I feel like we're the slow hand on a clock as the day's tick by. Other hands get to move freely, making multiple passes and contributing while our time in this room seems endless. It would appear as though we aren't sick, though pneumonia caused by the harbor water did end up occurring much to both of our disappointments. 

It leaves him zapped of his energy and tired, though, as we near the end of the three weeks, his strength is beginning to return. I find myself grateful to not have to manage this on my own, given his fever and his need for rest, I don't know how we would have handled it in our time period. 

This sort of thing did happen at times to those in the court and commoners, but I seemed to recall it could quickly turn rather deadly. Just another reason to be grateful, I suppose.

He's off his fluids and mobile today, the best he's looked since we've arrived though I wonder how much of it is a brave face considering we're supposed to be getting out of lockdown today. "Are you sure you're feeling ok?" I ask him from beyond the bathroom door; I can hear him scrubbing his teeth for the second time this morning.

 Some parts of breakfast had not been to his liking, so cue the obsession with being clean. "Will you have any gums left when you're done with this?" Truthfully, I think he is just overly satisfied with the capability of modern-day toothbrushes compared to ours. I sigh, telling myself to give him a break. 

Getting him to eat had been a chore and frankly, worrisome.

The food here was much different in some ways, though it had the same fruits and vegetables, the meat was not the same taste as what we were used to. Bland, almost, in some way. Perhaps a bit artificial. I pick at the strawberries in the bowl on the counter, enjoying the free access to as much fruit as I'd like. While it might not have the rich, freshly picked, taste, it was plentiful.

 As I suck the juice from the oversized berry, I'm reminded of my appetite for other things and quietly scold myself. How long had it been since I'd gone weeks without him? As if on cue, he comes out of the bathroom, and I take him in.

"Are you enjoying your strawberries?" I delight in his accent but make a feeble attempt at offense and finish it off. He's dawned a pair of jeans, a strange piece of clothing that offered no support and yet was still uncomfortably snug in some places. The dense material was restricting for something that appeared to be so loose in areas. I help him with his belt as an excuse to be close to him that wasn't tending to his health.

"I am. These look good on you." Hooking my fingers in his belt loops, I yank him towards me with one firm pull. My eyes skirt over his torso, and I'm relieved to see the majority of the bruising and lash marks are gone, though there is the occasional faint circle from the cigar burns. I curse that man all over again, brushing the back of my hand over the spattering of hair on his navel. "Promise me you will start eating more?"

"I haven't needed the calories." He comments, taking my hands in his to kiss my fingers. "Maybe don't be so handsy when they're watching, yeah?"

I tilt my head. "Watching?"

"Since we arrived. They think they're clever, but I can hear them on the other side of that glass." Hmm. That's amusing. I slide my hands out of his and dive for his pants once more, causing him to recoil to slip out of my grasp. I playfully smack his ass at the opportunity and chuckle at the bewildered expression I receive. "Not very regal of you, is it? Aren't you suppose to be a King?"

I shrug. "I'm on vacation. I also think it's really hot when people watch." 

He moves to the other side of the small table that stands at only knee height, putting space between us.

"I think you're not thinking clearly; you're obviously going through withdrawal." He knows me well. I consider my plan of attack, calculating which way he'd likely try and escape. In a bold act, I place my hands on the table and slowly crawl across it as I glance up at him through my lashes.

"Do you want to know what I think?" He inhales suddenly as I come before him, hooking one of my hands in his pants as my nose nuzzles against his groin. "I think if they're looking for a show, let's give them one-" I freeze as I hear a creak, and at first, I think someone has come in only for the table to groan and crash out from under me.

I sit on the table, in a new room at least, sighing as Tanya finishes putting the sticky paste on the slice in my eyebrow. Verando is still laughing, though it's much tamer now compared to the terror followed by the realization that I was ok if not a little embarrassed.

"So, in the future, tables aren't meant to hold the body weight of a person." She comments, with a look over the top of her glasses, only to glance at my warlord accusingly. I could practically pout if my pride weren't so mangled. Flinching at the sting of the paste on my cut, I hop up to shrug from her grasp.

