like Holly's in much of a position to give it.

"Why don't we... let these people into the Suitcase."

    And then, her suggestion. Why does it sound so much like giving up? Holly, normally so energetic and peppy, without anyone to save or any means to improve the situation even just a little bit, with for only gamble 'I could maybe, MAYBE save ONE person, and that'll require CHOOSING', falls a bit more silent than she usually is, and only barely manages not to dig through her right arm with her left fingers and nails as she clutches.
Holly Asturias NOW

    For the first long while, Holly disappears in the infirmary and seems reluctant to ever come out. She helps, however she can, to make more of, and administer, the curatives needed to offset symptoms without crippling explosive side-effects. It's less demanding than the heavier care, and so she can do that much. Eventually her right arm responds to her commands again, and she can help the most injured by closing and stitching wounds, distributing painkillers, making endless apologies to those who were a bit too close to her when she fed. But she's silent, otherwise.

    For herself, or for the people who need a professional to see to them right now. She even took some time to clean herself, or at least get most of the blood out of her dress and skin. Basic Formae can handle that, made to clean clothes, sterilize equipment and, well... help Revenants not waste their drinks. As war breeds technology, Revenant needs from the years past bred the tools they still employ.

    But eventually they're out of patients. Eventually the food is ready, the table is set, the Suitcase is as good as it'll look. And Holly has no choice but to emerge from the shield of her duties, with the best smile she can manage in such circumstances.

    "Thank you," she finally says to Sotheby, Regulus, Tamiel and Odette, in the wake of all the care given.
Regulus Regulus has too many people to dispense potion to in order to remark on Druvis's pain or even really thank her for not teaming up with Forget Me Not and just wrecking everybody. In truth, as everyone nears their last hour, Regulus wonders about her choice. Did she push Lilian away from her forever? She wishes everybody didn't just jump in like that. It felt strange to have that many people agreeing with her, actually, but more than that she knows what it's like to be on the other end of that swarm. Even when they're the ones in the right, it never feels great. Or helpful. How could it? She thinks of Lilian's talk about making everyone into an arcanist one day, maybe the Manus was more into that proposal than she thought.

But it does feel wrenching, really. Yes. They offered her the mask first, but seeing this shift from--her friend, right?--is disquieting. Is she the weird one for not turning on the Foundation more than she has? Is she a hypocrite? She knows at least some of the bullshit they've done, shit she didn't tell anybody because who would it have helped? TTT's words ring in her ears. She had been thinking about talking to Lilian about it, maybe she even already knew she always seemed one step ahead, but now she has no idea how to broach the subject. 'You know about this, and you're still helping them? Some rebel you are!' It's her own words, but she can easily imagine Lilian shouting them at her.

So really, when she sees the girl's breathing ease and sees her burping up bubbles, Regulus lets out a soft breath of relief. It's just a kid. How much pain could she have brought the arcanists anyway? This hour of healing is the best she could do and maybe it's just her coping, but it feels worth it all the same. It's a miserable sort of worth, but she's known all her life you take the wins that you can get. "Sorry I couldn't help more, love. Hope you dream sweetly."

She looks over to the exchanges between Vertin, Schneider, and Sonetto. Three people who were neither human or arcanist enough, really. Even Sonetto who got applauded for it. Druvis, it sounded like she just lost a dear friend and that very community that can't help but ache at Regulus, a little, for her own feelings she'd never really be welcome there. At least Vertin's offering her the wilderness. It's a salve for a wounded heart, really. Having the opportunity to build a community for yourself and others is the next best thing to just having one to begin with. And Lilian? Fuck. She doesn't know anymore. For ages she was trying to get Lilian to understand her distrust of the Foundation and now she doesn't trust the Foundation. She didn't say anything to change her mind, she's sure of it, she found her own path to that take for sure. She's not ready to talk about it. It's not the time to talk about it. But she's going to have to. Quietly. No mob, no crowd, just her and her stupid feelings.

She continues dispensing potions with APPLe's aid. Her heart twists when Schneider's men remind her that they're doomed. "There could always be a miracle." She mumbles as she continues handing out potions, even handing some off to APPLe to speed up the process. When she's out of potion, she returns to the girl, helping her up. "Come on---" She gives a small nod to Schneider. "We've a warm place for you to rest."
Regulus As she makes her way to the others, she's examines her own wounds. Nothing too serious that she can tell, but she was thrown around a LOT and she'll feel it bad in the morning. She's gonna have to ask Odette for a shit load of ice after, get a nice bath going, soak in it... Her body is screaming at her now and she thinks of what Lilian said about assessing. Did she assess fast enough? Or is she becoming one of those freaks who thinks nothing of her own injuries until the danger's past. God, she hopes not. She doesn't want to be that cool.

She takes her free hand and pats Sonetto on the arm. "Hey, between the rest of us, I think The Timekeeper's looking pretty good. We made it. We survived." Maybe for the Foundation, surviving through a Storm is something that can be expected and hoped for, but this is the second time for Regulus. It wasn't just a fluke. It's still new and scary and not quite real for her. She then smiles to Schneider and, to her, she adds, "Um, thanks for the advice before. And uh--welcome to Team Timekeeper! Fab to have you!" She aims to give her a one-armed hug. She pauses at Druvis, hesitating like she's observing a new cat being pulled in from the shelter, and adds, "Um, nice to meet you proper, love. I'm Regulus. You'll love the Suitcase and I'm sure we'll be the best of mates. Talk to you later, alright?"

Then finally to Vertin, "Pretty clever with the ritual disk there." She says with a smile. "You gave us quite the scare! Sonetto was really worried, alright? I mean I was sure you'd be fine, of course, ahahaha...." She rubs at her neck and sniffs a little, cracking a little under the stress she's pretending wasn't there. "R-right, let's get in."

FOOD PREP

Regulus offers to lend a hand with cooking, once she can get Odette to check out her injuries and put at least some ointment on and the like. She hasn't been doing all this breakfast prep all this time without learning a thing or two, and APPLe of course who is willing to lend a hand as well with setting plates and chairs and the like to accommodate as many people as possible.

Regulus, of course, also puts on some music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hL0tnrl2L_U

As Because from the Beatles plays, she lets out a sharp laugh, "That's right! Dinner AND Music, courtesy of the Suitcase Hotel!"

She's also been notably very huggy during all the prep. Vertin gets frequent hugs, Sonetto gets hugs, and you better believe Schneider gets hugs. Even Achille and Cosimo get hugs. Regulus is a very huggy person and these hugs are about as much for Regulus as they are for everyone else. Sometimes she just cries a little and has to wipe at her face or step away for a moment. Sometimes she laughs a little, just from the sheer relief of survival.

Regulus ends up sitting next to Schneider--on the side opposite of Vertin. "I'm glad we made peace, Schneider." Regulus tells her. "You really looked after Vertin when we had to rely on you and--you looked after all these people here too." She smiles, wiping at her eyes. "I'm sorry we couldn't help everyone, but I'm glad you're here. I'll make sure you're nice and cared for in the Suitcase too, just like we talked about, okay? And...and for everyone else who comes by. I'll make sure of it. I promise."

She exhales. "Man, I could eat a horse. Come on, APPLe. We should at least have some of the chicken and the cakes or we'll regret it forever."

She is surprised to be thanked by Holly. "Huh? Oh--you mean, for helping out? Come on, we had to. Don't worry about it."
Lilian Rook     'In the Age of Man, humanity has no more need of its monsters. Here, you were accepted, exalted, by the Guiding One herself, but you still chose to fight for your own obsolesence. What a pity, you tamed dog.'

    Even before she had left the Walden, Lilian had promised Vertin to come back, yet every angry, biting word that she could think of passed her lips as if she never would again. As the shellshock of the night fades, and is replaced by shock aimed inwards instead, everything Forget Me Not said rings in her head.

    A bitter, poisonous man, he may be; bloodthirsty and fickle-tempered, an elitist through and through, obsessed with revenge; Lilian has been told again and again by those she should abundantly trust, but his character ultimately meant nothing before the damning weight of his case. She has no aversion to vitriol, nor mistrust of hatred, that is strong enough to reject him outright. The loathsome tyranny of 'good inside' has always urged her to think of nothing but action and fact, and she had only to look around her in the last moments of 1929 to know how closely his words and deeds, however vile, aligned with the reality in front of her.

    The Concord was welcomed with open arms into the only place in Chicago that she felt safe, and Lilian had decided long before she saw it that they would drink deep of the privilege only to spit out those who welcomed them in like the rest. The humanity she had learned to loathe all over again, scraping raw half-forgotten old wounds in a matter of days, had flocked to them to take advantage of those they'd trampled on, and then thrown away that 'noble composure' again.

    Now everyone around her is a traitor. Holly, Flamel, White, Schneider, even Druvis, have all turned her back on those whom the entire world had already turned away. She had called Regulus a traitor to her principles, Asakura a traitor to his ideals, and all of the present Watch a traitor to their one shared mission, all as gleeful minions of the Foundation where tacit human supremacy looked so very fashionable next to the 'hysterical arcanists'. Sonetto, the dog of the Foundation, had betrayed them in her heart the moment she allowed Vertin to risk everyone's lives for the sake of an irrelevant stranger. Vertin had betrayed not only the Foundation by colluding with Schneider, but everyone depending on her with her greedy recklessness, and in Lilian's heart of hearts, herself, too; betrayed by Vertin's secrecy and distance, made an example of the day before and then humiliated for finding a moment of comfort here.

    And the worst part of it all is that she's a traitor now too; twice over. In the crucible of her first ever moment of utter and complete powerlessness, she had discarded everything but her vows; those of the Code and those made on her wedding day. She had left everyone behind, broken every silent promise, and leapt into the arms of the enemy she had scorned in her ignorance before.

    And even then, she couldn't take refuge in saying that she had only been pushed to finally embrace her true nature, eschewing a life of hollow peace and endless, quiet tension. Because here she was, in the Suitcase, far away from the men and women who had loved her at first sight, with only broken bonds to show for it. She had allowed herself to be brought to heel yet again; whipped one more time for baring the scarred side of her heart, and it worked just like always.
Lilian Rook     'One sniveling bureaucrat whispering in your ear and one dead traitor'

    For what? Because Vertin had pleaded with her, and in a moment of weakness, she had given in.
    Why? Because they had finally sat at that table together in a way that they never had before, and she couldn't bring herself to turn her face from a girl she had made up her mind to protect back in 1966.
    Because of what? Inertia? Vertin never asked, never needed, and never benefited from that one-sided solidarity at all.
    She had been too afraid of disappointing the one who always took another side over hers, whether the Watch, the Foundation, or her old classmates.
    She had spurned the man who knew what she'd never had the guts to tell anyone and still saw her as a queen in exile.
    She had been held in the arms of a woman who might be called a patron saint of the unchosen, who had seen through everything and still called her beautiful, and came back here all the same.

    Slinking back to old harms, familiar loneliness, and a million broken pieces; because it was familiar, and different was too frightening to hope for.

    'Ah, what ceremonies of innocence you hold to await the blood-dimmed tide.'

    Neither screams of terror nor stench of gore could convince her otherwise. The era's heroes had lost to the iron boot of civility, and she had gone along with it. The orphans of humanity who dwelt at the very edge of the campfire, tolerated no closer than that, had clung to where she always stood just outside, and she hadn't dared to drag them away.

    No matter how long she sits with her thoughts in blessed peace and quiet, surrounded by people who are supposed to be her friends, Lilian can't feel as if anything had gone right at all. 'Domestication' is something she tolerates as a way of outplaying the girl she always fears becoming. The thought of going back to the Foundation doesn't fill her with the usual woozy sense of pride in her better, more civil nature as a rational and decent human being, triumphing over the beast once again.

    Nothing she did tonight was in the interest of becoming a better or stronger person. All she did was eat their food and use their shelter and swear loyalty that lasted all of fours hours before she stole their comrades and tromped back to the whip-wielders who owned her soul.

    'Forever will not be troubled by its delay.'

    Tonight, she wonders at the point of trying to be that 'better person' in the first place. At least for her, there is no heaven nor hell at the end of this. There will never be a grand reckoning for all her deeds in life. And even as she lives it, how often is virtue ever rewarded? How often is sin actually punished? The gold exposed on her back is proof that the beast is her undeniable destiny. It should be a reminder that the only thing that could make her stay was love. And if she left right now, Tamamo would go with her.

    'You're alive.'
    'If they can-not live this bit of life... it's too sad.'

    So she marvels at her own stupidity, pitching in with the cooking. Time is of such absurdly poignant essence that Lilian brings herself to use her magic on everyone's behalf, speeding the process as much as the other volunteers can handle, in a way she's used to doing at home. An hour ago, she couldn't care less how these people lived their last hours on Earth. She will never know their names, they will never thank her, and they will never forgive her.
Lilian Rook     . . . . . . . .

    Lilian doesn't know how she manages to eat anything. It could be the urge to blend in and turn invisible, or it could be spite; trying to even up the score for 'stealing' food from Manus Vindictae earlier. It's not as if she can tell. The thought is repulsive at first, but before long, the highway hypnosis of toxic-obsessive introspecting lulls her into it. Only Vertin would know how ridiculous it is that she has an appetite all over again.

    'Even if we made it back to the Walden, there's no guarantee it's still safe there.'

    "Don't bother."

    Holly isn't her first choice of target, nor is she nearly foremost in her thoughts. It's the name, 'The Walden', that are the magic words, reawakening her awareness of the world around her. "You had all that time with them and you were never interested enough to find out. Not knowing is a fitting punishment."
Flamel Parsons     Flamel's giving up on certain things. He's giving up on the type of helping he intended. He's, selfishly, given up on the idea of simply heaping blind support on her and then expecting immediate gain. He's, selfishly, given up on the idea of leaving her "untouched", "pristine", "unharmed". He has a method. He has a way of doing things.

    ---

    The Director places the body of UPE-1929 into a chamber dense with technical appratuses, scientific equipment, anomalous salvage. She comes back to life quickly, as she always has; the mental image of the survival instinct is impossible to keep down. She is given her equipment again. She silently, blankly, moves to act. Suffering, and exploited in a way, she will be essential to the function of the Parsons Institute.

    ---

    Flamel asked her: Would you endure the Stormchaser Procedure? And she did agree to it, because she always agrees to endure things, even and especially for the sake of survival. And again, just like he'd done with Regulus, he makes his way deep into her mind, into dollhouse displays of family, deeper into foundations of dollhouses, and now into the depths of her unconscious mind. He tunnels through her, and it might be clean, but it surely isn't enjoyable. "I'm sorry." He'd muttered, each step of the way. "Sorry." As if that blunted, at all, the fact that he'd asked her to do this.

    ---

    Men gather around files and data, watching UPE-1929 blast away at an anomalous target on a video screen. The Director, behind them, listens. One says, "It makes sense. The connection between wealth and survival, a link between have and have-not and live and live-not. We can get to where we need to go if we follow her. Director, you know we had this data before, right? Why did we pursue all those dead-end options?"

    "Because I thought she'd had enough pain." He says, tensely. "And she has. But we can't help her avoid more. The only thing we can do is swim with the current. If she has to suffer to move forward... The least we can do is make it clean and kind."

    "You're giving up." Says a technician nearby, scowling gently at him in a contemptuous posture.
    "..."
    "Back to what works."
    "We don't have time for experimentation."
    "No faith."

    ---

    "I'm doing my best." Flamel mutters, as he climbs a mound of neurons in the Collective Unconscious, to face the clockface again and wrench its arms violently with his prepared counterpattern.
Odette Raskins Too much has happened in far too few hours, and Odette's barely had any time to really rest and recover the way she'd normally like to. Her body's clearly paying for it already, and the fresh bandages wrapped around her head and arms do hamper her ability to function generally, but that's not going to stop her from hurrying about as she often does.

"Baking soda... Can't believe I didn't think of that." She comments with a lightheartedly painful giggle, actually managing to find some humor in the whole situation while distributing Sotheby's potion to those in far worse shape than she is. She needs to laugh, both for her own sake and to help keep spirits up among so many people. She's still dressed as an aid worker, after all, and that means she can't let herself visibly despair at what's to come. "Come on, let's get you all inside. There's gonna be..."

They probably don't know what's going to come, but Vertin's given everyone instructions, and she still has her part to play until then. "...So, so much food. Just down the steps, watch your head, and we'll get everything ready real soon."

She joins Vertin in the Suitcase without question, ready to be put to work. She's juggling a few plates during the setup phase, too, whether it's getting furniture ready, getting the survivors inside, or soothing them as best she can alongside Holly for all things medical.

What Odette really seems to shine in, though, is aiding in the baking needs for the meal. Even with this many people, she's eager to whip up some recipes from home for bread with cinnamon and fruit swirled in, and soft mini-cookies with bits of crunchy sugar ready to be eaten by the handful. Recent-ish practice has even left her with some fresher experience baking in bulk, too, for a crowd this size.

She's more than happy to get help from Regulus and APPLe during all that, too, although the former does have her fussing over her as she often does and sticking a few patches on the back of her neck to help with the pain and swelling. "We'll get some ice and more extensive stuff done on all that once... Um. Yeah." She reassures, chuckling again and flitting about more to make sure she never stays still for too long.

Keeping herself busy is the best way to distract herself from the timer ticking down, anyway.

After all the prep and seating is done, Odette takes a seat and has to really concentrate just to avoid collapsing into it. Holly's thanks distracts her from the fatigue, and it takes her a moment to rememeber to reply with a relieved smile. "Thanks to you, too! All of you. All the treatment, the triage, the footwork..." She replies, nodding at Holly, Sotheby, Regulus, Tamiel, and Veronica before slumping over into her seat.

The music courtesy of Regulus has Odette perking up soon enough, and she bobs her head along to the beat after a bit once she starts catching onto that. She joins in on the hugging spree after a while, too, albeit gingerly since her arm still hurts a lot, and she's worried about looking like a mess in front of all those people she presumes counting on her to look all cool and collected even if they probably aren't.
Riku Asakura His allies were protected, his enemies defeated.  Yet, the victory felt so hollow.  This place wasn't protected; no wards were put up.  The storm would wash over it, erasing this era and its people.  Ultraman Geed doesn't know why he even fought for a moment.  However, the madness of the storm had passed, and despite it all, he kept enough sense in him not to have given in to the monstrous blood in him.  

The image of Geed fades until Riku is there once more, on his hands and knees, trying to breathe.  He's injured, but not as badly as some; he's heartbroken, and he doesn't know what to do.  So many people here were about to disappear forever, and he can't do a damn thing for them.  

Worse, he wonders if Lilian is or will ever be a friend again.  He wonders if Arcana had done that much to her, or if... maybe something was done to her that they'd never know.  It crashes on him all at once, and he does his best not to let loose a cry.  Could he have done anything differently?  Was this going to be a repeat of L-Corp?  

Schneider and the Timekeeper have a plan.  It doesn't save anyone; these people are doomed... he can't help but feel insanely depressed about it.  The inevitability of the storm, and the useless jesture it was to do anything for these people.  He'd curse himself later about these thoughts, but right now he was just /so tired/ and felt /so helpless/.  

But a familiar phrase, burned into his heart, came up again.  "Standing around doing nothing won't get us anywhere..." and so he stood up.  

Later...

Riku had helped people down into the suitcase, making sure they got to a seat or somewhere to lie down to get over whatever Forget-Me-Not had done to them.  He puts on a smile and tries to be convincingly reassuring to them.  He can't look Achille or Cosmo in the face during this time.  They know the truth, and yet... here they are doing something with their last moments.  It was incredibly hard not to break down, so he did what he could.  

