That evening, Taya dreams.

She dreams of green meadows with yellow spring flowers stretching limitlessly beneath a cloudless blue sky. A warm breeze snakes through her hair and ruffles the edge of her blouse. She breathes sweetness and comfort deep into her lungs and over her tastebuds.

She cautiously sits and feels the press of petals against her palms. A count of three later and she sprawls out completely until the plants twine into her hair and tickle the backs of her ankles. She watches the rising and falling of her own chest with a deep fascination.

This could be perfect, or as close to perfect as she can think of. She can’t remember why it would be, but her cheek tingles.

“You really like him? Mr. What’s his name?”

“Flint. He said his name was Flint.”

She raises her eyes and finds the mirror-face staring down at her. His hair spills over both shoulders and dangles above her nose. Taya bats it away without thinking and sits up. Daffodil petals fall from her hair.

“It’s a funny name. I like ‘Amazing Phantasm’ better and that’s not really saying much.”

“Oh, are you talking to me again?” This is where she’s supposed to be cool and collected. What would Adenne do? Probably sit here with a huffy look on her face and focus obsessively on her hair. Taya attempts to twirl a strand through her fingers but it slips loose and she has to grab a new strand.

“...I came back?”

“I can see that.”

He pouts and the soulful expression is so unlike her that her frown cracks. She pulls a strand of grass out from behind her ear. “Lecturing is a funny way of saying hi.”

“Sorry. I just don’t trust him.”

“I don’t have a reason to trust you, either.” Her fingers lace together and she stretches her arms out in front of her until her shoulders yield a satisfying crickety crick at the joints. “You could be a figment of my imagination or an evil magician-”

“-aren’t you a magimute?”

“-okay, so not an evil magician. But something shifty and manipulative! Maybe I just haven’t thought of what, yet,” she stretches her arms up to the sky and watches the silhouette of her palms against the blinding sunlight. “Anyway, he saved my life.”

They avoid each other’s eyes, hers distracted by the brilliant colorless sky and his lost in the endless swooping hillside. A gentle breeze nudges the grass and the flowers into a reluctant sway and he watches it for several awkward silent minutes. He then loops his hair behind his ears and sighs. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m happy he interrupted an’ I’m really really happy you’re okay. Underline the happy, even, and add a couple hundred more reallys. But he still gives me the creeps.”

She unlaces her fingers and spreads them against her braid instead, rolling it between fingers and dusting her palm with its broom-like end. “Well, I like him.”

“Like?” His ears prick up and he swivels abruptly. The corner of his face turns splotchy red, and is it her imagination or does his voice raise a pitch? Any sobriety of the conversation ends when he scoots his knees close to her feet and stares up at her. “Like as in you like him, or like as in you ‘like him’ like him?”

“I’m not exactly sure of the-”

“Wait! Don’t tell me. It’s none of my business.” He half stands half flops to his feet while covering his face with a most dramatic arm. “Don’t want to know.”

“Didn’t you ask-“

“I don’t want to interfere,” he continues, voice filled with vebratto. “It’s not my place to _comment_. Just promise me you’ll call if something goes wrong? Just in case?”

“How do I do that?”

“You don’t know? But you...” He stops melodramatic pouting and frowns with half his mouth. He reminds her of Sherlocke Holmes deep in thought, except without the pipe or funny hat. The expression melts away once she notices it and he puts his hands around hers.

Even her dream face can light like a candle.

“Just hold your necklace like so, and then chant the calling spell. I promise it’ll work. Just repeat after me.”

“Tayachan?”

“Hmhwha?

Koneko frowns at the sprawl legged ball of covers and flops down ontop of Taya’s ankles. The bed shakes and sproingity sproings back into place without actually moving its occupant. Taya clings to sleep as firmly as she tucks a pillow against her chin.

“Wakeup time, yeah?”

“Mmph.”

“S’laaaaate.” Koneko blows her bangs up with a puff of air and cocks her head to the side to stare at her sleeping roommate. Her knees jut out at awkward angles and she rocks from hip to hip while she waits.

There’s a secret here. Quiet waves of comfort radiate from the bed like lazy swoops of sunlight. She’s finally adjusted to the normal feeling of Taya, a lukewarm blob of doubt and insecurity that makes her fur prickle, and the change is suspiciously pleasant.

People aren’t usually happy after they get held up at knife point. What isn’t she saying? Koneko yawns deep and flicks an ear. “Eat your toes if you don’t wake uup.”

“Hrmum?”

To explain her point, she tugs up a corner of the blanket - not exactly difficult given its state of sprawl - and pokes one of Taya’s pink feet. The bundle of hair, body, and blanket Eep!s and squirms awake. Ah. Ticklish roommate.

“Don’t do that!”

“O-ha-yo~!”

“I think you gave me a heart attack.” Taya scoots her legs out from under the furry weight and tucks them against her headboard. She left-handedly pushes herself sitting and right-handedly protects her maligned toes.

“No, just startled ya. Would know the difference.” Sly cat smile, ponytail waggling over her shoulder like a tail. Koneko flaunts the feline gift of looking smug at any opportunity.

“Bah.” Taya sticks her tongue out briefly and frumps the covers off her legs. Koneko scrambles to avoid getting thwacked with folds of cotton. She perches, warily, on the foot of the bed.

“An-y-way,” she ventures, “S’noon. Up, yeah? Hunting for job places?”

“Oh!” Memories start to emerge from her parting sleep haze. Plans of morning strolls and window peekings until they find a place that could use a not so adept hand. Right, that. Sage’s money is starting to come up short and they need to do something to fix that. She can’t live forever on Nyamal hospitality. “It’s really late, isn’t it?”

“Said that already.”

“I’m sure I could wash dishes, right? Without, um, breaking them.” Taya’s hands vanish into the laundry heap. She pulls out shirts and holds them up for wrinkles, tossing them back if they don’t pass inspection. “Or, or I could sort things. I’m good at sorting things.”

Koneko stretches in a U-shaped arc before springing to her feet and meandering toward a window-shaped patch of light on the floor. “Daijoubu, I said.”

“Maybe. Or maybe I’ll mess up in some big horrible way. And then, and then they’ll kick us out, because I broke something important and irreplaceable, and we’ll have to move somewhere else?”

A skeptical purple eyebrow.

“It could happen,” she insists. Her slim fingers wring the edge of her blouse before she notices and desperately smoothes it out. “...You’re going to tell me that won’t happen, aren’t you?”

“Gather courage an try. Will be there with you.”

“...Right. Thanks. I’ll be fine. I just need to, um, try. And breathe. Try and breathe.” Her reflection is a terrified mouse of a girl in borrowed clothing. The sleeves are too long and they make her hands look tiny and useless. Her ridiculous mane of hair rebels against hairbrush perfection. And her face is nothing more than large skittish eyes and flustered cheeks.

But she’s going to do this. She’s been surviving this far and she’s not going to suddenly give up just because there’s something new to pull the bottom out of her stomach.

The worst that can happen is they run her out of town, and she’s done that already. So! ...So.

“Let’s go.”