"Do you know how many tables I've had sex on? Maybe you need a new design for your tables." She flushes at my boldness, and I adjust the smooth, dark-colored cotton shirt. I feel almost naked; there are no vests, no tall socks, no boots or jackets. No robes, no crowns, not even an undershirt. "You people wear minimal clothes." It's almost a complaint. I wriggle in my jeans, not liking the low rise and the way they hug my hips. I feel as though gravity must be against me, and yet they don't fall.

"This is just casual wear." She informs me, offering a shirt to Verando and trying not to make eye contact. The color is black, and with the way it clings to him, I decided that maybe a lack of clothes is a good thing. "When we go out, there are multiple things you can wear depending on where you're going, but for around the compound, this is the most comfortable. Are you ready for your briefing?"

"Briefing?" More English.

"Brought up to speed. Into the loop. What's going on." She explains. Reluctantly, I nod. I was hoping to finish what I started.

A small girl enters the room, and I startle, beyond embarrassed by my lude thoughts. "Mummy, Uncle Tonic says we are ready." Her English accent melts my heart, and I instantly erase my discomfort to admire this pale-haired girl.

"Hello!" I greet her, "What's your name?"

"This is Silvia. My youngest daughter." Tonya introduces.

"I'm four." She holds up her fingers and steals a shy glance at Verando, who smiles at her. "You look like Tyler." She tells me, touching the hem of my shirt. "Can I hold your hand?"

"Of course!" I'm at her mercy as she leads me down the hall, Tonya and Verando trailing behind. I marvel at her thick, wavy, shoulder-length hair and wonder why they've cut it short, though as I think back, Helen also had short hair as well as her mother. My eyes wander as we walk at an unrealistic speed, she bobbles and bounces beside me like a bundle of energy, babbling to me about her day and making comparisons between my double ganger and me.

"I found them, Uncle Tonic! I found them all by myself!" She chimes, tugging my hand excitedly. "Tyler, he looks like you!"

"He does, Silvia. That's why he's here." Tyler holds out his arms, and I reluctantly release her as she runs to him only to yank him back over to me.

"Tell him your name; it's polite." She tells me. I smirk at her and Tonya sighs, picking her up. I swoon at my gray-haired companion, who rolls his eyes at me, shaking his head with a loss of comprehension. It's not fair. He has four children, how dare he judge me so.

"Sorry, she's a little excited. We've been pretty quiet lately, and having company is rather exciting. This is my other daughter, Briley." She gestures to a ten-year-old who's sitting cross-legged at the table, buds in her ears as she drones us out. Verando takes them in, and I can see that he is not free from effect, "Over there is Marcello. He is ex-military." She motions to the dark-skinned male who approaches to shake our hands. 

It's hard not to stare; I'm not used to the skin tone.

"Never seen a black guy before?" He teases, flashing a bright white smile. I blink rapidly and clear my throat.

"No... do you hail from Africa?"

He laughs, "Not directly, born and raised right here in good old New York City. What's left of it, at least." Tonya gives him a look, and he grimaces.

"Why do people keep saying things like that? I notice the history books you gave us stop within the last hundred years." Verando points out, crossing his arms over his chest.

Marcello opens his mouth to speak, and Tonya touches his arm. "Let's all sit down and get acquainted. We can talk about it when the kids leave." Taking our seats at the large, steel table, I glance around at the multiple screens and monitors that surround us; they flash and flicker as they continuously change their pictures, and I shift uncomfortably. 

"Security." He reassures us. "This place is hidden, got to keep it that way."

"Who are you hiding from?" Verando inquires.

"You ask a lot of questions." Marcello retorts.

"You leave a lot of information out." 

Tonic claps his hands, making us all jump.

"Alright, kids, go find your daddy. I think he was working on dinner?" Silvia snags Brenly's hand and drags her out obediently; I sigh as I tuck the dying urge to sire my own back down into the crevices of my hopes. It's just not in the cards; it's not possible. "You've all met Marcello and Tyler, of course." He gestures to Rhea. "We have Gary's mother, Rhea, obviously. Tonya, Reid, and that's pretty much it. This is what makes up the... I hesitate to say resistance?"

 Verando outwardly groans.