He helped with dinner as best that he could, which meant running gopher for people, getting things from the outside or the basement, running food to the table, or anything like that.  It's killing him to keep this act up; he wishes he didn't have to, but at the same time, these people needed to have their last hours not be in pain and suffering.  He just had to connect with them somehow... and to do that, he can't let himself break down.

Eventually, at dinner, he eats.  Not as much as he would like, despite being absolutely famished.  He forces himself to eat, looking down at his plate and avoiding eye contact.  He can't keep up with the upbeat Regulus right now; he really just doesn't want to accept the fact that he's eating a last meal with people.  

What could he possibly say right now?  He struggles and eventually... "How's the food?" he asks quietly.  "I like mine a lot, it's... really good."
James Bond      James Bond doesn't feel as if the trials of the world have been overcome--rather, he feels as if they've overcome him, and he's just waiting for it to be officially decided. His head pounds from the injury sustained by his own consuming focus on Forget-Me-Not, and that makes it feel too deserved to seek out treatment.

I'm glad we made peace, Schneider.

     "I'm not." He looks up from his seat, towards Vertin and Regulus.

    "Do you have any idea how lucky we are for things to have ended even as badly as they have?" He asks, glaring reproachfully at Vertin despite the sound of his own voice amplifying the sharp ache in his head. "You split off from us with one of our most valuable assets--and a very close friend of mine besides--to go with someone we had every reason to believe was an enemy asset. Your only justification for that was 'trust me.' I did, because you forced me to, and look where that got us," he says, bitterly.

    "The Manus have better intelligence, better operational security, they never reveal themselves until they've already won, and the only reason we managed to exfiltrate at all is because that stupid man wanted to run his victory lap. To make matters worse, my would-be Trojan horse is having dinner with us while Lilian is convinced that we're no different than the mob outside of Sotheby's mansion. And why wouldn't she be? I played a part in that, and I won't deny it." He grimaces, as an errant twinge of his jaw sends another lance of pain shooting upwards.

    "...But I'm not going to go along with another decision like that. Not if it means nearly trading my friends to that delusional death cult and destroying their faith in me. I promise that you'll have to kill me if you expect me to."
Flamel Parsons     Flamel's habits die hard. His guitar is strumming. He's eating, of course, or, by now, he's eaten. It's so hearty, and he finally has so much less craving for his own credit card. His heart's in a bad place, and that means he has to be an emotionally-malformed Guy about it. "Mmmn, mm mm mnnn... I will turn these stones to bread... And all who hunger will be fed..." He softly sings. "Plates will shift and the earth will groan, and no-one here is gonna die alone..."

    He puts it away when Regulus gets music out. He might still need a bit more food, it's been twenty four hours since his last good meal. He should fucking help out with food prep. Wait, no, his psychokinetic hands *are* doing that. Weirdly enough, they seem a lot more active than before, a lot more autonomous in a way. They move as if corresponding to a person, acting on the impulse to aid here.

    "Not knowing is a fitting punishment."
    Flamel does turn to Lilian, at some point. "I'm s..." He starts. No, that's not the right word. "I feel horrible." He says, instead, which is true, and maybe more the correct thing to say. "Awful."

    But there's food. There's clear thinking. People are able to live, and in their final momeents, they're able to express their thoughts correctly. A few more hours of a better life are worth the effort. Multiply that by a thousand, ten thousand, a hundred thousand, and it's even more worth it. So he can't regret what he's doing. He *can't*.
Veronica     After the mental fatigue of having to battle the rising Storm Syndrome, Veronica is happy to be delegated a task more physical in nature - thus, she ends up helping carry crates of food downstairs, forgoing her telekinesis in favor of more precise manual labor. There's something a little macabre about throwing a banquet so soon after so much violence and death, but...

    Veronica thinks back to the end of the Dark Days. The first time the lights came back on. The strained smiles on everyone's faces, the relief in their hearts pouring into Veronica via their collective EGO. The shared understanding that although the peace would not last, although the town would still need protectors, the peace should be enjoyed. There was food then, and there is food now. Veronica redoubles her efforts to keep the supplies coming.

    When it finally comes time to eat, Veronica looks down toward one end of the table, then toward the other, taking in the sight of all gathered here. Spying open seats near the other Elites, she takes one near-opposite Lilian. "Director," she says with a nod of acknowledgement. She serves herself hearty portions of garlic chicken and potato salad before broaching any conversation.

    "When folks from home would get promoted into the Nest, which mind you wasn't often," she says, almost non sequitur, "They'd say they'll remember us, stick up for their home and family, let their good luck trickle down. Hardly a soul that 'makes it' actually keeps those promises. A few fancy dinners, the promise of a holiday bonus, and they've forgotten about the Dam." She takes a small bite of potato salad, because she's just as hungry as the rest. Then: "I'm glad you stayed loyal to Vertin. That's what matters, 'specially when it ain't easy."
Tamamo     Tamamo has changed, by the time she's in a kitchen. A white, only slightly frilled apron covers more muted fashion, hiding a slice of foreign nature, if only that, in a practical sign of Europeanism. Electric blue thread spells out something in capital letters on the apron she passes to Lilian the moment she's entered the working area, reading, I YAM. Tamamo, going over the ingredients and coming up with a quick menu for the sake of using up everything not likely to keep -- an odd thought, given the end of the era -- instead displays the needlework SHE'S MY SWEET POTATO.

    She'd been ready to go anywhere. She still is, so long as Lilian takes her hand. She's said every word to make that clear, but has none left to bring comfort to the result. No one out there had wished to see her, except for Lilian and Forget Me Not, himself, and the thought of how unlikely it is that she'll make good on her promise to hear him out weighs on her. That it would be dangerous doesn't matter. What matters is only that Lilian wanted it, and Tamamo had agreed.

    "Soup is such as it is, a useful manner of food for all, specifically because of how easily it brings various ingredients together. Anything 'can' be made into soup, but one must not neglect that ingredients cook at different rates. Meat should be simmered long, mushrooms shortly, or else their taste may become too sharp. One need not be too concerned with the balance of flavors before applying salt and spices, but one must pay attention to heaviness. If not reduced to stew, denser portions will refuse to mix, sinking to the bottom of the pot, you see." She can go on like this the entire time things are being brought together, pointing to what should go where and for how long.

    "A grilling stone would be perfect, for having this many, or else a larger roasting fire. More care must be taken without water to spread the heat, lest the meal progress beyond the thinnest charring. Though it is called 'browning,' this refers to several different things, you know. Ah, but it is true that near all make the food sweeter, and for this, and we can consider them similarly. Here, now, shuffling with a line of wood is enough to mix it well. It is good that I always carry stock, after all."

    For all that, she doesn't feel like mixing it up for a celebration. She's just taking refuge in something she knows how to do, all to humor the moment and, in no small part, Vertin's desire to... what? To show kindness to those who remember it? Rarely have such gestures felt more hollow. The feeling of their eyes hasn't faded from her, nor Lilian's words.

    So, this is what she'd meant by 'Chicago.'
Lilian Rook     'I'm s...'

    Lilian looks dourly at Flamel, as if to say 'don't start'.

    'I feel horrible.'

    "Better." she says, and exhales. "But you got what you wanted, didn't you? So don't expect any sympathy from me." She returns to stabbing at the last of her food.

    'Director'

    "Veronica." comes easy in the moment, though she seldom remembers her name at any other time. It's so pointlessly formal it's almost relieving.

    'They'd say they'll remember us, stick up for their home and family, let their good luck trickle down. Hardly a soul that 'makes it' actually keeps those promises. A few fancy dinners, the promise of a holiday bonus, and they've forgotten about the Dam.'

    Lilian drops her fork with a clatter. "Are you trying to antagonize me?" she says. Her voice is nothing but cinders.

    'I'm glad you stayed loyal to Vertin. That's what matters, 'specially when it ain't easy.'

    She suddenly wishes that Veronica were, actually. She could still lash out if she were needled. Being thanked for what she resents is harder to do anything about. She decides, barely thinking, "I've never been loyal to anyone in my life."

    It's a mystifying thing to say when she's sat right next to Tamamo, especially after sharing the kitchen. Lilian doesn't seem to think that it needs any elaboration. Listening to Tamamo go on about cooking makes her feel more sane, and explaining that thought will make her feel crazy again.

    'Your only justification for that was 'trust me.' I did, because you forced me to, and look where that got us'

    Lilian tries to pretend not to hear it down the table, but scolding Vertin for the eminently reasonable reasons he chooses only makes her feel as if Bond is angry with her, too.

    If she had left Vertin and Schneider with White, they'd have made it back, wouldn't they? If Tamamo is telling the truth, and she came so close as to see Lilian being dragged to the exit, they came within inches of escaping while carrying her dead weight. She'd damned them all by trying to save them. Of course there was no possible way of knowing what couldn't even be divined, and in any reasonable world, she should have assumed their extraction would be questionable, without her presence guaranteeing it, but the fact that all of this had been a chain of events that played out in perfect causal symphony from the moment she started the bar still aches unbearably to ruminate on.

    'The Manus have better intelligence, better operational security, they never reveal themselves until they've already won, and the only reason we managed to exfiltrate at all is because that stupid man wanted to run his victory lap.'

    She can't deny that he's right, though. Manus Vindictae had covered every angle and sealed every exit, except for looking away from Forget Me Not, their newest star, long enough for him to indulge in his grandiose poetry at the last moment. A man in pain had tried to find catharsis for a woman who was too, and everyone else had seized on a moment of flawed melodrama and ruthlessly exploited it to the hilt.

    It turns her stomach. It makes her feel like one of the catcalling psychopaths who used rile up the crowd against her on the radio. He and Druvis had stepped forward to protect a boundary of hers that humanity felt sickeningly entitled to transgress upon, and she repaid them by pulling up a seat to watch ten years of friendship crash and burn. She feels like a homewrecker.
Lilian Rook     'To make matters worse, my would-be Trojan horse is having dinner with us while Lilian is convinced that we're no different than the mob outside of Sotheby's mansion. And why wouldn't she be?'

    "Please don't speculate on what I'm convinced of." Lilian says to Bond, finally dropping the pretense that she's too far away to notice. "I'd already promised to come with Vertin before the two of us had left the Walden." she says, matter-of-factly. Everything after is less convincing. "This was a foregone conclusion. Everything I said in the moment was to maintain the pretense of loyalty to Manus Vindictae. I judged that I couldn't draw my sword without killing some of you, so I chose theatre."
Ein 'And what would you have done instead?! Wait, I assume? Delay and deliberate, until the Storm sifted them out unchallenged?'

Dangerously ignoring others, damningly honest before everyone, the shouting match of the apostles' disastrous disagreement is side-pot to the fight yet is the singular focus of Druvis III's attention as Forget Me Not fires back with surprise and frustration.

"Leave them, damn them, watch them burn, but it would have been *my* choice! And you spent no time *asking* while you took!"

Took, taken, stolen away. This 'thing' that was people's lives. She couldn't even say she wouldn't have agreed to it, wouldn't have been his co-conspirator in vengeant violence were it not for the betrayal of *her* trust.

She would have. But he did not walk with her. And he made it about himself. His denial, was about himself.

Plants erupt. More barks of thunder from Winter Crow, a borrowed wand leaping to the command of the duelist, and Druvis III. . .

Looks sullenly away from Forget Me Not, just as incapable of meeting eyes with him as he is of her. He had been wrong about her motives -- but he hadn't been wrong about how her heart had sided. Difficult, burdensome, wearied, Druvis can't direct violence on Forget Me Not even if she knows she had done a great one on him through support, and peels away to stare up at the sky--

--for the illusion of the forest as it was, the Storm's pressing infusion of gnosis in the air, had broken like a breeze through mist when she had released her arcanum upon the forest. Forget Me Not had taken of Chicago its burdens, as dry and distant as they were, and the last day of 1929 had cracked apart the mask of hers that held in the girl from 1918 who had lost everything set in place.

If there was a timeless blessing in the forest, it crumbled utterly and began to sift and empty as so much mist as FMN is repelled, leaving only the last spring of new green and the sky swelling above.

Druvis, hearing-and-knowing herself addressed, looks up at Forget Me Not, catching her oldest friend's eyes.'The return of the arcanists, of paradise, is inevitable, and you will not be spared in your ignorance.'

Druvis chokes a laugh, eyes sliding then finding again immediately. If she was left ignorant, even still, she wouldn't be forgiven. "Then I'll see you, when that day comes." She returns, unsure if she meant in life or in whatever Hell they would both go to. At the same time...

It didn't matter.

In the aftermath she stands isolated, looking at nothing and going over the day, as Vertin pops out of the bush.

'Miss Druvis. All you've ever wanted is what's best for the woods, right?'

Another sick laugh creaks out. "No," She had wanted people to burn, for what they did to her trees. It had seemed such a fitting punishment when she was younger. "Other things, as well." She shakes her head.

"You are kind." She rasps, and clears her throat, and can't make eye contact. She understands the assignment. She doesn't want to do this any more.

'I have a wilderness that I care for too. I hope I'll be able to share it with you.'

"You are kind," Druvis repeats, and her lips begin more to the thought, and then she closes her eyes, and there's nothing.

'It's beautiful, my-la-dy,'

Schneider and Regulus' proximity makes Druvis freeze, and guilt works lines into her face at Schneider's approach. Still with wand available, the cane of it standing upright in the ground before her from where it had hovered and now it had dipped idle, Druvis gives Regulus a considering stare before Schneider puts out her hand.

It takes moments, Druvis not sure what to do with it, from the woman she had captured and put in a cage. Treason, treason and damning ignorance, what else was the currency of the evening?
Ein Then - as with Vertin - the 'dulci corviddu' appears, flying down as if summoned to flap heavily before landing half on forearm half on offered hand and carefully clutching before unleashing a 'caw!!' and resettling wings as if meant to be there, clutched in gunslinger's arm. Slackening as she's gathered about more for a moment she still just considers Schneider and her praise. "It is alive?" She returns, as a statement, as a question.

'Um, nice to meet you proper, love. I'm Regulus. You'll love the Suitcase and I'm sure we'll be the best of mates. Talk to you later, alright?'

Druvis III looks at Regulus introducing herself like this, in this context, on the heels of 'Fab!', like Regulus is an alien from planet Funk Rock. The exact feudal orphan killed to death by this particular double espresso of delight, Druvis tries to process Regulus, fails, and creaks out a "Druvis?" before Regulus dips to speak more to Vertin and leaving Druvis utterly baffled.

---
It is vaguely in array with Schneider and Vertin that Druvis III joins the 'festivities', perilously allergic to sitting at this table when just earlier she had outright shouted 'baby I'd be open to killing them but we didn't talk!! we never TALK!!!' as a deeply unwell showing shortly before helping. A little bit.

Just enough to damn her, of course, and there would be no survival with the Walden tonight. Did she deserve to be here? The people. . .

She barely was their peer, was in most cases their enemy, and hadn't the stomach to eat or be social. Preparation felt poisoned if she did it, yet she still could be guided into some tasks as necessary.

Really, it's Ms. Moissan and Sotheby that do most of the heavy lifting as it goes with moving and meal prep. Moissan, as a capable cook in quantity with a great head for recipes and a cosmopolitan taste with some highlights, and Sotheby...

"If it's a party, just leave it to Sotheby!!! Nobody's ever asked me to real-ly put my partying skills to the test, but if it's a big batch bo-nanza, then I've got *just* the thing!" The young genius had claimed, before scurrying off to gather items from the aid camp before they were packed up, Brave Typhon (Knife Edition) chasing after her on far shorter legs. In the suitcase, Sotheby stretches her skills by mixing up arcane fizzy drinks that - much like Forget Me Not's trick potion-liquor, using an adaptation of his formula from underneath the Walden - taste like anything the quaffer can consider, served alongside nutrient-settler 'digestives' and for those with bellies full of metal, several different offerings of de-metallurgicals for all but the gold. That, unfortunately, Sotheby can do little about.

Druvis is here, corvid in lap, wand leaned against floor and side of leg. Her hands slowly brush the bird, calming herself as much as her raven, but she has no grand moments or speeches or questions. She is here because despite not being ready to die any more, she threw away her home. The look on her face, sullen, reads that she expects to still be removed, tracking anyone who gets nearer to her with a slow pan. Regulus was strange enough when nobody's near she unnervingly stares at Regulus for lack of somewhere else to dissociate away into.
Holly Asturias "You had all that time with them and you were never interested enough to find out. Not knowing is a fitting punishment."

    "Probably," Holly responds, as if she had much to do with that plan. But she'd agreed to it, so that barely mattered. The Manus had been very unclear about the safety they'd be afforded, if they hadn't outright avoided answering her questions at the time. "My eyes were on two people's fates, rather than either the Manus or the Foundation." Both of whom are safe, at least. But everyone else here...

    "At least..."
    No. The argument doesn't resolve.

    How could she say 'at least we succeeded', sitting around a table and waiting for people to be washed away?

"But you got what you wanted, didn't you?

    Case in point.

    Holly, avoiding the food, but at least not the gathering, settles her already half-empty red gaze away from Lilian, as though she were the harsh golden light of the Resurgence, and towards Flamel instead. With White still missing, it really just leaves him and Schneider as 'compatriots' proper.

    "... are you alright?"

    Playing his guitar, almost avoiding people. The half-hearted reply to Lilian, too. Holly sighs, reaching for water she doesn't really need just to be doing Something. She doesn't know most of the people here, and even the one she'd seen the most of, Lilian, was reasonably bent out of shape. At the circumstances, and a bit at her. 'Extremely undersocialized' was starting to feel more real.

    She looks at the man who has been a Partner for so, so very much longer than her, and thinks to ask, 'Is there really nothing to be done' or 'Could we have done more' or 'Any news from White' or even 'Why do you look so defeated?'.

    "Did you enjoy the food, at least?"
    Internally she screams that that's all that came out.
    She takes a deep breath.
    One dying patient. That's not easy, but she knows how to handle that. Dozens, all at once? It's making it hard to think.
Schneider Greco      "A broken rib, or may-be two," Schneider says to Holly with a smile, "but no more. I kept my pro-mis-es to the Lady Regulus, right? Treat me last."

     ...

     "Hey, hey, government agent or not, I'm not gonna rest while a little lady works, alright?" Cosimo insists to Sonetto.
"If we're cooking, I'm gonna see to it we cook right," Achille adds.

     ... So it comes that Schneider, pitching in to roll shortening-cookes from the old country, is flanked by two very serious and grizzled men wearing aprons over their mobster suits.

     She has finally been convinced to hose off her bloodstains, although for most of the people eating here, hygiene won't matter for long.

     She adds to the table a ricotta cheesecake, simple sugar-dusted orange slices that catch the light like stained glass, and... for herself, as close as she can get to a burger and fries.

     That once at the fast-food restaurant wasn't bad, you know.

     That's how Schneider Greco eases down to the table beside Vertin, and puts her cheek on her hand, and starts to drink wine.

     "Team Timekeeper..." she murmurs back to Regulus, and her eyes shut with amusement, just imagining it. Next to her, Cosimo and Achille pull up; one's plate heaped with desserts, and the other with meat. Her own plate has an indecent amount of both.

     "My-la-dy, I was saving my own skin... but I am glad, that ev-ery-one else was helped by it. Mhmhm, do you really think the Foundation will take me? Ah... or may-be I'll be the Time-keep-er's secret. But what a shame, that I could-not be the one giving safety."

