===>
By the time you get home, you are that awful, harangued kind of exhausted that you basically have the least patience for out of every kind of tiredness there is.
Handing over the lantern had gone on well enough. Even when you gave it to the consorts, it didn’t go out, and it was passed down a chain of little red dragons, around a corner and out of your sight. You guess that now they’re doing whatever they need to do to it to use it.
The problem had come after that, when you were surrounded by a flock of them, looking up at you all awed and grateful, each wanting to hesitantly touch a paw to your hands, to thank you, thank you for saving them. You did not have the heart to tell them that you were tired and short-tempered and sore and really just wanted to go home already, so you were stuck there for a little longer than you would have liked.
But you get home. Starting to feel almost as zombie-ish as you did when you’d barely woken up this morning, you get home, and you stagger into the kitchen and manage to consume half a loaf of rye bread straight out of the plastic bag. You must really need the carbs, because it tastes as delicious as a meal you’d have to spend hours on. You fall upon two red apples and a peach after that, figure that that should hold you until morning, and head into the shower.
The water stays hot. It’s a fucking godsend, and it silences your body’s fuck-you song and dance routine for long enough that you swear you could fall asleep standing up. As it is, you zone out for about half an hour before you finally grab soap and scrub yourself off, and then you take the extra half an hour necessary to really wash your hair.
You probably resemble nothing as much as a half-drowned rat when you finally emerge, but Siskier is waiting for you in your bedroom. You fall happily onto the bed in nothing but the fluffy bathrobe, and lay on your front while she towels your hair off.
It feels nice as any fucking thing, and you stretch out like you are a cat and curl up and get out your PDA. Everyone’s offline. You spend five minutes staring kind of morosely at Nessiah’s handle. You wonder what he’s been doing all day. You really wish he was here with you right now, sitting on your other side and giving you crap for just lying around and letting Siskier play with your hair as much as she wants.
You shut your eyes and imagine it.
What is everyone else doing right now? Wouldn’t this evening feel a lot better if everyone was in the same place, even at the risk of some bickering? To your knowledge, everyone is still split up, on his or her individual world. Nessiah’s absence is like a toothache, and it’s been too long since you’ve been able to tuck Emilia in at night and then swap silly stories with her until she falls asleep. If Yggdra got to reunite with her sisters, maybe she’d be a lot calmer. You wonder if Luciana and Aegina miss their dad. You wonder if Leon would relax Elena’s house arrest if everyone was around to look after her. You wonder if Siskier might not want someone else around who she could talk sprite things with.
You could make everyone dinner, and everyone would fall asleep in rooms next to each other. You could sleep with Nessiah next to you, really sleep and not just nap, wake up on Prospit at the same time, already holding each other’s hands.
You open your eyes and sigh. Knowing that you did good work and helped people today doesn’t stop you from feeling miserable and alone.
When your PDA goes off in your hand, you yell and bolt upright and drop it, making Siskier shriek a little and zoom backwards. It bounces on the mattress. You snatch the stupid thing out of midair and whip it open, your face and ears already getting kind of hot with embarrassment and petty anger.
-- clockworkGriefer [CG] began pestering genocideAura [GA] --
CG: PICK UP
CG: PICK UP PICK UP PICK UP YOU GODDAMN PIECE OF FUCK
CG: I KNOW YOU’RE THERE, ASSHOLE, YOU CARRY YOUR GODDAMN PDA LIKE IT’S YOUR NEWBORN CHILD, I NEED TO TALK TO SOMEBODY AND YOU’RE THE ONLY PERSON WHO’S FUCKING ONLINE
GA: jesus balls leon you nearly gave me a heart attack
GA: what the hell is so important that you had to try to make my organs leap out of my ribcage
CG: WE HAVE A PROBLEM
END OF DAY TWO.