     Before, she'd said something to Regulus in private: Vertin deserves to have everyone she cares about looked-after. Vertin doesn't deserve to be the one who has to look-after everyone she cares about. The world just hasn't permitted her to learn there could be a difference.

     "My-lord," she says to Flamel, while insinuating her warm side gently against Vertin's arm, "please, do-not feel ill. You have helped me live, right? You are helping all of them live," to his gentle music-offering to the doomed diners. "Bet-ter that you are here, than that you are not."

     Schneider leans, and offers a french fry to Druvis's crow. "Mmmh, it looked a-live to me?"
"Arcanists," Cosimo mutters in awe, around a mouthful of cake.
"Birds would like you, too, Cosimo, if you were gen-tle as I."
"Boss, you are a hurricane."
"So it is calm when you are near my heart, right...?"

     Another settling breath, after a bite of burger. "My-la-dy Druvis, how do you feel? If you know."

     Unhappily, Bond's interjection draws her gaze. She might be about to say something about the Foundation's tactical doctrine; or about this not being the time; but instead, struggling and failing to grasp him- everyone lived; shouldn't he be happy?- she says...
"Will I really be like you some-day, my-lord?"
Tamamo     It take a long time for Tamamo to decide that she's done cooking, relative to the time they have left before 0 0 : 0 0 : 0 0, and it's not so much truly 'done' as that she lets someone else watch over the last portions they'll be making. With an hour and small change to go, each will still be warm when it reaches someone's lips.

    She has her own feelings about Bond's declaration, colored by priorities unlikely to surprise many, and can't speak against any of it much more than can Lilian. Rather, Tamamo's beset by her own sudden sinking of guilt, tempered only by the fortunate results of her recklessly having gone straight to Lilian by means of the undead-drawn carriage. 'I could have argued against it,' is something she only mouths, not even quite whispering the words. She could have declared that she wouldn't stand for it, if only for her own, emotional reasons. She could have declared that the Hands of the Concord should handle their own business. She could have insisted on setting up an escape route, or even on the idea that they all go and rescue Marian together. No action, nor inaction, sits well in her mind.

    Tamamo feels more understanding with Druvis than with Regulus, in the moment. Lilian's proximity is a source of strength and more, and she has no choice but to lean on it.

    'Everything I said in the moment was to maintain the pretense of loyalty to Manus Vindictae.'

    "It is regretful, that we could not maintain such an appearance." That's a little bit absurd to say, now.

    And there, a lifeline, in the form of 'a young girl who has lost her home,' and Tamamo seeks a different kind of refuge, in offering an opportunity to be aided. There is a manner in which all aid is fundamentally mutual, as the act is inherently one of connection, even on such a night as this. Allowing herself to sound a bit as lost as she feels, "Young Ms. Sotheby, I fear only your talents would be up to the task of restoring myself from the exhaustion I have just suffered. Do you have anything particularly fizzy?"
Regulus A bead of sweat drops down Regulus's face at Druvis's staring but she keeps her big ol' smile up to show that she's a cool cat that can play well with others. "Uh, yeah! Druvis! That's you!" She fingerguns at her with one hand but don't worry, these pistols only shoot flowers. Regulus can't help but smile a little when she sees Lilian pitch in with the cooking but she tries to hide it a little, worried it'll come across as a slap to the face, but she doesn't want this arguemnt to be the last word. So sue her! She's happy for the ice which she is periodically applying to her bruises. She does take a moment to reach over and pat Riku on the hand. There's something in Regulus's eyes that suggests she's not really as upbeat as she's presenting but she smiles as brightly as a star anyway.

''Do you have any idea how lucky...''

It's more obvious in that second flicker in Regulus's eyes. There's resentment there, resentment that Bond isn't letting her look on the bright side, is dragging down her attempts to lift the spirits up of everyone around her, striking at the fact that this time, at least, she gets to keep some of the friends she's made along the way. She could say a lot. She could say that they didn't abandon Lilian, that they wanted to help her as much as they wanted to help Vertin and if it seemed otherwise it's because of how capable they knew her to be. She could say that between all of them, it's they who have the bruises and Lilian got to be wined and dined by the Manus and treated like a queen, that she's got one community to look after--fledging and weak and struggling--and Lilian is a multiversal celebrity with scores of friends and communities out there that would love to have her, including the Manus, the people who just blew up civilians in front of her for the crime of trying to get help from arcanists while not quite trusting them.

But a lot of that is fighting words. And Regulus doesn't want to pick a fight.

"I didn't betray any of my principles." Regulus insists instead. "'Peace and Love' isn't just words to me. 'Rock and roll' is the thrum of the universe, that's something I actually believe. Luck's been against me since I knew you, but I listen to my heart and I go where it takes me and sometimes that means people get mad because I don't want to let people be used as bombs, or to be tortured, even if they'd be happy to do the same to me." She thinks of Vertin's words to her not too long ago. "And when it leads me astray I apologize and try to do better. None of us wanted to leave them behind, but we did our best, and we were kind to people who didn't have any other place to go, people the Foundation were ready to abandon. And that saved us when luck failed us." She sighs. "If anyone thinks I'm no different from the 'mob' because of that, then they don't know me. I didn't even think it'd even be an argument until it became one." She looks down at her hands. "Fuck, man. Eat a cake."

Tamamo starts speaking about soup. But to Regulus, at least, Tamamo isn't really talking about soup. She's talking about the diaspora and the melting pot, the dream that ways always both lie and yet somehow key to the heart of everything that made life special. Tears well up in her eyes. She misses her home and right now the Suitcase feels less a place of respite and more of lingering conflict. She just wanted to eat food, sit back, and pretend for a fucking hour that all these people weren't going to die. Is that so much to ask for?
Regulus ''Mhmhm, do you really think the Foundation will take me?''

"Do you want them to?" Regulus asks. "I'm not a member either, Vertin still looks after us. Sonetto and Vertin would be the best to ask, though." She considers the shame and admits, "Well, you might not have provided the ark, but you set up the dinner. We all do what we can, right? Next time we can do more. If you want to be on the team, I mean. It's not the safest team to be on, but--okay I'll be totally honest, thanks to this other girl we know, we have to clean the kitchen twice a day now and the rest of the manor daily and I could really use help with the chores so you'd be doing me a real solid by signing up."

''This was a foregon conclusion. Everything I said in the moment was to maintain the pretense of loyalty to Manus Vindictae.''

Regulus rubs at her eyes furiously, sits back in her chair, and breathes in. And breathes out. She doesn't believe Lilian for a second. There's levels of outrage and pain you can't fake, after all.

But she doesn't say that. Instead she smiles, puts on a dopey expression, and she says, "Woah, really? You had me totally fooled! You're quite the actress, you should consider putting on a show at the Globe. Daaaamn, sorry for doubting you, you got me! Youuu got me! Don't tell the Foundation, okay? They take even the fake stuff pretty seriously, from what I've heard. Guess it's true what they say, to fool your enemies you first gotta fool your friends. Glad you figured out a plan."

Regulus catches Druvis staring at her as she's putting on her own performance and her cheeks turn bright red. Druvis is kind of intimidating! Did she fuck up already?? She doesn't know her well yet--wait! She likes plants! APPLe! She turns her head to look for support but...

APPLe, meanwhile, IS giving Regulus concerned looks, but is pretty occupied with looking after Sotheby and being her resident apple minion. She gets higher priority than Regulus right now. She's an adult, Sotheby is not. "Ah, allow me to help, Miss Sotheby. I'm sure everyone could use some of your cheer." He slides into the role of Sotheby's alchemical assistant, hadning her materials to help speed up the process. This party has a deadline, after all.

"Duh.." Regulus, defeated, hangs her head. "Um...Do you... like cake?" Regulus asks Druvis. She suspects there's some dietary requirements but. "What do you like to eat? What do you--not like eating?"
Odette Raskins Despite her efforts to look fine, though,, Odette's still feeling like an absolute mess. How could she not? On top of all the physical pain, she's still got too much to really think about, too much to feel awful about, too much left to wonder about. Had she done the right thing? Had anyone? Had she even affected anything at all in the long run?

What really isn't helping her mood is trying really hard not to let any of it show. Instead of letting any of that pain through to the surface where all these people having their last meal could see it, she instead smiles to put them at ease. She needs to let them know everything's going to be okay, to lie to them that there even will be a tomorrow to look forward to.

She sees her friends and those she trusts crying, expressing their own pain about what happened, towards each other, perhaps even bottling it up or letting it spill out in equal measure. She sees them stopping short of going near each other's throats, breaking bread while their bonds are visibly breaking with tension thick enough she could stab and still pick up with the thinnest of knives.

Odette keeps on smiling through inwardly chattering teeth, lying to another guest about how she's doing much better now thanks to medicine, good food, and good company. She pats the back of someone's hand that she's only known for a few minutes tops, will never see again, and asks them their name as though she wants to remember.

She will, but she doesn't want to.

She wants to help her friends make up, but she doesn't know how to. She wants to help her friends feel better about the choices they did or didn't make, but she doesn't know even know how she feels about what they did or didn't do. Should she be angry? Should be she disappointed? How could she, when she's looking right at her own lack of accomplishments here?

Instead, she asks someone how the food tastes, if they'd like seconds or event thirds, if they'd like something to drink and how much or how little ice they want with it. She excuses herself to get some of those drinks Sotheby's put together, helping to get those fizzy drinks distributed while her body keeps screaming at her to just hurl a stacked tray straight into a wall, to do anything to let that pressure out.

She ignores that aching pain, she gets those drinks set out, and she downs an entire cupcake in one giant bite. The sweetness is cloying, but it's still A Feeling that isn't a reminder. She sees Druvis at that moment, realizing quickly that she's never really had a proper conversation with her, and she can't recall even saying anything of substance to her before. She sees Regulus trying to strike up a conversation with her, and she hates the fact that she's actually feeling relief at how awkward it all sounds.

"H... Hey there. Want anything from the... The table? There's some real fresh stuff ready, and plenty of it's even vegan if you're... Dieting?" Odette offers unhelpfully, struggling to keep it together.
Lilian Rook     'Arcanists'

    Lilian tries not to take the solitary word in bad faith, and mostly succeeds. She feels strange around those two, wearing neither her Walden disguise nor her Foundation white. That makes it easier.

    "Humans." she says, trying to sound a little awestruck herself. "If I thought this was my last meal, I'd skip out and try to burn down as much of the world as I could, so nobody would ever be able to forge what happened." she shakes her head, and gently pushes her plate away. "Well, who knows. A year ago, the Suitcase wasn't useful for anything. Twice in that time, it's completely changed its ways. I'll believe in a third time until the end."

    'So it is calm when you are near my heart, right...?'

    Lilian laughs through her nose, brief though it may be.

    'It is regretful, that we could not maintain such an appearance.'

    It makes it to her throat this time. Dessicated, but audible. "I'd be exciting to be a spy, I suppose." she says, half-heartedly. "Everyone would believe it. I've always been invincible."

    'Do you want them to?'

    "'Will they take me' isn't the question to be asking anyways." Lilian says. The interjection is dull and spiritless, but it isn't frosty silence. "If they kick her out, she dies in the next Storm. When Vertin takes someone back, she's slapping the Foundation in the face with a choice: Let me get away with it, or execute someone with your own hands." The heaviness to her shoulders comes from knowing that she will benefit from no such ultimatum. "And people hate to look you in the eye while they kill you. So it'll work."

    'I'll be totally honest, thanks to this other girl we know, we have to clean the kitchen twice a day now and the rest of the manor daily'

    "Oh fuck Mesmer." Lilian scowls. "She didn't earn telling you what to do."

    'Woah, really? You had me totally fooled! You're quite the actress, you should consider putting on a show at the Globe. Daaaamn, sorry for doubting you, you totally had me fooled!'

    Lilian frowns, says "Thanks. I learned by acting like everything is fine all the time." and then starts trying to ignore Regulus to the best of her ability.

<J-IC-Scene> Schneider Greco says, to Lilian, "Thank you, my-la-dy, for the gun and your trust. Mmh, I wish I could hold onto it... it wears to the hand so nicely, right? I did-not know you had a Druvis."
<J-IC-Scene> Schneider Greco says, "... And it is still beau-ti-ful here, my dear lord. This, I think, the garden and ev-ery-thing, it is af-ter-all the shape of your heart."
<J-IC-Scene> Schneider Greco breathes serene-contentedly, between bites.
<J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "I needn't convince you. You only have two hands."
<J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, ". . . I don't. It was a favour. I saved someone's daughter and this was my repayment."
<J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, in many, complicated ways, "I've never 'had a Druvis' before."

    "Its name is Winter Crow, by the way." Lilian chooses to speak to Schneider instead. "After my Master's nickname for me. So I suppose Druvis is right." About ravens and crows, of course. That Forget Me Not was wrong about one thing.
James Bond I judged that I couldn't draw my sword without killing some of you, so I chose theatre.

    Bond doesn't have any bitterness or anger towards Lilian--only towards Vertin, and towards himself. "Then I owe you an apology for speculating, and an apology for trying to make sense of something instead of trying to get you and the others out safely."

Fuck, man. Eat a cake.

    Bond heaves a sigh. "I'm sorry."

    He returns to contemplating the table silently, for a few uncomfortable moments, before the gnawing question works its way out of him. "It doesn't frustrate you?" He asks Lilian, looking her way. "That there was all this talk of fighting for arcanists, giving them a voice and a line of defense, and when we come to meet them, they're doing the same thing that mayor or the police chief would have done--just tugging on the animal instincts of the crowd to bring out the worst in them, and in us, and hoping that by the end of it we'll either be dead or too covered in their blood to justify ourselves?"

    "It frustrated me," he says, helplessly. Of course she has to know that. "It frustrates me that it keeps happening. It frustrates me how quickly and how shamelessly people resort to it. How effective it is," he spits with disgust, eyes narrowed. "How little provocation it takes--I don't even know whether there was an agitator in the crowd outside of the mansion. Or whether it would have been strictly necessary. I don't have an answer for it," he admits, shaking his head.

Will I really be like you some-day, my-lord?

    "People who feel like they're dying every day either find what they need or they finally die," Bond answers, slowly turning his gaze her way so as not to agitate his injury.

    "But finding what you need isn't the finish line, it's the starting point. It isn't in your hands, yet, and reaching for it, you find out the limits *of* your reach. Coughing up all that water, you learn that you're now meant to run a marathon that everyone else had a head start on. You're starting from the first stretch, when everyone else has already run it and doesn't have the patience for you to make the stumbles they did hours ago. That was hours ago--they have their own hurdles, and by the time you get to those, they'll be onto the next."

    "For what it's worth, you made it out a lot sooner than I did."
Timekeeper     The question of victory is one that swirls through everyone's minds, and yet to Vertin it seems to not penetrate at all. Whether she feels disappointed by the triumph the Storm made over reality once again, or conflicted about her betrayal of the Manus, relieved at saving the arcanists she set out to save, grieving for the incomprehensible loss the rain heralds, or anything at all; there's no trace of any of it. It's only Schneider who draws much else out of her, and Regulus.

    There's no smile to reach her face when she's hugged, but she does slacken slightly. She's in her own kitchen, in her own Suitcase, wearing an apron she nearly never touches and surrounded by people who love her; or don't, and will survive regardless. She has one hand free to pat Regulus's back in return, the other being occupied with a ladle to stir a soup of Tamamo's.

    "You've been incredible," Almost non-sequitur, Regulus's overwhelming outpouring of emotion is met by calm, breathless praise. "You're amazing, Regulus."

    Lilian's assumption that none of the people of Chicago would thank her for betraying herself for humanity is only partially correct. The alchemists and healers that administered their cures, Riku and Sonetto who gave hands to stand up and shoulders to lean against, receive teary hugs and effusive handshakes from one in every three people just as they pass by, but the civilians' awareness of the dynamics of power at play in that clearing is completely zero. What they see when Lilian brings a magically cooked pot of soup to the table is not a Manus Vindictae supremacist, a monster, or even, really, an arcanist, just someone who's magnanimously volunteered to help the sick and hungry with what they need most.

    And why is it that now, only half an hour before the Storm arrives, they hardly seem to care about arcanum one way or another? An hour ago, some of those who used to be among this crowd flinched away from magic even on the brink of death, ill and fearful as they were. Now they've stepped down an absurd staircase through the bottom of a piece of luggage, into a world entirely unlike the one they left, eating food made with magic and sitting side by side with the magicians. Is it that those who would choose bigotry over survival already died in the world above, and it's only these kinder humans that remain? Or is it that, on the cusp of their own inevitable annihilation, the outstretched hand that eases their pain is more important than the millennia that sculpted them before?

    Maybe it doesn't matter either way. It's eminently reasonable that they all simply gave up hope of having any other choice, gritting their teeth behind their smiles. But a restless group of children wandered off from the table and found La Source in her pond, and now their high-pitched giggles from chasing each other around cut through Regulus's records, so it's hard to convince yourself that they aren't alive anymore at all.

"How's the food? I like mine a lot, it's... really good."

    Sonetto hardly seems to know what to do with herself either. After the cathartic blur of labour and service, the idea of sitting at the table makes her feel queasy and confused. She lingers, taking any excuse to pop up out of her chair beside Vertin and find some other task to do. Riku's inane, forced comment makes her spring right back up again like a waitress.

    "Isn't it?" She hasn't eaten any. Her stomach growls audibly from time to time. "Ah, is there anything you've especially liked? I could get...."

    Vertin puts a hand overlapping hers on the back of Sonetto's chair. "It's alright, Sonetto. Rest. There's nothing more to do for now."
Timekeeper "Mhmhm, do you really think the Foundation will take me? Ah... or may-be I'll be the Time-keep-er's secret."

    "No," says Vertin, at the same time that Sonetto says, "They would," to the other part. Vertin shadows her mouth with her hand, but even that dry hint of amusement is more than she's managed most of the rest of the evening. "'Secret' is rather...."

    "But no. What the Foundation gives, it can also take away. You can live with me, here, and the Foundation can accept that, because they can't do otherwise. ... In the end, it's only incidentally 'me' providing safety at all. It wouldn't have been possible without everyone."

"Do you have any idea how lucky we are for things to have ended even as badly as they have?"

    "Yes."

    Vertin stops eating even as slowly as she had been when Bond addresses her. She listens patiently, giving him her full attention across the table, the one eye visible under her hat steady and unflinching. "I'm aware. I've done this to you twice, now."

    She won't wince at being scolded, but she has the good grace to sound ashamed about it. "And I understand. I won't ask that of you again."

    It seems like she'll leave it at that for a minute, and when her next thought comes, it's like she preloaded the entire thing into a single cartridge. "This way of doing things isn't sustainable. I've said some things I have no choice but to mean," Something that will only make sense to Lilian and Schneider, and won't be elaborated on for anyone else. "And I haven't acted like I do before now. My objectives haven't changed, but I've gone about them poorly. I'm sorry."

    Then, separated by a pause like a paragraph break and page turn, she concludes, "But neither Schneider nor Lilian are at fault for how it's gone. 'Trust me' was well-enough a reason."
Riku Asakura 'This was a foregon conclusion. Everything I said in the moment was to maintain the pretense of loyalty to Manus Vindictae.'

Riku listens to this, but something about what she said during that entire situation rang too true to him.  There was genuine pain there, the feeling of abandonment, something that he quite didn't understand with her separation from humanity.  Riku didn't consider himself different from humanity, his problem is that he doesn't think he fits into society well because of being alone for so much of his life.  

So he fakes it, doesn't let people catch on that he's sad, or lonely, or desperate for inclusion.  However, this is different, something fundamental that he can't quite see the shape of.  It frustrates him that he seems blind to Lilian's suffering, despite everything she had done for him.  "Is... there something I can do for you?" he asks, shakily.  

'I'm not.'

Riku looks over to Bond, laying into Vertin.  He doesn't know what to say; it's not entirely wrong to be upset, and the plan was so touch-and-go.  He can't say he didn't feel betrayed by the members of the Concord attacking them. Especially Flamel, whose attempted invasion of his mind was to inflict something terrible on him.  They had been trying to support Schneider, who seems to kill more easily than most.  

It's rough to say anything right now with his emotions frayed.  "We underestimated the Manus, I think..." he finally says.  With their ability to change the minds of others so easily, or to latch onto pain that others hold.  "It wasn't just what Forget-Me-Not did, but it was also sending Schneider's body to us in a casket, as they did that, which gave away another chip in their plan.."

"We can't underestimate their cruelty... though, I have no idea how to overcome every other advantage they seem to have over us.."  Despite everything, he wants to stop them.  This is just... It's just too sad not to want to stop.  
Veronica     "Are you trying to antagonize me?"

    "No, no," Veronica says, a little startled by the fork clattering on Lilian's plate. "What I'm saying is, I'm sure the Manus made you a sweet offer. It wasn't enough to buy you. Makes me think about what'll happen when the Head does the same."

    "I've never been loyal to anyone in my life."

    Veronica shrugs. "Maybe not. You'll have plenty chances to with the Association, though. You're letting people live there, after all. They *need* you."

    Veronica allows Riku's picking at his plate to briefly distract her from prodding Lilian about City business. "Hey, sport," she says. Since when does she call people that? "You gotta eat one way or another. May as well smile and enjoy the company while it lasts, right?" A pause. Then, more gravely, "I had a lotta last meals with folks around the Dark Days. Even if there's not a tomorrow for somebody else, there's gonna be one for you. Best to be prepared for it."

    "'Sides, this potato salad is something else. Wanna bite?"
Riku Asakura 'Ah, is there anything you've especially liked? I could get....'

Riku turns his head to Sonetto. He tries not to frown and instead puts up a smile, a forced one.  "No, that's...alright.  Vertin is right, you should rest..." he looks at her plate, "And try to eat, the storm is doing a number on all of us," he says, though he's just as bad right now.  His stomach is ravaged, but eating seems to be the last thing on his mind.  

'I had a lotta last meals with folks around the Dark Days.'

Riku has a very hard time looking at Veronica right now, especially after that comment.  He steadies his breath, but in his mind, in this turbulent time, the fall of L-Corp is running through his mind.  To say that he didn't share in the responsibility of the Dark Days would be a lie.  He's held that guilt about it for a while, and right now it just beams him over the head like a folding chair.  

"It's uh... Riku," he says lamely, "I'll try to eat some more," he promises, and in fact puts a large share of meat into his mouth, trying to force it down.  
Lilian Rook     'Is... there something I can do for you?'

    "No." Lilian ploughs on with the same bland tone she had after Regulus spoke. There isn't room to sound standoffish about it, even. She's too busy thinking about too many things to consider why Riku would ask; why he doesn't already understand, just like everybody else. "Thank you for asking. What comes next is just the bed I've made."

    'But neither Schneider nor Lilian are at fault for how it's gone. 'Trust me' was well-enough a reason.'

    "Schneider wasn't, at least." she says, barely audible. Lilian plays it off by backtracking a sentence, looking up to say "So you're serious, then?" to Vertin.

    'I have no idea how to overcome every other advantage they seem to have over us..'

    "Because--" The gap where 'Lady' is rendered silent is improvised at best. "--Arcana moved on, as did the others, and left Forget Me Not to his closure. We didn't overcome anything. Their goal was to bring on the Storm, and they did."

    'It wasn't enough to buy you. Makes me think about what'll happen when the Head does the same.'

    Lilian declines to spitefully say 'yes it was', because there wasn't even an offer in the first place. She settles for "The Head's offer was putting me in charge of Trídéag. They won't come knocking a second time."

    'You're letting people live there, after all. They *need* you.'

    "They work for me." Lilian sighs. Hearing those words inside the Suitcase, where Vertin is hosting strangers out of nothing but debilitating compassion, successfully sours her mood further. "They're more useful to me if they're close by and kept in good health. The Backstreets aren't a place where someone can buy a house and drive to work every day."

    She decides to backtrack to Sonetto, because Sonetto also works for her, and the difference in opinion with Vertin was something grippable. When she opens her mouth, her voice comes out like she missed her this entire time instead; it's tinged nervous and needy. "I can't thank you enough for looking after Tamamo." she says. "I'm certain it was far from easy."
Flamel Parsons     "You have helped me live, right? You are helping all of them live bet-ter that you are here, than that you are not."

    Flamel's weak little grin still has sincere kindness and positivity in it. "Maybe. It's just sad, you know? I don't like to settle. We're all supposed to grow. So, having to go back to the way things were, having to..." He trails off, for a while.

    "All I know is that my heart says you deserve better, and then the math doesn't add up when my head tries to solve for it. I keep feeling that way over and over. Hard not to feel it now." He reaches up to his head, pulls out several translucent psychic feathers, and sets them aside. "I'll put those feelings away for now, though, if you think that's the right thing to do!" He says, with a much less weak grin.

    Those red feathers fizzle concerningly.

    "This way of doing things isn't sustainable."
    Flamel leans in for a moment. "But I appreciate you taking my approach." He says. "Even if they're about to wash away, the way people feel when they go... You know, I can't pull a Sigmund Procedure on more than one mind at a time. Giving people peace of mind the direct way, it's almost as good, multiplied by ten thousand." He can't seem to acknowledge the idea of the material subordinating the astral, but he has to appreciate the outcomes of that. "Changing the way you handle things to at least cover the feelings... it's one of the most important steps."

    "Everything I said in the moment was to maintain the pretense of loyalty to Manus Vindictae."
    "Wow, really? That's *impressive* spycraft and psychic endurance. Everything *I* said was because I was mentally ill!" Thanks, Flamel Parsons.
Tamiel Luxis     Tamiel is a deeply troubling puzzle. Cosimo finds the wound on her neck looks like it might be fatal, and her pulse doesn't seem to be there, and she's not breathing--but her body remains warm. By all impressions to the poor man, it looks like the angel is already dead.

    Odette, in her pass over trying to see what can be done, notices that the wShe doesn't move at all until her throat is patched up that a deep, uneasy rasp shakes her body, and she begins to stir. Someone who overheard the way she spoke with Holly earlier that night might put two and two together, about her ability to keep people from dying, and understood the how of it.

    She can't look at the humans in the eye, once everyone has been filtered into the suitcase. Now that the moment has passed, she can't stop thinking about flinching away from them, and the loathing on their face, and the hate--it contrasts so sharply with the sound of children playing in the Wilderness that it hurts.

    "...Is this...Really the best we could do?" She slumped, devastated. It didn't feel like a victory at all. Bond called them 'lucky,' but it didn't feel lucky at all.

    'I had a lotta last meals with folks around the Dark Days.'

    Her attention is drawn to Veronica, for entirely different reasons than Riku. "...I'm sorry," she said. An outsider still, even here, with a gaping wound in her throat. An intruder pressing fingers around in a new world in hope to find a handhold. In the City, in the Suitcase--she fails to feel like she belongs again.

    Lamely, she puts a spoon in her mouth. It tastes like ash.

    That's *impressive* spycraft and psychic endurance. Everything *I* said was because I was mentally ill!"

    The look that she gives Flamel is venomous. "I hate you...So much." She manages, clenching her fists on the table. "Your stupid tulpa screamed at us about something that wasn't even true, and then, you just KEPT screaming, all that...You..." She blinks, struggling to find a word that feels right. "...Asshole!"
Tamamo     'I'd be exciting to be a spy, I suppose.'

    "That, too," says Tamamo, vaguely, before the conversation moves on. Vertin responding to James takes up much of her attention, for another precious minute or two. Tamamo won't pile onto that right now.

    'This way of doing things isn't sustainable.'

    "Have you prepared another way?"

    Distracted, "You may have another portion, Ms. Sonetto. The food must be eaten that will not keep."
Regulus ''You're amazing, Regulus.''

"It's your willingness to keep the Suitcase open that'll save us all one day, believe that all the way, love" Regulus promises.

''Oh fuck Memser''

"Well can't let myself be a deadbeat." Regulus manages.

''Thanks. I learned by acting like everything is fine all the time.''

Regulus flinches and adds, "Yeah, well, guess I'm not as good at that as I thought." She feels like her lifeline was slapped away, but well--her unhappiness probably filtered through, ruining the whole idea. It's not her fault. She isn't classically trained. Bluh. And in a mood like this, she's really not expecting like the third apology she's ever gotten from Bond. She blinks in confusion at him, uncomprehending for a moment. Then she says, "...It's okay. Day sucked." And it's not the end of the day sucking either, for that matter. She thinks of Vertin's photographs. All those people she tried and failed to save and she's going to have to add more pictures to that album now too. DID she underestimate the Manus? She did everything she could think of. She never thought for one second it would be easy. If she underestimated them it's because they could do things she couldn't even imagine. Like look straight through her invisibility. But the fact that Odette is saying this makes her wonder, did THEY underestimate the Manus? Were they holding back? They seem so strong, and cool, and badass, and invincible.

She can agree with Bond in this, "Yeah they sure don't make it easy sometimes." regarding how quickly the crowd turned, and how often. She feels stupid, again, for insisting on her beliefs instead of abandoning them. She just isn't learning her lesson. Maybe that's why everything is always going wrong but 'love and peace' isn't just her belief system. It was the incantation of her people, her community.

And it's all that she has left of them. She sniffs again, shuddering.

She thinks of Vertin's words to her. She doesn't feel incredible. The handshakes and appreciation from the people she helped, well, it helps. But knowing what's to come, it's not really something that can reach her eyes either, so to speak. She tries to focus on the laughter of children but when she hears Sonetto's stomach grumbling, she reaches forward and pours her a bowl of stew and holds it out to her. "C'mon, love, you'll make the others nervous if you don't have a little bit, at least."

Bond's direct admonishment to Vertin was the one thing she couldn't countermand, but she huffs miserably all the same.

"We're still figuring it out. We'll do better next time. We learned a lot."

''Flamel says words.''

Regulus goes back focusing on the laughter of children.

''Is this... Really the best we could do?''

"Last Storm you didn't save anyone. We'll do better next time."
Riku Asakura 'Thank you for asking. What comes next is just the bed I've made.'

Riku doesn't understand why there would be a bed made. Again, he can't quite see the shape of Lilian's pain, and that bothers him.  He nods to her with a slight, numb look on his face.  All of this was making his head swim.  He takes another steadying breath.

'Their goal was to bring on the Storm, and they did.'

"Really?  Just to bring the Storm early and then leave?" He tries to think about what that means.  Or specifically, /why/ they'd just destroy the era?  Was it to reshape history?  He doesn't know...

'Wow, really? That's *impressive* spycraft and psychic endurance. Everything *I* said was because I was mentally ill!'

He looks at Flamel for a long time, trying to just understand the man, which was an exercise in frustration.  He takes another long breath, and then... "Do you ever think about the things that come out of your mouth sometimes?" he asks, actually curious if this man just says the first thing that comes to mind.  
Ein Even if Druvis has eaten, there is a plate at the table near her, and Schneider is there putting French fries onto a greedy gobbler of a dulci corviddu with a few berries and pieces of sliced fruit scattered on the plate. A simple feast for the one that ate, but what Schneider offered as a great and grand indulgence, the bird appearing to laugh as it horked and beaked and snapped at pieces of fry - great treasures.

"It wasn't ever mine to hold forever, but it held its breath for me, because it was what I thought I needed. Now, cured of that," She sounds sick of 'that', or sick from the medicine. "I suppose we both have to go on breathing."

The raven can't unleash a mighty cry nor cares, still choking down fry greedily and nuzzle head into the feeding hand's palm. Such grand kindness was reciprocated.

"She has earned loyalty." Druvis creaks, and Schneider asks more of her. Taking a breath and exhaling, she pushes forward.

"Tired," Smokes out of her, eyes quarter-lidded and tone lifting brow. "Uncertain," She adds, as if that was unknown. "I'm thankful that you made it, Schneider." It wasn't all for nothing, the show and trickery. The Manus had clearly wanted to kill Schneider - and Druvis simply didn't understand why.

Meanwhile, Sotheby is approached by Tamamo, her tableside bartending area far more alchemically appointed with several burners and beakers set up bubbling away with green liquids at a low boil.

'Do you have anything particularly fizzy?'

Sotheby takes in the order while looking up, big hat swaying and bottom lip inside-cheek chewed for focus and thoughtful stimming while she works through certain creative thoughts.

"Why, yes! I do have something like that! Now, it's ve-ry important for the ordering of this one, as there's a reaction on the tongue that is material dependent!"

Reaching into shoulderbag for a stowed vial, Sotheby produces a vial of glowing silver grains in a clear fluid, the grains seeming to change completely as it moves in her hand - entirely a trick of the light. Bubbling a pull off her taps and spigots with a third head that just added *more* bubbles from an upside-down flask that somehow just contained bubbles, Sotheby offers her extra-fizzy concoction of the night with extra-extra fizz and a little teacup of a second concoction - her energy potion, with a droppering of the ephemeral grains in their sludgy clear oil. She's so precise, testing the air with licked pinky and focusing before transferring two nearly-invisible grains in oil into the drinkglass, then stirring with a few more blasts of the bubbler to get a nice foamy head and offering to Tamamo.

"There! That's a secret never-before-seen," She makes it sound so exclusive for 'highly experimental'! "-special formula just for you. The air pressure's right, even here, without a true moon, that I've added a secret in-gredient to my concoction!"

Sotheby leans up and over the table to whisper to Tamamo: "There's two grains of Sands-of-Time in there! It'll pull two grains to you, from some other time - past or future - and bring you what you need now, from then. Remember - you'll be paying for it. Or have already!" She smiles broadly, and points at her glasses. "Now be careful not to cross these two over your tongue, as the fizzy any-drink will fill you with nutrition, and the short one is my phoenix-tuft mix of the revitalizer - and if you *taste* them, it'll be bird and smoke, from the contamination. So one, then the other!"
Lilian Rook     'Wow, really? That's *impressive* spycraft and psychic endurance. Everything *I* said was because I was mentally ill!'

    Lilian snorts gently. She knows Flamel too well to be upset by it, though that fact upsets her just a teeny tiny bit. "Who do you take me for?" she says, tiredly. "I'm the youngest graduate of Arx Zenith on record. You think six years of experience would fail me inside of four hours?" She heroically evades wincing at the fact that it did.

    '...Is this...Really the best we could do?'

    "Yes." Her tone veers more severe once Tamiel starts tearing into Flamel. She has no idea what the fuck she's talking about, but the moment still matters. "Don't bother scratching your head and looking for the one thing you overlooked. You're weak and this was the limit of your abilities. Accept it. Absorb it. Internalize it. Work on it if you feel like it."

    'That, too,'

    Lilian allows herself to look a little less broody and a little more weak herself. She leans against Tamamo, keeping half her weight to herself, and sighs.

    'Really? Just to bring the Storm early and then leave?'

    "What else?" Lilian says. "They picked up valuable new personnel and resources, screwed the Foundation forward and backwards, then burned down the world like they want. The Storm will cause chaos that puts strain on the Foundation, and none on them, because they planned for it to happen today. They lost Druvis at the last second, and nothing else." She isn't counting Schneider, because they planned to get rid of her all along. "If this wasn't a fluke, and they've gotten this good at controlling the Storm, then we're already at the point that there'll be no fighting back if they can get much better."

    The bitterness seizes her at the worst moment. Thinking about how little the Foundation says, how little she knew, because nobody would tell her, Lilian exhales her humiliation-by-proxy in contemptuous, smoking fry. "The Foundation's dirty little backwards hysterical terrorists are running rings around them and laughing. If nothing changes, they'll be annihilated."
Veronica     Veronica, watching Riku choke down an oversized bite of beef, gets the impression she hasn't done enough for her fellow sometimes-giant. "I know who you are, I'm just bein' familiar, y'know. I know this sort of thing is tough, but... you can't enjoy the time you won't have, so you gotta at least try with the time you do."

    "Their goal was to bring on the Storm, and they did."

    "Makes me wonder - did they know where the last one would lead? They moved quick, so quick I wonder if they had a plan for 1929 specifically. They could have some method of looking ahead past the Storm..."

    "They work for me. They're more useful to me if they're close by and kept in good health."

    "Yeah, they need you. The benefits being mutual doesn't mean they aren't eating on your dime. The District needs you and the City will too." A pause to think about where she's even taking this point in the first place. "Standing by Vertin makes me more sure you meant what you said about crushing the Head."
James Bond 'Trust me' was well-enough a reason.

    "You'll forgive me if I don't agree with that."

    We underestimated the Manus, I think...

    "That's how I know you're new here," notes Bond sardonically. More seriously, he clarifies, "I have experience dealing with these sorts of outfits. And every time we end up against one, someone inevitably does exactly that. They ignore my advice, or lose their grip and play right into their hands. It's a sign that I'm losing my touch that this time it was me."

    "To deal with them, you have to first take away or at least match their advantages. I'd attempted to do that by planting a tracker. At the time, Schneider seemed like the best choice for that," he says flatly. "Of course, they were a step ahead, too, and even if she'd done exactly as I'd hoped, then she'd be dead and we'd have gotten nowhere either way."

    "The trick with that sort of play is finding someone who will make it back in one piece without suspecting that anything is wrong. I thought that would be you," he says, with a nod to Schneider. "If I get the chance to do it again, part of me thinks Arcana wouldn't be a bad choice, if only because she doesn't even entertain the possibility that anything could *go* wrong." He looks at her more pointedly. "You spent some time with them. What do you think?"
Timekeeper "Hey, hey, government agent or not, I'm not gonna rest while a little lady works, alright?"

    Taken aback, Sonetto dimly nodded at the two mobsters, and then she too was in the kitchen with them and Schneider. While more capable at cooking than Vertin appears to be, she's nearly unknown to the 'culinary' aspect of it. She watches, and relentlessly pitches in, and an attentive eye could notice that she's quietly made notes of the old Sicilian recipes the boys and Schneider make. Where she can provide expertise in turn, then, is with the homemade burger.

    Sonetto is vaguely bemused by the music and the atmosphere of celebration that Regulus puts on, too guilty to take part in eating, and full up to choking with emotions she has no name or context for. In her wanderings-around, what she strays upon is the most internally-dissonant little partygoer here, and yet somehow, she feels capable of having a conversation with Sotheby of all people. In her mystified emotional state, she takes one of her alchemical fizzy drinks, and upon sipping it, is so startled by the sensation that she abruptly becomes talkative again.

    "What...? It's so tingly. That's so strange." This is a girl who has spent every year of her life existing around carbonated beverages in easy access to her, and somehow has literally never had one. Her first experience isn't with Coke or Dr. Pepper, but with a one-of-a-kind electrifying alchemical concoction that jolts her like a motor.

    She lifts it up to try and look at the underside, curious. "What is in it?"

"...Is this...Really the best we could do?"

    "It's the best we've done." Simple, tautological, unassailable. That 'what if' isn't in her vocabulary at all doesn't make the Timekeeper sound any more victorious about it.

"What comes next is just the bed I've made."

    "Not alone, you haven't. I've had a hand in making it as well." Vertin lets that sit for a confessing moment, before wryly twisting it literal. "Up the foyer stairs, third door on the right. It was a guest bed, before."

    More seriously, and ambiently directed to everyone, "You'll need it. It will be twenty four hours before the Storm lets up, and we've all gone far too long without rest."

"What I'm saying is, I'm sure the Manus made you a sweet offer. It wasn't enough to buy you."

    Vertin, apropos of nothing, decides to interject between Veronica and Lilian, so neutrally that it's hard to tell if she's been listening all along or not. "The Manus Vindictae are hardly a material organization. They deal in promises, not buyouts." Vertin pokes at the salad on her plate, seeing a glimmer of oil in it and imagining that it's gold. "Wealth was humanity's vice, this era. In return, arcanists lacked it."
Timekeeper "Have you prepared another way?"
"So you're serious, then?"

    "I have. And I am." Vertin takes a drink; wine, just like what was in front of her in the Walden. "We arcanists have been too long in conversation with the world, and too rarely in conversation with each other. If you'll excuse me for a moment."

    Vertin stands up from the table and walks around it, finding where Druvis and Schneider gather closer to the edge of the canvas tent. Bringing nothing but her glass, she first reaches a hand out to the crow in polite greeting, before addressing Druvis. "The girl with the ginger hair is my assistant Sonetto, by the way. Regulus, I believe has introduced herself already."

    The trio, two of the 'enemy' and Vertin, stand apart for the same reason that Vertin has to stand with them. There's no doubt to be had, when Vertin makes introductions for Druvis as if at a mixer, that by her own authority she means for Druvis to be welcome here. Next, though, she withdraws a compact black umbrella from her jacket and hands it over to Druvis, to be used as she wishes.

    "I'd like to walk with you soon. The wilderness is much larger than it seems from here; you'll see. But if you'd rather," Get distance, or quiet, she means, "Then they're open to you as you please."

    Vertin tentatively places a finger on the head of the bird to stroke its shiny black feathers, with the sounds of the feast in the background. "I believe everything," Birds, Druvis, humanity itself, "Responds well to kindness. It's only that circumstances don't often allow for it."
Riku Asakura 'I know who you are, I'm just bein' familiar, y'know.'

Riku nods slowly to Veronica, but the line about enjoying the time that he does have makes him look a touch more guilty, especially being surrounded by people who have so little time left.  He can't do a thing for them but eat with them and spend their last moments together.  Maybe this is for the best, despite the world they're in right now.

"Yeah, maybe you're right.." he says in a tone that might betray he doesn't totally believe it himself.  

'That's how I know you're new here,'

Riku winces a bit at that. It was true that Bond had to stop him from crashing the Walden.  He listens to the man who had been around a while, though he doesn't nod to say anything at first, just absorbing it in.  He doesn't feel like they won or anything; in fact, it just feels like they lost essentially, and are waiting for the Storm to make people disappear.  

"Sorry, I don't have the experience..." he admits, "I'm not used to people who use these kinds of tactics and simply hold so little value in lives.."  He swallows a bit.  "So what can we do next time?" he asks, honestly curious about what they could have done.  

'They picked up valuable new personnel and resources, screwed the Foundation forward and backwards, then burned down the world like they want.'

Riku doesn't have anything to say; people like this are a mystery to him.  Wanting to destroy entire worlds just to get at some nebulous goal?  What is it all for?  "Then what do we do?  It feels like there is nothing we have on them, and they have everything on us..."
Schneider Greco      Schneider breathes out through her fingers, at Bond. Wasn't it disgusting, how easily the worst in human nature bubbled to the surface? "The world is sick, my-lord. You know this. Should-not the people be sick, too? It can-not surprise me, and I have no place to blame them. On-ly, it is a shame those who say 'I will fix the world'-" the Manus- "prey on sick-ness too, right?"

     Her smile spreads past the edges of her hands, when he talks about futures. 'Feeling like you're dying every day'- whether or not it describes her exactly, it's close enough. She said something similar to Lilian, before.

     "I know what it is I need, my-lord. I am always, al-ways... trying to get it." Another little squeeze of Vertin's arm. But Schneider means nothing so specific as 'romance', surely. Maybe just... warmth, and security. "Do you have it, al-rea-dy? What you needed? It is diff-er-ent, to not play from desperation, right?"

     A little surprised glance at Vertin follows, when she admits fault with the plan. "Was it not the Foundation, my-lord, who asked you to go then...?" she probes gently. Not that she's disappointed Vertin might be questioning the Foundation more; quite the opposite.

     And then a giggle, when she and Sonetto disagree. "Mmmh, if they can tolerate a pirate, they can take me, right? We'll, ahh, figure it out."

     "Ahahaha, you put a tracker on me, my-lord?!" Bond genuinely gets a jolt of amusement out of her, wide-eyed. "Is it still...? Oh, you are naughty, you-know. Mmmh, it should-have worked; no-one is sorrier than me that they dumped me."

     What does she think about the ideal dupe for another tracker, though? "The Lady Arcana would work, but... mmmh, one can-not trust one's eyes around her, I think. You might find you on-ly thought you succeeded. Do it from a distance, right? So she would-not think to get in your head."

     Her look is so indulgently sweet when the dulci corviddu snaps up a fry; she goes for another, kicking her little legs happily under the table. Her delicate fingernails scratch at the bird's feathers when it nuzzles...

     "Af-ter din-ner, my-la-dy, you should have Lord Vertin show you to the gardens, right? Or per-haps to a bed. There are plenty; they do the tired good." After a little pause for her to eat a fry, too: "I am thank-ful to you too, my-la-dy. I would-not be here, had the Manus sent someone else."

     Flamel, she looks at almost pityingly. When her hand is empty of fry, she reaches over to take his and give it a squeeze. "I want you, my-lord, to feel happy that you have done good. To do good, and then beat yourself up; that does-not nurture a heart, does it?"

     "Winter Crow..." she mouths later, at Lilian. "Mmh, it's not your way to fly some-where warmer overwinter, right? I am glad, my-la-dy, you are here with me in the cold. It is-not a small thing you give up."

     The way she looks around, a little restlessly, even as she rests against Vertin's side... is she missing Marian? But Sonetto is a good 'hapless older sister' to fuss over, too.

     She plucks up a cannoli in a napkin and leans across Vertin's body to foist it towards Sonetto's mouth. "Come-on, my-lit-tle lady. There is more food than mouths here, right? You are-not stealing it from anyone else. Eat, or I'll be sad, mmmh?" she says, indulgent-fussily.
Tamiel Luxis     "You're weak and this was the limit of your abilities. Accept it. Absorb it. Internalize it. Work on it if you feel like it."

    Tamiel winced, distracted from her row against Flamel, taking a quiet drink to buy herself a little more time to respond. "...Yeah." It reminded her a little bit of talking with her mother. "...I couldn't even convince them to let me help." The resentment of that fact had not faded, but it was easily to lean into self-loathing, a familiar rut that her wagon had worn into a clear trail.

    And that trail led her back to her own failures. She looks to Lilian, Schneider, Vertin. "...I'm sorry we weren't strong enough to keep the way back out clear. You asked us to keep it safe, and we couldn't." It's a little awkward, saying this, with Druvis right there, but it had been a coal in her sole for a the short eternity since their capture. It's only Lilian's reminder that keeps her from speculating aloud how it might have changed things.

    "Last Storm you didn't save anyone. We'll do better next time."

    It feels like such a small, irrelevant little progress, even if it was true. It didn't really make her feel better. But... "...We should talk about how to try," she promises the rock star. "...Later."

    A little death had taken what little fight Tamiel had left entirely out of her.
Regulus ''The Foundation's dirty little backwards hysterical terrorists--''

Regulus lowers the stew she's offered Sonetto and stands herself up. Briefly, she considers making a run for the stairs rather than face a future of this. Vertin's got others now so her proof of concept isn't really necessary anymore now that she's got other proofs of concept. Vertin keeps calling her incredible and she doesn't feel she's done anything real at all to earn it.

''Mmmh, if they can tolerate a pirate, they can take me, right? We'll, ahh, figure it out.''

Regulus continues to pretend that everything is okay. You always gotta commit, after all, and when life gives you reasons to fake-smile you make fake-smilemonade.

"Yeah, of course! They'll take one look and they'll be breathless. By the time they think to complain about it, it'll be too late! Bureaucracy'd stamp you in! And Sonetto said that if they don't treat you right, she'll speak up. You can do that there."

She doesn't mention, again, that the Foundation didn't take the pirate. This is the place that took her.

''We should talk about how to try. ...Later.''

"What do you expect of me?" Regulus asks Tamiel. "Better than this? I fought harder than I ever had for anything in my life and I'm not blind or deaf besides the shades. Sorry, Tammy, this is the best I can do. They saw through all my tricks, all my little plans, and I threw myself into explosions and clawed back a life or two, maybe, from the Storm and bought some people an hour at the expense of everybody's mood. And that was with me having contacts spilling the beans to me all the way."

Rather than the stairs, she makes her way for the wilderness. "I think I need to borrow the forest from Druvis here for a bit. Gonna give some candies to the kids real quick, maybe get blasted by La Source--bet the kids'll get a kick outta that. I'll be back before the timer's done."

She steps out for the moment.
Lilian Rook     'Makes me wonder - did they know where the last one would lead? They moved quick, so quick I wonder if they had a plan for 1929 specifically.'

    "It's an interesting question." Lilian says, and for a moment, she sounds genuine. "Their leader gave off the idea that she already knew everything about it. It was like she could intuit everything about Vertin and I through knowing the Storm so well." Then, she realizes that this is a topic she shouldn't share her thoughts on, and sinks back into her slouch.

    'Standing by Vertin makes me more sure you meant what you said about crushing the Head.'

    "That's completely backwards." Lilian drones, ashen. "It should be the other way around."

    'If I get the chance to do it again, part of me thinks Arcana wouldn't be a bad choice,'

    "Choose someone else." For just a split second, one could imagine Lilian is angry, but she dials in what she means very quickly. "There's something incredibly off about her. There are too many factors, too many unknowns, and too many questions without answers to make any sort of plan that relies on anything about her staying factual." She breathes deep, and then says, as if it could somehow be more convincing, instead of her opinion being utterly unasked-for "Believe me or not, but I know how to sense her type."

    'Not alone, you haven't. I've had a hand in making it as well.'

    Damningly, Lilian doesn't bother to contest Vertin on that.

    'Up the foyer stairs, third door on the right. It was a guest bed, before.'

    Instead, she blinks and stares at her, dull noncomprehension stoically obstructing her ability to relax in her self-indulgent misery.

    'You'll need it. It will be twenty four hours before the Storm lets up, and we've all gone far too long without rest.'

    "Oh." Lilian says, and sighs out a breath that shakes with half-hearted relief and a twinge of embarrassment, ruining the effect of her stare.

    'We arcanists have been too long in conversation with the world, and too rarely in conversation with each other. If you'll excuse me for a moment.'

    Whether or not she excuses Vertin doesn't matter much. Lilian is struck silent by indecision, chewing on the corner of her lip as she tries to think through how she should interpret anything Vertin says. Her caution is once-bitten-twice-shy, and bleaky transparent about it.

    'Mmh, it's not your way to fly some-where warmer overwinter, right? I am glad, my-la-dy, you are here with me in the cold.'

    "It's sort of an incorrigible theme with me." Lilian sighs. "I don't think I'm much of a crow, though. Whenever I consult the magic eight-ball, the answer always comes out in flowers and trees." she says. A joyless smile spreads halfway across her lips. "Which is makes it a funny thing to be named after a lily. I've been terribly impure since the moment I was born, you know."

    "I always sympathized more with the holly tree, actually. The thing about it is that animals despise and shun it all year until winter, where the frost softens up the berries, and then they depend on it to live, only to go back to hating it in spring. According to tradition, you're not supposed to cut them down, because they're meant to draw lightning and catastrophe to themselves, away from you, but there's no taboo against cutting them up as much as you please." The flight of fancy doesn't last. The smile slides right back off her face before long.
Lilian Rook     'Then what do we do? It feels like there is nothing we have on them, and they have everything on us...'

    Lilian wordlessly shrugs.

    '...I'm sorry we weren't strong enough to keep the way back out clear.'

    "You were." Lilian says, and leaves the rest unsaid.

    '...I couldn't even convince them to let me help.'

    "First time being a freak, huh." She laughs, two syllables, breathy and sarcastic.

    'I threw myself into explosions and clawed back a life or two, maybe, from the Storm and bought some people an hour at the expense of everybody's mood.'

    On Regulus' way out the door, Lilian raises her voice to be heard, though she doesn't move her eyes to look. "An hour of life is worth more than anybody's mood. Nobody's feelings matter that much; don't allow them to make you think otherwise."

    There's no need to keep eating. The moment someone leaves the table, a spell breaks. Lilian slowly opens her bag, and tiredly withdraws a ring-bound sketchpad; one she flips open almost to the halfway point. Bringing her knees up, she braces it against her thighs rather than the table, scratching idly with a pencil that looks as if it's been sharpened with a knife.
Flamel Parsons     "I hate you...So much."
    Flamel looks at Tamiel, expression softening for a bit there. He listens to her, hears her out, and just waits for her to finish any elipses she might want to leave hanging. Once she's done with it, he says, "Don't worry! We're on the same page." He somberly puts some of his food into his mouth, chewing pensively. "I don't know how to help people. I *can* want it, but it doesn't seem like I can know how to. I've tried elevated distance, with cases like Lilian, and I've tried visceral connection, with cases like Schneider. I've tried absolute deference to feeling, like with Angela, and I've tried total indifference to feeling, like with the Psychogates."

    He gestures with his fork. "So, I've sort of gotten to the point where I'm starting to think they built me wrong, and that there's only so much of a good person that you can be if you're not one. And I wasn't built as a person. So, I won't be a very good person. You know?" He smiles, softly. "Sorry about it. I *will* keep trying, indefinitely!" He takes another bite. "It just won't do anything. Only people can change the way you're looking for."

    "Do you ever think about the things that come out of your mouth sometimes?"
    "Oh, all of them." He says, brightly. "I'm not allowed to plagiarize any of this, you know."

    "You think six years of experience would fail me inside of four hours?"
    "I really ought to have more faith. Though I guess, you acted your heart out so much, to make sure that I wouldn't. I doubt I would have been able to keep up an implicit kayfabe under psychohazard like that. Very smart!"

    "To do good, and then beat yourself up; that does-not nurture a heart, does it?"
    "Savvy! Don't worry, I can't congratulate myself much right now but I'm assembling plenty in the mental scrapbook to celebrate later." Flamel says, nodding a few times. His hand is... lifelessly limp in her hands. Only when he realizes she might notice, does he seemingly bring it back to life, and return the little squeeze. All artificial. Is he actually doing what he said?

    "... are you alright?"
    "*Will* be! It's actually important for me to be in a damaged state right now." Flamel says. "Do you ever study human bodies? I don't know much about biology, but I *do* know... there's something called a 'clean break' for bones." He prods at his food a little. "Human bones are designed to break more easily, because when they break, their structure snaps more cleanly, in a way that facilitates healing better. You're a doctor, you know that part, right? It's not just pop-sci, I hope. Well, the same thing," He gestures with a fork again. "Can be done for a mind. A mind can experience vulnerabilities that make damage greater, but allow healing to happen quicker and more effectively. That's an important part of my construction, some of the principles that I'm built with." He smiles, in a pained way. "So, no, I'm not okay. But, the break is clean. So I will be."

    He repeats it. "I will be."
James Bond On-ly, it is a shame those who say 'I will fix the world'-prey on sick-ness too, right?

    "I wanted to see what they had to say," Bond agrees, bitterly. "I wanted to know that it wouldn't have been a waste, if I'd met them, years ago, and put on one of those masks."

    Do you have it, al-rea-dy? What you needed? It is diff-er-ent, to not play from desperation, right?

    "Yes." He drums his fingers against his thigh. "Yes, I've found it, and yes, it's different not to play from desperation. But it's also different to play behind. I never feel it more keenly than when I'm around certain people. I'm not entirely part of their world or part of the one that forces people like them out." Rubbing his temple in vain, "It's often those same people that make me want to bother catching up at all, though."

Is it still...?

    "On your holster," he says with a tired smile.

Do it from a distance, right? So she would-not think to get in your head.
Believe me or not, but I know how to sense her type.

    "Thank you." Bond gets up. "I need to take that into consideration and do some thinking about next time." He leaves without another word. He'll be back for food later--after everyone else has cleared out, to ensure he can eat alone.
Timekeeper "You'll forgive me if I don't agree with that."

    Vertin's chest rises and falls in a silent sigh. There's not a trace of irony in her voice. "I will."

"The air pressure's right, even here, without a true moon, that I've added a secret in-gredient to my concoction!"

    Sonetto, having prompted along with Tamamo, absorbs Sotheby's explanation with the top-student air necessary to follow along with a savant. But it's that comment that takes her attention, eyes drawing upwards past the tent canvas and past the heavy grey clouds that fill the strange, enclosed sky.

    From the bottom of a snowglobe, she murmurs, "Not a true moon...?"

    Then, everyone insists that she has to eat, from Regulus to Tamamo to even Riku. Surprised, Sonetto hadn't even considered the idea that her not-eating might have been noticeable to anyone else, and she's fumbling almost apologetically to pick up her fork when Schneider gets to her first.

"You are-not stealing it from anyone else. Eat, or I'll be sad, mmmh?"

    "Mmmph?" The cannoli, put in front of Sonetto's face, triggers her automatic response to bite into it before she's even realized whose hand it is that's holding it. Her face turns pink as she hastily chews to swallow, while Vertin, leaned on in-between, stifles a small giggle. "Ah-- yes. I am sorry. Um, I'll eat now."

    She takes the stew Regulus offers with a grateful duck of her head, digging in as measuredly as her hunger allows her. Her thoughts on the day, until now contained to comments on the fates of individuals or the obstacle right in front of them, finally tentatively find their way out of her mouth as the warm soup hits her stomach.

    "In circumstances where one is caught in the field unexpectedly during the Storm countdown... the Storm Emergency Protocols consider survival to be the minimum of mission success. To ensure our survival with Timekeeper, we needed to do nothing but remain at the Sotheby household when Timekeeper first noted the Storm, and take shelter inside the suitcase."

    But, Schneider. But, Bellwhistle, and Doris, and Margaret, and Evie, and Ruth, and Druvis, and this hour-long last supper, that no one really believes in besides Vertin and Schneider. Uncertain, Sonetto faces the Storm head-on for only the second time ever. "... Would that have been enough?"

"I can't thank you enough for looking after Tamamo."

    Coming down from a big gulp of her alchemical fizzy-drink, Sonetto gasps in how quickly she rushes to answer Lilian. "You have. Already. ... You looked after Timekeeper. You and Schneider did."

    A shiver wracks her whole body, despite the muggy warmth of the Suitcase's odd rainstorm. Sonetto grips the decorations on her uniform and twists them between her fingers until her fingers turn a little purple. "I am glad you're alright as well. I was afraid. I still am afraid, but I am not sure why."

    She blinks, then refocuses on what Lilian's actually doing now. "... You're drawing? May I see?"

    But, Regulus steps away from the table, and driven by some unspeakable compulsion, Sonetto lurches up to follow. She scrambles after her to the rain-slick treeline, unusually out of breath for how little movement that actually was, and fumbles out words with no clear idea of what she means to say.

    "Ah-- Regulus! Er, um... I wanted to say that your efforts were... according to the Field Agent Administration rubric for arcane skill usage in the field, you were... um, the Manus Vindictae are highly unpredictable, and the intelligence we gained was...."

    Sonetto swallows, dizzy-feeling. "... I'm glad we accomplished anything at all. May I come with you? I, er, know where Timekeeper hides her secret stash."
Ein Wiping her brow after heping Tamamo at the big table party, Sotheby turns to APPLe and nods to the floating apple. "O~of course! There's lots of glasses to fill and people who're thirsty!" Sotheby suggests, guessing Mr. APPLe can't do the on-the-fly mixology she can do (or at least believing it's her special skill), and puts away her rarer materials like sands-of-time in doldrum oil to get back to spreading cheer herself. "Do you think you want to mind burners, or pull glasses?"

For such a little lady, Sotheby's set up quite the pyrotechnic array to get her mixtures to temperature. Managing them all, on the table, is no small working!

Meanwhile, Druvis III is drifted towards by the interest of Regulus and Odette.

'What do you like to eat? What do you--not like eating?'
'There's some real fresh stuff ready, and plenty of it's even vegan if you're... Dieting?'

While her raven indulges in the blessed frenched FRY, Druvis slants her gaze up at Odette first, with a dim look of processing, and then a sigh.

"Dieting?" She asks, not understanding. "I. . ." Her head hangs. "Have eaten." At the Walden, though she had eaten lightly. "This and that." She adds, only subtracting from her total point. "Schneider brought me something recently that was nice. What was that called?" She asks Schneider off in their corner, wistful.

They are trying to be gentle, now, and her emotions lash out like sick and venomous beast spilling poison. She wants to be calm, but a mask would be unsuited, and Druvis lingers on the troubled roil of going back over and over and over the events of the end of the evening.

Sotheby has a much better time at her little alchemical soda counter when Sonetto comes up and asks for a fizzy beverage. Believing that Sonetto, an incredible red-haired poet-knight, has come to her for an elixir, she taps up a fresh concoction for Sonetto and passes it over, bouncing on her bootheels while Sonetto takes an electrifying first hit - a herby-botanical nose and note to it that warms into honey sweetness and rich molasses with a toasted end-note, crisp and doubly refreshing for the chemical buzz it tingles down with.

"The leaf of the healing laurel, purified ambrosia of bee, bubbling rock - bubbled, mintleaf, juniper, and some elder-berry for wellness! That other alchemist wasn't using toad bile much at all, and it must be because he wasn't using fresh toad, but the recipe isn't one I'm keen on playing with yet! It's supposed to follow your taste, but... well, you might just taste it directly without a flavor to think of! Is it. . . good?"

'The girl with the ginger hair is my assistant Sonetto, by the way.'

Druvis's attention snaps to Vertin when the Timekeeper approaches, guarded and uncertain. The storm is more distant, and the world surrounding is so talkatively different to Druvis and she has retreated to the back corner of a place where she is out of the way and hopes only to wait out the next short while. To escape with her life, which would have been so easy if she wasn't a tremendous idiot, or principled over nothing (everything. everything!) in the worst possible moment.

"She has a strong blade." Druvis notes, of Sonetto and her cutting poetry, and her eyes slide away from any distant gingers to fix on the Timekeeper again. 'What of it' she asks. Oh, Regulus.

"... And the one who says 'Fab'," It sounds like grim punctuation when Druvis states it at a creak of breath."-her as well."
Ein Then the umbrella comes out, and for an instant it is blatantly clear Druvis has taken the absolute worst conclusion from this showing possible. The meaning, the subtle yet pointed statement of drawing out an umbrella to give to just Druvis, is something that Druvis seems to instantly come to and her eyes dilate and fixate on the object, like a weapon, and Vertin, as a *threat*.

The raven has been given a kind of bribe most of birdkind cannot even fathom - an entire Fry, crafted by the divine hand and granted unto it, so filling as to grant Buddha-like zen to the corvid. It is fed, and it is wise, and it is loved. As far as the raven is concerned this isn't about Druvis right now.

The wet grimace already forming on Druvis' face, a withholding that threatens to burst early, the terrible weight of ill connection pre-locking in as she's spoken to--

--words, words, what is Vertin saying?

'--is much larger than it seems from here; you'll see. But if you'd rather--'

Swallowing, Druvis blinks her eyes and sits up and cycles a breath, something wrong clearly and trying to push through it.

"What?" She asks, then lowers voice a few degrees to under-party level, periphery toned. "I... thought you were saying something else." She admits.
Lilian Rook     'So, I've sort of gotten to the point where I'm starting to think they built me wrong, and that there's only so much of a good person that you can be if you're not one.'

    "Oh my god." Lilian looks up over the top of her sketch pad, wide-eyed. It's unclear how serious she's being when she says, "After all that studying and researching, you finally learned something about me. I thought it was impossible."

    'I doubt I would have been able to keep up an implicit kayfabe under psychohazard like that. Very smart!'

    "The trick is to make yourself not disbelieve it." she says, and drops her eyes back down to the sheet.

    'You have. Already. ... You looked after Timekeeper. You and Schneider did.'

    "I didn't achieve much." Lilian says. Keeping her eyes glued to the page helps neutralize the emotion that might creep into her voice. As always, she mistakes self-depreciation for cynical wisdom, because everyone else always treats them as the same thing. "I was too focused on protecting her from humans to worry as much as I should have about protecting her from Manus Vindictae."

    'I am glad you're alright as well. I was afraid. I still am afraid, but I am not sure why.'

    Lilian glances up, then hurriedly looks back down. Her pencil moves strangely irregularly. It's more like architecture, if she's doing more than just scratching the page. "Could just be post-mission jitters." she says, oddly hushed. "Sometimes you worry about losing someone even when they're right in front of you. It happens."

    '... You're drawing? May I see?'

    Despite doing it in plain view of everyone, Sonetto's request doesn't just take Lilian by surprise; she looks politely shocked that anyone noticed her drawing at all. "It's nothing special." she says, oddly defensive, about the same subject twice in one day, but she does, eventually, turn the sketchpad over.

    The page is already full. The linework is laid everywhere; it's only the complicated shading that is still to fully bloom outward from the center, paused halfway. It's a candid drawing of the table, with everyone at it, in their respective places, but it's not from the perspective Lilian sits in, but rather as if a photograph were taken from twenty paces back, just so the entire table is framed in view, with Vertin at the dead center.

    'Photograph' is the right comparison; the detail to the image is surreally real, less than perfectly accurate in a way that somehow makes it seem more-than-perfect, rendering people as they look in motion rather than as they really are. The poses are surely ones that everyone has already made, but they must have been drawn from memory. An outrageous amount of care has been put into the textures, almost touchable for attention to detail and sheer, fastidious patience.

    For whatever reason, Lilian's own space at the table is empty, though Tamamo's practically glows. The moon isn't quite behind Vertin's head from the real angle; it'd have to be another hour from now; nor is it quite so large. The artistic embellishment is easily explained with the inclusion of an eye and radiating lines. She chose the moment just before Sonetto leaned across her lap to reach Schneider.

    "It's just something I do to slam my thoughts into shape when they're being unruly, or unmotivated." Lilian says, and self-consciously flips the sketchpad back again.
Regulus ''Do you think you want to mind burners, or pull glasses?''

"Best I mind the glasses, Miss Sotheby. I'm a bit sensitive to flame." APPLe can't do the kind of on the fly mixology Sotheby can, which is why he's volunteering himself as an assistant rather than to take over. Though honestly, even if HE COULD, it's more important to let Sotheby do it! But he can't, so really it's an easy choice to make that he just help speed the process along rather than try to take over the same sort of workload that Sotheby has volunteered herself for. He's reminded, honestly, a little of a younger Regulus's experiments back in the day though, to be fair to Sotheby, Regulus's experiments tended to explode a little more than Sotheby's seems to

Regulus's plan was to go off and cool off--literally, with a blast of La Source water which honestly might also be welcome because she also feels STANKY as fuck. She didn't get to do that much cleaning up because she also had to help with the cooking. She's already confused by Bond's apology of all things but Regulus's attempts to leave are stalled first by Druvis being a weird alien. Regulus, accustomed to being the weird alien in the group, is getting a little alarmed by people who are out-weird-aliening her but, okay, it's also kind of cool actually. Like, it's nice to know she's got space to get even weirder without feeling like she'd be shown the door over it, even if she's starting to feel she's maybe too normal.

"Yeah, it's nice to know you've eaten before." And somehow that reads off as genuine from Regulus rather than sarcasm. Regulus has a knack for saying things that would sound sarcastic in any other mouth, but when it's here she just sort of rolls with the reality of the person she's talking to, barely needing to understand any of it at all, and just engage it as if it's totally normal.

Because it is totally normal. Sometimes you remember you have eaten in your life.

''And the one who says Fab.''

"That's me. I'm the one who says Fab and Marvy." Regulus says because this is about the fourth time someone has questioned these words of hers, honestly this is making Druvis easier to understand now even if she's phrasing it like this. "Blade? I don't have a--" She pauses. "Oh! You mean like--like...'Flower Power', yeah! It's actually American. The idea was you gave protestors flowers, and they'd give it to the cops and such to make the protests to discourage the sort of lie that they were inherently violent because of the Hells Angels gang who kept disrupting the protests with violence and such. They actually--I think it was The Seeds? They invented a kind of rock called flower rock too. I'll show you their stuff sometime, love."
Regulus ''Nobody's feelings matter that much.''

Then it's Lilian. Regulus turns on Lilian for a moment, eyes wide and she is struggling to think what to say. Wasn't it her feelings that...

Don't look a kind gesture in the mouth just because you're pissy, Regulus tells herself. "..Thanks, Lilian. I won't."

She's gotta get out of there but one last person stops her and it's maybe the person she least expected to, especially since it involves leaving Vertin's side so soon after returning to it, even if it's a much safer position than before.

It doesn't really matter what Sonetto says, actually, here because of what she said before.

''...Would that have been enough?''

The answer is a clear and ready no to Regulus, and the idea that Sonetto agrees with that at least is something they share, and it's a comfort. But there's another reason it doesn't really matter--

--it's because it's clear enough to Regulus just from Sonetto's attempt here that she's trying to comfort her. Be a friend. And it reminds Regulus that in a day full of fuckups, near misses, and horrors--at least one thing went right in this long awful night. Regulus's shitty mood starts to evaporate before Sonetto's eyes.

"Thanks Sonetto. You're a good friend, you know that? Maybe soon we can pay a visit to your other friends like we talked about."

''May I come with you?''

"VERTIN has a secret stash of candy?? Vertin's been keeping a secret gluttonous side from us huh?" That shit-eating grin is back because how could it not be with an offer like that. "Yeah she took a lot of risks without us huh? We should punish her a little by redistributing her sweets." Seems like that's a 'yes, sure! Come along!' Regulus hurriedly rubs at her eyes again. No more tears until the end, she tells herself, because ... Yeah, yeah this IS home. And sometimes home feels a little lonely, but it's still home.

She's home.

"Let's hurry though, we shouldn't miss it."

She doesn't have to clarify what the 'it' is but she can't bring herself to spell it out right now when a secret sweet stealing sojourn is on the menu.
Schneider Greco      "Mmmh, good. Now you are fed, I can relax too, right?" Schneider practically coos, almost nudging Sonetto's lips with a napkin before course-correcting to putting it in Sonetto's hands instead. She casts a glance over at Flamel: you, eat too!! "When do you take your dinners here, my-la-dy Sonetto? For Italians, you must have it with your fam-i-lies, but the Suitcase will do, right?"

     Eventually, she settles back in her chair and stops pressing into Vertin's space.

     Bond's bug-- on her holster, of course. "" she mutters while smiling, and plucks it off after a second's searching. After examining, she scrunches it between two fingers to 'kill' it- "My, they make these small, right?"- and then puts it in her hair playfully, like a tiny bit of new jewelry by the headband.

     "...Flowers and trees, my-la-dy?" Schneider says to Lilian, sweetly entertained. "My little know-ing, it is al-ways... flowing, and ripples, you know. To see flowers, is that not sweet? Per-haps I'm jealous~..."

     She does her little trick: holding her palm upwards, a thin white fog spreads over it, and a droplet falls from her curled finger into it. It ripples with the droplet-impact, but it doesn't spill over the edges, and soon it goes still.

     ... Whatever she sees in that prognostication, it doesn't worry her. She takes a sip of her wine.

     "And you are treated like the holly too, mmmh? Ah... but, I like your Holly very much. May-be it gives us something in common, right?" Her eyes slide unwholesomely over to Holly Asturias, proper, and she smiles her little smile.

     Regulus gets up, in distress-- Schneider starts to rise, too; but then Sonetto's already going, and Schneider looks down at Vertin and decides she doesn't want to leave her alone; and so she says "Cosimo. Go comfort her."
"Huh? Me?? We barely..."
"You are good at things like that, right? And you've cleaned your plate."
"... Hell. I do hate to see her hurtin'. Alright."

     Cosimo ambles out there, a little directionlessly, and tugs his jacket when he catches up to Regulus and Sonetto. "Hey, uh. Girls-- gals. Sorry. I, uh..." Deep breath. "You helped a lot, Regulus. Y'know? That invisibility stuff, it really helped with the ambush, and-- and, you know, I'm glad you helped me get to here, stuffin' my face instead of dyin' in the mud. Maybe that doesn't count for much. I'm a small guy, always been one. But... but it matters to me, 'cause I'm the only guy I've got. Y'know. So thanks."

     Candy? He looks around, surreptitiously. "... Look, am I invited to secret stashes? No pressure or anything."

     Schneider, meanwhile, is warming Druvis with her smile, or trying to, while her thumb cossets the darling crow again. "Fava bean stew, my-la-dy. No fancy name. And there was arancini, but I am-not sure we got to it... my-la-dy, that was some days ago; what have you been eating since?"

     Hypocritically, she eyes Druvis's skinniness up and down.

     "It's ver-y pret-ty, my-la-dy," Schneider says of Lilian's drawing. "But, where are you? Can you not draw yourself? I could try, if you like."
Timekeeper "Was it not the Foundation, my-lord, who asked you to go then...?"

    "I'm given a certain amount of discretion in the field," Vertin explains to Schneider, in a roundabout way like the setup to a joke. One arm in hers, and the other holding a glass of wine, she swirls the latter lazily. "That is to say, they send me someplace, and afterwards I'm reprimanded for what I do there."

    She chews on the inside of her lip, pulling it into a tiny frown. "But I've done rather poorly if I'm reprimanded by my allies in the field as well. In a hundred attempts to rescue a hundred Marians, I wouldn't bet on the odds of it again."

"The Lady Arcana would work, but... mmmh, one can-not trust one's eyes around her, I think. You might find you on-ly thought you succeeded."

    In an alibi-forming way, despite it being objectively true, Vertin voices her own agreement alongside Schneider's. "Right. She has some sort of hallucinogenic ability to make you lose your sense of place and purpose. Mechanical means may still be more reliable to track her than arcane ones, given what happened to Lilian."

"According to tradition, you're not supposed to cut them down, because they're meant to draw lightning and catastrophe to themselves, away from you, but there's no taboo against cutting them up as much as you please."

    Vertin makes a flat, humourless smile. Alibi-forming and otherwise, the time within the Walden isn't far from her mind, and neither are the words that were exchanged during the meal, and in private afterwards. Guilty but sincere, bitterly sympathetic words are pulled out of her, entirely unnecessary.

    "I'll be sure to leave silver by your bedside."

"So, I've sort of gotten to the point where I'm starting to think they built me wrong, and that there's only so much of a good person that you can be if you're not one."

    Surprisingly, just as Lilian does, Vertin takes a particular personal chord with Flamel's self-analysis too. "You don't have to be a good person in every way. Just one, and stick to it."

    Vertin idly traces a circle out on her plate with the back end of her fork, looking down at the undrawn shape like she sees something in it. "You've struggled because you always try and do everything, Mr. Parsons. But as long as you can do one good thing, and make it to tomorrow, you can do another after that."

"It's supposed to follow your taste, but... well, you might just taste it directly without a flavor to think of! Is it. . . good?"

    Mystified again, Sonetto's second swallow is somehow more pleasing than the last, and she scrunches up her nose when the bubbles pop behind. "It tastes like... honey, herbs, brown sugar, yes. What does it taste like for you?" As if uncertain how it's true, she adds belatedly, ""It... *is* good."

"For Italians, you must have it with your fam-i-lies, but the Suitcase will do, right?"

    A little self-conscious smile touches Sonetto's lips, and she obediently uses the napkin to hide it. Her eyes cast down, at the convex reflection of everyone sat at the table that her cup unstably holds. "I have never remembered having a dinner like... that. But you...." Soon, won't have any family left in the world besides Marian, too. The pang of heartbreak on Schneider's behalf flashes across her face at the mere mention.

    But it passes, a little shy and a little miserable and a little hopeful all at once. "... But if it counts. You'll be here, too."
Timekeeper "I didn't achieve much."

    Sonetto shakes her head firmly at Lilian. "It was enough. However much it was. Everyone came back."

    Almost like a thoughtless afterthought, with the ramifications unconsidered, she adds, "The humans in the masks were Manus Vindictae as well."

"It's just something I do to slam my thoughts into shape when they're being unruly, or unmotivated."

    Sonetto's small gasp at the reveal of Lilian's drawing can't possibly be anything but heartfelt, coming from her. The medium of her afflatus is often translated though 'the steadiness of one's hand'; Lilian's is machine perfect. Sonetto's finger hovers above the page to trace the moon and eye.

    "Timekeeper's tattoo... your handiwork is amazing, Mrs. Rook."

"Thanks Sonetto. You're a good friend, you know that?"

    Sonetto's head jerks up in surprise and her lips part, but the refutal doesn't actually manage to come out. Right now, she's been awake for over a day, and they've fought through such terrible things together, and all her feelings are so confusing, so she can just not worry about it at all and accept Regulus's incomprehensible little eccentricities.

    "... Right. Um... yes, Timekeeper has a severe sweet tooth. Actually, when we were children, she used to . . ."

"But... but it matters to me, 'cause I'm the only guy I've got."

    Sonetto's retelling of Vertin's old toffee habits is interrupted by someone she didn't expect at all. She doesn't count the seconds in her head like Vertin does-- down, not up-- but she's aware nevertheless of the few minutes remaining on the clock. Her mouth hangs open mid-sentence as Cosimo talks, and then all at once, she starts babbling.

    "No, thank you. You've done so much, and you-- I was wrong to call you just a criminal, and you have been so helpful to Schneider, and there's so many things you know that I never thought of, and--" Sonetto cuts off, choking on her words. She presses the heels of her palms into her cheeks, suddenly wet with tears pouring out of them. "H-how could this hour ever not matter? It matters so much."

    She swallows it down, stickily forcing her way to nod and speak. "Mh-mhm. I-it's-- a closet by her office, it's...."

"I... thought you were saying something else."

    Apologetically, Vertin clarifies without acknowledging the grim specifics out loud. "It's safe here. And it will remain safe." To demonstrate, which demonstrates nothing, Vertin reaches her own hand out past the tent canvas into the rain. It lands on her palm and rolls off, down, as it should.

    "It's just loud, sometimes."

    And it's loud now, but there's another sound that builds too. The steady drum of rainfall builds, and masks whatever faint sound might be exiting Vertin's lips as she mouths 0 0 : 0 0 : 0 3,
0 0 : 0 0 : 0 2,
0 0 : 0 0 : 0 1,
0 0 : 0 0 : 0 0.

    Here, when the rain goes upwards, the world stays untouched. Not a petal is lifted out of place, or a shingle off the manor's roof, or a hair off an arcanist's head. As the rain falls upwards, it's only the rest who start to go quiet, one by one, only punctuated by the clatter of silverware slipping out of nothing to hit the tabletop, or a ball found from somewhere that hits the grass and bounces once, then rolls.

    Vertin's hand drops. She squeezes Schneider's arm in hers, and leans her head on her shoulder for once, rather than the other way around. She's faced away from the table now, looking out at the woods, and watching the critters that scamper within it stay whole and unaffected. "Zero. It's here."
Holly Asturias "Do you ever study human bodies?"

    "I'm... familiar with the idea, but I've never heard it applied to the mind. I suppose I can..." She considers, for a second, her own damage, and the numerous ways in which, if it were a fracture, she might describe it as jagged, with countless shards still stuck in places where the slightest movement tears something else up. "Ah... more than suppose. I think I get it."

    But that doesn't... make any of this better, right now.
    In the absence of much to say, Holly ends up inspecting her nails, picking at bits of caked blood she missed while she tries to formulate a thought, and then finally just asks: "You... haven't heard from White at all, have you?"

    A pause. It's empty idle talk. Of course he probably hasn't, nor has she, and not has Schneider. And during the Storm, they likely won't, either. "... sorry. Perhaps we can have a more meaningful talk... after." After. When the clocks aren't ticking, when the bodies are buried and not still standing.

    She wonders... for her mother, who saw the Resurgence, if it was similar. The countless who couldn't be treated for long, and had to be...

Silverware clatters.

    At first it was hearing her name that caught her attention, ever so briefly. Then it was the clock hitting zero, and the consequence of it. Staying seated feels rude, now. Holly stands, slowly, and there's little for her to do but head for Vertin and Schneider, to look out at the wilderness of the Suitcase. She hadn't gotten to, yet; she spent most of her time in the infirmary, so...

    "It's odd. As a child I used to love the rain. Going outside, during it, and..." Picking at plants, looking for a kind of fungus that glows slightly when wet. "But here it just makes me uneasy."

    It's the clatter of forks and knives that keeps her from wanting to turn around. She doesn't need to see this. Doesn't want to, either.

    "How unfair to have to see this sight every time, Vertin."
Regulus ''Hey, uh. Girls-- gals.''

Is gal more respectable than girl, Regulus wonders distantly. Now that she's had her little tantrum and instead of people ignoring it they all went and told her she's appreciated, she's feeling pretty embarrassed with the 1929 Cosimo Overture on top of it all, but she's been fond of Schneider's goons ever since they told Flamel to shut up for her. She really can't admonish Cosimo, he's got like 30 minutes and he's spending some of that offering to help her steal Vertin's candy.

"Uh, yeah, sorry for making a scene there." She says, a little lamely.

Then she thinks, actually, she does have something to say to Cosimo and specifically Cosimo, because Achille isn't here, but it's still real.

"You know, when I first met Vertin and she pulled me into this place, I was freaking like all out, I was out of options and the world was washing away before my very eyes and I thought I had really truly gone as crazy as they always said I was."

She hesitates. "But Vertin, see, she had all sorts of photographs on the wall. You might've seen them, wondered who they were and all that. I didn't know them at all either when I first came here. But there was Ida Derman, she wanted to emigrate to America and was raising money with what I'm told was an incredible singing voice. And there was Marion--with an o, I mean--Marion Smith. A single mother who was trying to feed her children while chasing a dream of being a writer. There was Gordon, who sold and maintained bikes for a living--he was shooting for the Olympics, can you believe it?"

She bites her lip and breathes through her nose. "Nobody thinks you're a small guy. Least of all Vertin and Schneider. I know this Suitcase is already a miracle and maybe I'm greedy for asking for more, but..."

She thinks back to her fears, her fears that she would get used to this like it seemed the people of the Foundation were used to it. That she would just be accustomed and stop caring and hurting so much about it in the way that Vertin was able to care and hurt about it, that she'd start seeing the lives that were lost to the Storm as inevitable, people who couldn't be saved so why bother at all. Maybe that's why Lilian's words bothered her so much. Because she was scared of one day saying them herself.

But now here, with Cosimo, she knows for sure that this was a foolish fear that could never come to pass. How COULD she get used to it? How COULD it stop hurting? Even people like Cosimo whom she barely knows are spending there precious little time to comfort her bratty little self.

"I won't forget." She promises. "And you definitely deserve some candy."
Regulus ''Timekeeper has a severe sweet tooth''

"I'll have to make some breakfast adjustments knowing that-" She stalls, seeing Sonetto's tears. It's been a lot, honestly, seeing Sonetto so affected so far, but seeing her actually crying after Sonetto had spent this entire horrible night being strong and holding it in while Regulus was being a huge crybaby the whole time, it's enough to get the waterworks going for sure, but this time Regulus holds it in. She can hold it in until 00 : 00 : 00 because Sonetto should get to cry without worrying about her for once. And as Sonetto says she was wrong to call Cosimo a criminal, Regulus feels she was surely wrong to see the Foundation as a place with no value. After all, the Foundation has Sonetto in it. If someone as earnest and kind and determined and loyal as Sonetto still believes in the Foundation, there must be something to it after all. Something besides child abuse and casual bigotry towards arcanists. Maybe it's that she can speak out with her voice when she thinks something going on is wrong. Maybe there's even a little more than that. She certainly was wrong to think of Sonetto as a rival, the loyal dog to her clever cat.

They're just friends. There's nothing to fight over anymore. They can just be on the same team for the same place. Somehow, despite how different they are, this community is their shared community and whatever their differences ... well, Peace and Love right? She can't imagine finding it anywhere else right now and for the first time she doesn't feel like she has to desperately cling to the Suitcase in the hopes that she'll manage to forge a home now, for the first time it feels like it just is home. And it's thanks to Sonetto here. And even Cosimo. For better or worse, there will be at least a few photographs in Regulus's mind that will linger there for the rest of her life.

She gives Sonetto a one-armed hug. "C'mon, love, we're gonna have to hurry. Get one to Achille too. They should be tasting something sweet."

She spends time handing out candy. To the children. To La Source. To Cosimo and Sonetto. Regulus doesn't take one for Regulus, the sweet she's swallowing down is the act of giving. She returns with Cosimo in the last waning minutes to go, gifting everyone a sheepish apologetic smile but she hears the rain and it's no longer the time to make cheeky quips about hidden candy stashes.

In truth, Regulus doesn't know that the Elites will be safe from this for sure. She frankly doesn't even know Sonetto will be. For all she really knows for sure she was an exception. Hell, maybe even she's not safe this time because they only have one confirmation of someone using the Suitcase to survive and it's her. And maybe it was just a weird one-off. These might be her last seconds too. She hopes not. She has relationships to repair, friendships to continue, understandings to reach, 'better' to reach for.

So she watches. One of the most important things she can do, she figures, is carry this part of the weight with Vertin so she doesn't have to say goodbye alone.
Lilian Rook     'Mechanical means may still be more reliable to track her than arcane ones, given what happened to Lilian.'

    She sighs as silently as can be; little more than an unusual breath through her nose. Vertin's bloody-minded urge to start working on clearing her name, even now, elicits the kind of tone that comes from soldiers asking to be left behind. "There's no telling what that magic fluid will do to electronics. Surely she's already familiar with the technology of the nineties."

    ..Thanks, Lilian. I won't.

    There's no way that Lilian can't tell that Regulus is angry. It'd be unlike her not to assume that some of that anger is aimed towards her. More than that, however, she doesn't seem inclined to speculate on. When Regulus makes motions to escape, even in the guise of cheerful thanks, Lilian nods, keeps her eyes to herself, and keeps drawing.

    'My little know-ing, it is al-ways... flowing, and ripples, you know. To see flowers, is that not sweet? Per-haps I'm jealous~...'

    She realizes, too, that Schneider is slightly mistaken; but only just, and the misunderstanding is sweet. She smiles at just the corners of her mouth, letting her eyes wander more fully over the page. "In its own way." she says. "But there are all sorts of flowers and trees out there, you know. And it's in the nature of some to be more stubborn than anyone can move."

    'And you are treated like the holly too, mmmh? Ah... but, I like your Holly very much. May-be it gives us something in common, right?'

    Her strange, small, complicated smile lasts to the end of Schneider's conclusion. Even she wouldn't say something that drips so heavily with such transparent meaning if she was unprepared for someone unusually sharp to draw their own conclusions.

    Then her pencil stops, and her little smile slips away, and Lilian understands that Schneider is very, very mistaken. Enough that she has to say something to correct that rift between their realities, even just a little, before it widens into something she'll regret.

    "Miss Schneider, I've only met Doctor Asturias earlier this year." Lilian says. Her eyes find her first, then her head turns slowly, and she wears a wincingly apologetic expression. "She and I are from completely different worlds. Please trust me; if I'd meant to speak of someone I thought you might actually meet, I'd never in my life have said as much as I did."

    'I'll be sure to leave silver by your bedside.'

    The gentle words strike bone, in a way that only shows in Lilian's eyes. Her breath catches, dizzyingly beset by the reality of everything she'd said in the Walden; of everything that she had made tangible between her and Vertin, forever.

    'The humans in the masks were Manus Vindictae as well.'

    The pencil creaks softly in Lilian's grip. The pressure of her three fingers, holding as still as they can, might still snap it, if she thinks just the wrong thing. The man she can't forget wasn't wearing a mask in her memory. The emotions that she had felt then are all but inconceivable to her now, like it happened to someone else, in another life, because nothing of such intensity could ever happen to the girl who is here in the Suitcase, drawing her little picture and listening to her friends try to forgive her. She doesn't dare look away from Schneider. It's too late to do anything about what Vertin saw, but as long as she's careful--
Lilian Rook     'Mannaggia, what has you so afraid...?'

    Lilian's lip twitches, and she holds her mouth still by clenching her teeth. She pulls up her legs a little closer, folds her arms a little tighter, and tries to slow her heart from is sickening pace. Everything was already too much, too fast, with too many people, impossible to predict and even more impossible to undo.

    But the thought of not saying it feels even worse. No matter how unlikely it is, the looming shape of the forever unsaid scares Lilian so much more than any more blood she could still shed in the Storm. So her eyes find Schneider's, looking up from the middle of her face on purpose. The smile she wears is merely apologetic, perhaps slightly embarrassed, but her gaze is fighting for dear life to hang on.

    ". . . I never had a friend named Holly. I made her up. Back then, I didn't have any friends at all."

    'Zero. It's here.'

    Lilian gently folds the pages shut and wraps her arms around her legs, squeezing the sketchpad to her chest. At the last second, she lowers her head, face buried behind her knees, and just above the table, shakily crosses her fingers.
Riku Asakura '0 0 : 0 0 : 0 0.'

Riku simply can't make himself eat anymore.  The sounds of silverware hitting the table, the sounds of the rain being loud enough to hear, the disappearing people...

It was finally time, and they spent the last hour trying to make it pleasant for them.  He tried so hard not to break down that he didn't cause any pain during the small amount of time they had left.  It hurts more that he has gotten to know Cosimo and Achille.  They worked hard together, and even when things looked at their worst, the two of them still stuck with it and helped them save Vertin and Lilian.  

Riku buries his head in his hands, and tears flow freely now.  Right now, he was far too exhausted, physically and mentally, to care if anyone saw.  It didn't matter anymore, either; all the tears he kept in were gone now.  
Flamel Parsons     "You finally learned something about me."
    "I wish I hadn't done all those things that hurt you." Flamel says, in tones that are much softer. "When I thought I was better than I was. But, I guess what you said doesn't make sense..." He laughs, uneasily. "You have so much personhood it floods out. Fills in the cracks in other people. I was probably pretty envious of you, huh? 'You have so much, can I just have a little?' But there's a thousand of us. People, or not people, like me. Ten thousand. A million."

    "...I don't feel as awful about that as I should. Schneider's orders."



    "You don't have to be a good person in every way. Just one, and stick to it."
    <J-IC-Scene> Schneider Greco says, to Flamel, "I think you are a good person, my-lord," and she means both words.
    Flamel is a bit silent at that. There's an anxious posture of thought, and...

    ---

    The Director stumbles just slightly in his office. A shudder in his whole posture. He coughs roughly, the stale underground air choking him for a moment. He's reaching for pills with one hand while another moves to scar on his heart. He couldn't die. Hiromi ensured that. But that alchemical psychic compound, UPE-000, still ran through his veins, poisonously... He holds the pills up. Something to keep him focused. Something to keep him centered on his job. He had to stay dedicated, had to stay precisely fixed in place. Had to stay focused. But this time, it's hard to.

    His coughing grows louder. The bottle of pills rattles. He clenches it hard, and in a moment of frustration, tosses it aside. Goes stumbling through the Institute. Wanders the halls, coughing in pain. Until eventually he reaches UPE-1929's chamber. He punches in codes, slides a card, opens the door. He walks out with her, still silent, holding her hand. She looks at him with curiosity. "I'm going to show you something." He chokes out through his coughing. "We'll go see it, ghhh, together." Stumble, stumble... She practically holds him up after a few too many paces. "Go... We'll go find something to look at. Something worth seeing..."

    They walk into an elevator. He jams a button marked: "SURFACE".

    The elevator's negative floors count down to zero, like the clock.

    The elevator fills with a scent like ripe oranges and rain.

    For the first time in a long time, the Director stands as tall as he used to, breathes easier, agonizes less.

    ---

    "Yeah. I guess I'll internalize that." He says, hiding something behind sunglasses and a smile.



    "... sorry. Perhaps we can have a more meaningful talk... after."
    "There's always time." He whispers a bit. "We'll have plenty of time, I'm sure. There's... always more time. For us. You went through a lot. We'll have a day here to work it out. Maybe a bit of astral healing. Could do us both some good."



    He blocks out the sound of clattering silverware. Vanishing people. He takes another bite of the meal, and tries to savor it dearly.
Schneider Greco      "Ahh? But the Lady Holly said...?" Schneider looks between Lilian, and Holly, and looks unsure whether to believe Lilian at all; and then bursts into a little giggle, because either way it's pretty funny. "Ahhh, mmmnh, well, if she is-not such a person I might have told her the-more about myself than I should, but... she took it well, so thank-you, a-ny-way."

     "... A-hem. No. But she is ca-pa-ble, my-la-dy Holly. I would not worry for the Lady White. The rest of my family... if they did-not hear from me, they were to go to the Foundation again." 'Again'? "... Who knows. After," she says. She doesn't intend to mourn, yet, for what can't be verified.

     "It's not unfair to Vertin. It's prettier to see the rain many times, than see it the-once, right?" she says a second after, perhaps a bit too sharply.


     Limp though Schneider is, she's used to being leaned-on. Much, much moreso than leaning on another. "The house that I made," she murmurs against Vertin's hat and hair, "I was proud of it too. I wish you might-have seen it, once."

     The thin, hard-worn body that the soul named Schneider Greco wears takes another deep breath, and the tension leaves it fully.

     Its soft-sparkling eyes widen, meeting Lilian's. "... Oh. Oh, my-la-dy..." Her lips tremble. She looks at Tamamo, oddly, with a renewed fondness, before lingering on Lilian again with her weight against Vertin. "... Mmh. Then we were together a-lone."
Schneider Greco      Zero. Her hand squeezes Vertin's.

     The conversation all around is thinning out, as humans vanish. It doesn't happen all at once, but two or three at a time, by some inscrutable order. They don't seem to be alarmed by their own vanishings, when they start to turn translucent from the edges before dropping away; as if they were only being peeled away from this time and place, and still intact to themselves.

     It would be nice if that were true. It probably isn't.

     "Hey, I don't show it, but I'm freakin' out too. You sound like a pretty sane gal to me. But, uh, bein' remembered sounds like a big responsibility," Cosimo jokes to Regulus fondly, with a little ambivalent gesture. "How about you just get real drunk in my honor? If it's gonna be a new Era, I bet the beer's cheap again. You'll make out alright."

     And then Sonetto's tearing up. Oh no. "Hey, hey, I kind of am just a criminal, but look," Cosimo says. His arm's half around Sonetto's upper back to comfort her, even though he's only a bit taller than she is. "You're... you're a real sweet girl. They've been keeping you kinda caged up, if I had to guess, but they can't keep you from seeing the world now. You both did good. You keep that up, a lotta other people are gonna be grateful f--"

     The words stop coming out partway through. His arm is around her for a second more as he fades, and then it just isn't, and his hat gently strikes Sonetto's face as it falls.

     "Hhhhahhh. Shit. It is real. Good luck without us, boss," Achille groans, as the crowd thins around him. Impulsively, he seizes a bottle of the most expensive-looking drink he sees and starts knocking it back. A moment later, he isn't holding the bottle anymore, and it hits the chair. The sharp noise is cushioned by his clothes.

     "Take care, Achille," Schneider murmurs, with an unsteady voice. She consults her own palm to read the future, one more time, and looks up to the sky where the rain is falling. Then her eyes trace down to Druvis's dulci corviddu, more than likely whole and well; she offers him her hand again.

     . . .

     In the span of twenty seconds, maybe, all the humans are gone.

     . . .

     It is seven or eight seconds after the last of them have vanished, long enough for a long exhale, when Schneider looks at her body's crow-extended hand.

     "So, it is that way," she murmurs so so quietly, about something that's hidden from other people's view for a moment longer.

     She looks up, at the Elites sitting across from her, focused so intently she might be memorizing their faces. Then she stands, as if she's going to follow Vertin's invitation to come inside, and then she lunges--

     Her hands grip Vertin's lapels, bodies tangled together urgently and nearly bowling her sideways out of their chair. Her lips touch Vertin's, faces shaded from view. And you can see the lapels through that waifish body's fingers, turning translucent by the second.

     "My-lord," she breathes, pulling back her face half an inch and sliding her arms behind Vertin's back while atop her. The body that wears the name of Schneider Greco is fading; the gleam in its eyes stays bright.

Quietly, like she half doesn't intend others to hear:
"I'm not a real arcanist."

"Don't forget,"

"my heartbeat, on the right."

Thump.

Thump.

Th--
Tamiel Luxis     "Better than this? I fought harder than I ever had for anything in my life and I'm not blind or deaf besides the shades."

    "I--" Tammy winced, reaching out toward Regulus, but the girl had already started storming off into the woods. "STUPID angel," she mutters under her breath, clasping hands over her eyes. "Can't do ANYTHING right." Her wings were closed very small around her, and she stayed still, as Vertin declared that the hour had come.

    She didn't move. Didn't let herself move. Didn't want to look into Cosimo and Achille's eyes again. People had exploded in front of her, they'd fallen apart, they'd tried to kill her--she'd felt so many lives and minds slip away, devoured by the Storm and beckoned back into nothing.

    Silverware fell to the ground. Tamiel knew what it was. But if she didn't look, she could pretend. If she didn't see it, maybe it wouldn't be real. But what she couldn't hide from was the slow whisper of wishes and dreams and prayers, fading to nothing, narrowing down to such a small, such a lonely little number.

    The sound that came out of her throat was ugly. Undignified. She refused to show her face.

    "I'm not a real arcanist."

    It's confusion, not bravery, that gets Tamiel to break her stillness and look up. She doesn't process what's happening until it's already started, and her face twists into shock and alarm and so, SO much panic.

    She pushes to her feet, reaches out, like she half expects to be able to hold her here out of sheer will--

    --But she had no power over the Storm. She never did.
Ein 'Yeah, it's nice to know you've eaten before.'

It's hard to feel like she's being made fun of, but still it's hard for Druvis to respond. She did. . . mean that she had eaten that night, but Regulus is at least genuine! Genuine of what, Druvis is unclear on, but some of her experience is speaking across from someone and that being fine.

"There is only so much, and I will remain after it is gone." She speaks carefully, to reinforce her previous idea, and then shifts to gently massaging the throat of her raven who is So Full Of Fry after not one but two. Greed, biblical greed, and the dulci corviddu is Mammon's herald of material downfall upon the custom-cut and offered fry. There, she meets Schneider's hand on the bird and stops. The momentary buzz of shock passes and nothing happens but the raven shifting in air with the faintest impatience on what was really important (multi-angle neckrubs).

Warmed by a smile, Druvis melts a little, eyes looking away from the contact while across the bird, Druvis belatedly takes a chance to squeeze Schneider's hand. There was a solidarity there, a solidity that she doesn't mind. This table wasn't bad, but... She knew the game and the treatment was more of the same medicine - so she had a built-up resistance, despite her worst day. She knew the game, but Schneider was different.

'my-la-dy, that was some days ago; what have you been eating since?'

Druvis steals a third fry from Schneider with a pinch of her fingers, of the other hand, curious and drawing it to eyes first. She could tell, and smell, the burger, but fry?

She takes a tentative bite.
It is potato. She understands potato.

"This and that." She lies-by-boldly-evading, all obvious what the truth is. "What didn't displease me." And clearly Schneider's offerings hadn't at all, Druvis having eaten quite normally then.

'That's me. I'm the one who says Fab and Marvy'

Leaning in, Druvis' expression narrows to something close to curious - clearly, genuinely inquisitive. "Marvy. What is that?" She wants to know even if it's dialect.

"And," She trails into, eyes looking away to the ginger that had walked over to address her. "Hers was the blade." Back for 'Flower Power', though, Druvis goes from interested...

'It's actually American.'

... to less interested, back to neutral when she learns it is protest with flowers. That, at least, seemed fine.

Pleased as punch and with plenty of help from Mr. APPLe at pulling a whole flight of glasses into an array, Sotheby. . . enlists Ms. Moissan in carrying the potion fizz cocktails while she asides to Sonetto. "That's the raw sugar in the honey liquor!" She answers, right after 'brown sugar'. When asked about her own experience...

"Laurel-leaf brew? That's my father's recipe! He loves all kinds of fresh ingredients and drinks laurel-leaf tea, which he takes with ho-ney!" Sotheby singsongs, bouncing with joy as Sonetto tastes it: she gets the 'intended' experience, without the trick of the most-desireable drink. So, Sonetto gets the drink as the maker imagined when she made it, fresh with bubbles.

Those without a drink in their hand are given a tall refill, not knowing how short the time is, and Ms. Moissan's wearied peace in just passing out drinks is weighed by Sotheby finding people needing a refill and brightening them up with a relentless assault of Sotheby, featuring Typhon!
Ein 'It's safe here. And it will remain safe.'

It takes Druvis several moments to recover, after. Her wand doesn't move, her anger doesn't rise again, but she squeezes Schneider's hand a little, and leans forward to blink a few times.

"It was my mistake." She exhales, the slow ache of the shutter of her eyes holding for a two count, and then her eyes lift to see the change in the rain.

"It has never not been loud. Sometimes, we are more or less able to hear." She returns, until 'Zero.' happens and Druvis exhales a soul-felt "Goodbye," For an audience of one and a forest that wasn't there. Her heart of the forest retreat, the things, whatever was left of Schneider's days-old picnic, gone in the deluge and taken to be re-used.

The moment of it, were it not for the rain, would be like New Years, a count-down, but there's no cheer. There's... clatters, and soft crying, and a wake that had finally gained its casket in question.

Somehow, dulci corviddu, but not Cosimo and Achille, is welcome.

"I've found another regret," Druvis groans, trying to make a terrible joke of it, not having shared the intervening beats of her journey in finding each, not having shared the moot regrets now, not needing to answer for the marks on a now-clean slate. Vertin was there, leaning on Schneider, and perhaps leaving Chicago - leaving America - for a different shore would find her peace. She couldn't go back, and she couldn't stay. Could she go forward?

Sotheby and Ms. Moissan work until they can't. Ms. Moissan becomes impossibly capable of an infinite number of toasts and tall quaffs, gathering people into groups to toast to life, and everything, and anything that could be shouted, losts loves and worlds gone by. At the end, she stands in a circle of one, standing over a ball in the grass, and drinks until she's finished and almost drops the glass before remembering, woozily, that someone would have to clean if she did that, and claws to the top of the glass to stand idle.

"Lady Sotheby?"

On her own adventure, Sotheby had been gotten a request for a refill by someone smiling with strangely-wet eyes and a faint complexion, but she didn't quite understand, and turning away to pull a "fizzless fizzy-drink", the little genius turns to one knot of folks, happy in a wistful way to see her. As she explains that she's missing someone who just asked for a drink, she's warmly sent on to another smaller group who look like they'd need something. Maybe they were over there!

Eventually Sotheby, overwhelmed and turned around but not in any way that feels 'bad', since everyone was smiling at her, ends at Ms. Moissan with a confused look, faintly distressed that everyone seemed to think the someone was everywhere when there was nobody here!

Surprised again when Ms. Moissan crouches down to hug her, Sotheby gives three quarters of a hug while gingerly holding glass, slowly realizing that there had been something everyone was sparing her from -- and it wasn't the drink.

She knows by the soft "It's okay," Being murmured by Ms. Moissan that something bad had happened.
Ein '... Mmh. Then we were together a-lone.'

Again, Schneider reaches her hand to the raven recruited through kindness, and Druvis' hand is there, bearing the bird up into palm. A brush of fingers, a drag of touch across palm, and the fattened-proud bird ruffles wingfeathers and settles into Schneider's palm as calm and serene as any truly fed animal can be. It is not in the rain and it is warm and it is truly fed. A forest is over there! Nothing ill exists in the world for dulci corviddu.

It's private, a trail of needing to be honest now. "I regret not knowing them." Druvis III admits, of her regrets, at plus-eighteen or so. Long enough... There's none left for her regret to touch. "Yours didn't seem bad at all."

'My-lord,'

Fear. Absolute terror. Something that made the 'regret' of before seem like a philosophical question before the true image.

'The body that wears the name of Schneider Greco is fading; the gleam in its eyes stays bright.'

Druvis sees, and she speaks an insistent, childish denial to the world. "No," Pleading. "Stay."

Druvis reaches out to touch Schneider's fading bicep, to hold her against the world, and her hand closes on air.

Her hand holds in the air near Vertin, her eyes widening, dilating, closing with fist in tight clench and 'hhk' of tension creak from breath, and then slackens to rise.

She only looks at Vertin for a moment, then out across the remainder at the table to confirm the remainder for herself, and ignores the offered umbrella to walk into the upside-down rain.

Really, she wouldn't know how to use an umbrella for that. It went the wrong way, didn't it? She craved the truth more than the comfort of dryness either way. She'd know the truth of this place from the Wilderness itself.
Holly Asturias     A slight jump, as Schneider lunges for Vertin. But they kiss, and for a moment, Holly just thinks that's very sweet, if unexpected. An odd moment for sure, but one she's a second away from clapping and cheering for, a little bright spot in a very dark night. Just one. Was it too much to ask for?

    But then what Schneider says...
    And the state of her body...

    The behavior Holly had assigned to success - to Marian's safety - frames itself completely differently now. She wasn't victory-drunk at all. Schneider was putting on the bravest face of everyone here.

    Moments aren't even allowed to pass. Schneider is gone.

    "... not knowing is..." She doesn't finish mouthing off Lilian's previous admonishment. All Holly can do, and all she's ever known how to do, is to shoulder the blame for this too, regardless of if there's even any possible thing she could have done differently to ensure this went any other way. Her head drops, her eyes sting, and she takes a step back towards the wilderness.

    Could she have bitten her? Turned her? 'But that's illegal'. Who would ever find out, from her world? Would making her a Revenant have spared her? Would she have accepted the thirst in exchange for life?

    "I'm sorry. Excuse me."

    Never in front of others.

    The doctor excuses herself for a long walk through the surrounding woods, much like Druvis, though likely a separate way, rain or no rain. An old habit that she uses to look after flowers, back home.

    A tiny Holly, the day her mother left, spends the night outside, coming back to an empty home. And every night after, a bit longer out each time, hoping that when she comes back, her mother will be too.

    But the much older Holly knows well when she makes it back, the table won't be refilled, and Schneider will still be gone.
Flamel Parsons     Flamel Parsons eats. He struggles to focus on food. To focus on joy. People are vanishing, vanishing, one after another. He keeps his eyes on his plate. His face twists up. What's coming next, he sees in his clairvoyance long before he sees it in the world. His silverware drops from his hands too, and his breath catches badly in his throat. He's trying to hold back the psychic vision. "No, no," He whispers. "No, not again, she..." But it's too loud. Too much. He sees it.

    She is gone. In his vision, the moment she realizes herself she's gone in her own mind. His grief, seared into his thoughts from the misunderstanding earlier, reignites. His voice is nothing but a whisper. "Please. Please, not again." He rises, looks ahead of where she's going to move in a moment. Following things out of order. He's already on his knees, and weeping again. A repeat of the same. By the time her heart-beat starts to fade, he's already grieving her final words. There's nothing he can do. Last time, there was a shot, a moment to interrupt the grief before it settled. This time, the sobs don't stop. There's nothing to interrupt, and just like he estimated, this grief will last hours.



    The last thing he'd done for her, was painfully use her mind as a door.

    She had called him a good person.

    Clean break.
Timekeeper "How unfair to have to see this sight every time, Vertin."

    "No." Vertin refutes Holly at the same time that Schneider does, just softer and simpler. Only Schneider can feel anything of the trembles that rack their body, invisible in every way but how their arm tightens around hers. The dull roar of rain gradually swallows up the conversation around the table as voices fade away bit by bit.

    "How unfair that it happens."

"You keep that up, a lotta other people are gonna be grateful f--"

    Sonetto tries to force out any words at all in response to Cosimo. Vertin always manages to seem so resolute and thoughtful in these kinds of situations, but with her head ducked down under the side-embrace of his arm, Sonetto's throat is so strangled-shut that she can't make a noise. She feels like if she stops holding her breath, she'll suddenly scream, or cry, or worst of all, that everything inside her might just drain out without a sound.

    The vanishing weight of his arm was all that was keeping her shoulders from shaking. Sonetto fumbles to catch Cosimo's hat before it falls into the mud, and presses it into her face with both hands like a blanket to muffle herself. The only sound that comes through when she finally manages to produce one is a tiny, pained moan, standing stock-still and hiding her face as the Storm exacts its toll on the table.

    From the moment that Vertin's watch lit up in tandem with her sense for the Storm, this result was inevitable. Repeated ten-millionfold all across the world, the inexorable crawl of the dark, hungry clouds would accept nothing less than annihilation, and no technique or magic spell or would've-should've known to them could avert it. That the Suitcase exists at all is a miracle alike to divinity, and even its shelter is punctured like a sieve.

    Vertin watches, as she does. Both of her eyes are shadowed by the brim of her hat, so familiar with the sight that she can identify the sound of bottle-on-empty-clothes without even turning in Achille's direction. The echoes of voices are preserved in her memory like stone inscriptions, names assigned to seats and clothes to be memorialized later. La Source, who's seen just as many Storms as Vertin in her own alien way, struggles to catch her breath after running around, until the dropped ball finally rolls to a stop, and then she shrugs and wanders back to submerge herself in the pond.

    Half a minute later, and there's no one but the arcanists remaining. Vertin finds her voice first, quiet and even, when the rain's steady patter is uninterrupted by conversation and the sounds of eating. "... Would you like to go inside, Schneider? It's drier in there."
Timekeeper     Then,

"My-lord,"

    Even if Vertin could resist the surprise attack, she wouldn't. The same tireless wind that dragged her into closets in occupied apartments, invited late night trysts with the 'enemy', shamelessly demanded to share the heat of her jacket in a blizzard, is what bowls her over now, tumbling backwards onto the ground underneath Schneider. The delay in responding to the kiss is as short as the spinal reflex pathway, done before they can consciously process anything else that's happening.

"I'm not a real arcanist."

    "What? No," Looking up at Schneider, both of Vertin's eyes are exposed and flicking all over Schneider's face in confusion. Half hug, and half checking her solidity, Vertin's hands squeeze her biceps and touch her back. They quicken, and her pupils shiver, when that confirmation turns up negative.

    Her repetition is quieter, breathless rather than defiant. "No. What? Please, no."

    A second later, already translucent, and the shout that tears out of her throat cracks to a desperate, terrified pitch. "Schneider--!!"

    Vertin's arms embrace nothing. The red feather dress floats, not falls, to rest draped over her. Her arms fall to her side, landing lifelessly in the dirt, and as she stares upwards at the dark clouds, the rain that Schneider's body had blocked begins to soak her coat and dampen her face.

    Vertin's raised voice draws Sonetto's face out of hiding. Moments too late, her red-tinged eyes roam around without context, and the realization is another kick while she's already down, a sharp gasp. "N-no. Sh-she-- how? Why? Then are we all...? Oh, God, Timekeeper... Schneider...."

    Wordless, motionless, Vertin lays on the ground where she was pushed like a corpse. If not for her widened eyes, the look on her face would seem just the same as any other time. Unresponsive to anything else at all, it's only minutes later that she limply lifts one of her arms, only to hide her eyes behind her forearm.

. . .

    (Concluded in +bbread 24/433.)
Regulus Regulus is a hugger. She holds onto people like they'll vanish into her arms if she doesn't squeeze a little tighter. But when she hugs Cosimo, it's really the first time that it's literally true and it doesn't matter how tightly she holds on at all.

"Okay." Regulus promises. "I'll drink till I get sick." She holds on until he's gone. And then she holds onto Sonetto's hand instead before forcing her head to look at the others, watching her world vanish before her eyes once more. It might be kinder herself to not look, but she looks. This is an hour she fought and begged for. And she doesn't want it to be a view for Vertin and Sonetto alone. As she watches Achille drink and fade away, her hand squeezes Sonetto's more tightly, the only sign behind those shades, for a moment, that she's feeling anything at all. She hoped there'd be little flukes. Flukes like her. Or the Elites. Her breath catches in her throat and she coughs. It seems, for a few precious seconds, that the arcanists and Elites have survived. Laplace's tests were right.

''So, it is that way.''

Regulus blinks uncomprehendingly. Everyone's gone, but Schneider is here that means she's good. That means she's saved. She even almost smiles when she leaps and kisses Vertin right then and there. She starts to bring her fingers up to her lips so she can tease them with a whistle and break the lingering tension, but that's when she sees Schneider's fingers going translucent.

Regulus jerks around, looking to see if it's happening to anyone else, even at her own hands.

''I'm not a real arcanist.''

Her eyes sting, she can't get the words out of her mouth. 'What do you mean you're not a real arcanist? Don't joke like that, you're obviously an arcanist.' She thinks of Lilian's words about her project. How she's going to solve all those arcanum related maladies, how it's some bacteria or something that's deciding who the Suitcase can save. She wordlessly forces open her mouth and says, "No..." As The Storm steals all her friends away again "No--!"

''I have-not spent much time with our dear lord, and yet... I find myself wishing, more than be-fore, for a time of peace; that I might spend more.''

She rushes forward like that might somehow do something but Regulus's normal luck has returned and she bangs her leg against a chair that, in her haste, she failed to see. She stumbles and falls, skinning her knee in the process. She tries to get back up, but it's too late and she legs aren't obeying her anymore. She gets about halfway up again before she falls flat on her butt.

''Vertin deserves to be able to carry everyone she's more than a little fond of in her hands.''

Regulus can't contain it any more. She's held on as best she could until the timer hit 00 : 00 : 00 She's a crybaby, it's honestly a miracle she's managed this much at all. Tears start to push our, try as she might to not make more of a scene. She always would rather be someone who promised too big than someone who never tried to do anything big. She's made promises to Schneider but she never imagined that she'd have to keep them without her.
Regulus ''No,

No, my-lord does not deserve to carry everyone she cares-for in her hands.

Our lord Vertin... de-serves everyone she loves to be taken care-of. She thrills to see them hap-py, and to do her little things of care, but she does not love dependence. She has only learned, I think- per-haps she does not know the difference?- that if she does not care for her friends, who will?

Some-times, they cannot even care for themselves. I think... I would like to care for them, too.''

It doesn't make any sense. She was one of them. She was a member of the team. She was the one who could effortlessly read someone's heart and heal it with a word and also the one who had the life hard enough that she could understand a person's harsh angles. She could help pull people like Druvis and Lilian and Sonetto together while she kept shoving her foot in her mouth and fucking up because she never had to fight a real fight until she signed on with Vertin, she took the truncheons and the insults but she never had to kill, or see people she had tried to save die before today. If she was in Cosimo's place, she wouldn't have been able to reassure anyone, would she? She'd have cried and bawled and whined like Ahn complained about.

''There's ... It feels like there's a lot of people who'd like to make sure you're taken care-of. If that's how you feel, do me a favor and let them. I'm one of them too, but--maybe between everyone...''

And Regulus made that promise, to do the same for all of them, and yet she got mad and pissy and upset because she thought she was losing her own place, because SHE felt lonely. She could have had five more minutes of Schneider. Cosimo could have had a few more minutes of...

She wasn't supposed to be taking on this promise by herself. Schneider was supposed to be there with her, stopping her from doing something stupid or alienating someone they needed to help. She wasn't kind enough, she wasn't understanding enough. Schneider was the one who knew what she must do and guided her. And Vertin loved her! She needed her, here! The Storm had taken so much away from her already, and she promised herself, she promised that she'd stop The Storm and the Foundation and the World from hurting the woman who brought her in from the rain anymore because that was what was right, what was proper, what was FAIR. It wasn't FAIR.

She tries to make it over to Vertin, but she can't get her legs to move. And she can't grieve quietly. She wails pathetically, hacking out convulsing sobs mixed in with hiccups and mumbled syllables that are more incomprehensible than any incantation. Her sunglasses tumble off her face as tears pour down her face and snot dribbles out of her nose as her cries start loud and awful and strain to hoarse and exhausted over the course of it all. She punches the floor in frustration until the skin splits. It was supposed to be different this time but all they could do was barely hold on while the Foundation and Manus pushed them around for their own goals. And because of that, because of that Schneider whom she had just grown to love...

APPLe pulls back from Sotheby, letting Moissan step in. "Thank you, Madam..." as he floats over to Regulus and rubs at her back with a hand.

"I'm sorry, dear heart..." He murmurs, eschewing piratical entrappings for the moment. "Let it all out, love. Let's get you upstairs." It'll take a while, but eventually that's where he'll lead her.