"Come off it, Tonic. Another resistance? You brought us four hundred fucking years into the future for a bloody rebellion?!" I'm shocked by his outburst, but at the same time, I'm also disappointed. This is not the sort of help I was hoping we could offer.

Marcello scoffs, "You are Gary's father, aren't you? It's not a rebellion, per se. The earth is dying. We're like... eco-warriors? We are the only ones that we know of who haven't accepted that the planet is doomed."

So that's the case with all the secrets. They didn't want to tell us that the world was over, and they brought us here to die with them. My heart stops, and I sink back into my chair as I ponder our situation. Tonya quickly sits up, grabs a remote, and puts a picture on a screen. 

It's what looks like a city; only it's been entirely overtaken by sand. She flips to the next one, another city underwater, the next one being a city overtaken by the forest around it and crops overflowing but unreachable. 

"The world is out of balance. I'm sure you read some of that. As if we are missing a piece? The government is working on a solution, but its solution is campaign tours and propaganda. Recycle, take shorter showers, we think there has to be more to this."

"You build buildings out of steel and wonder why the earth is dying? Look at the size of these cities; they're massive." Verando grumbles; I have to agree with him, they're bigger than anything we've ever known. I've never seen so many streets and buildings, the height alone is more than we could fathom. Sure, we had massive castles but nothing on this scale.

 "Are you hoping Nic can make it rain? Correct me if I'm wrong but, Nic, you can only work with what's in the sky already?"

I sigh, watching the screen as I take all of this in. "To an extent. I'd run out of magic long before I could fix that. I might be powerful, but there's a limit. If I overuse, it taps into Verando's life source, and he can die."

Tyler is sitting bolt-upright in front of us. "There's where I come in, sir. We don't need you to fix our mess; we need you to teach me how to do it. There's somethin' wrong; I can feel it."

"Tyler, forgive me, but you're very, well, green. This is a job for the school, have you consulted with the dragons? With Bogdan?"

"We can't find Bogdan; the solomonari are gone, Nic." Tonic tells me firmly. It just seems too hard to believe. I look to Verando whose face is composed, yet I can see the ridge of his eyebrow is tense as he takes this all in. He knew this would happen, and none of us believed him. 

"There are no magic users left. Tyler is the only one we have found, and that was by accident. I think the government is putting a suppressor in the water, or maybe they've just figured out how to eradicate the gene. I have searched this entire globe, looking for another group, looking for a group like what we all had... I have not found one." 

Reid frowns at him and nods in agreement.

"We searched for close to a hundred years, trying to find more lycans, more like us. Eventually, there weren't even strigoi to be found anymore. We even went back to find Stefan, but Mother and the whole coven had been wiped out."

"End of days," Verando tells them in a sober tone. "Mother told me that she had a vision that the world as we knew it was coming to a close, our time was over. It would appear as though she was right."

Tonya puts her hand over his mouth as she settles back into her chair once more. The room falls silent. "What does Whitewind say?" Tonic presses.

Verando snorts unceremoniously in response, making an annoyed face. "I can't just 'speak' with him, Tonic. You know that. The last I spoke to Whitewind, he said he was looking forward to seeing how things played out. I assume he was talking about this. The world can not go on forever; it makes sense. I think this is a waste of time."

Marcello laughs, folding his hands behind his head. "Well, aren't you just a peach? So you say we should give up then? Move on? Die out?"

"Yes." His tone is cold. 

I purse my lips, trying not to get frustrated at him. I don't think it's his lack of belief in me; I think it's the vast amount of hopelessness in our situation.

"Randy." I try, encouraging him to keep it to himself if he must grumble. "How many areas are affected?" I ask, turning my attention to the group.

Rhea stands, walking to a panel on the table a pressing a button that pops up a stand-alone image of the world. We both practically leap out of our seats, and he steadies me when we come to realize it's a fake image, just like the one Fergus produced. Fergus. "The entire globe is affected though there are regions that go through periods of normalcy. It seems to follow world leaders. Explain that to me and tell me it's the end of days." She crosses her arms under her large breasts.

"What happened to Fergus?" I demand. "A unicorn has infinite power; you'd think he'd be attempting to fix this."

The room goes silent. "Nic, the government has Fergus."

"How could you let that happen? Why didn't you kill it before something like a corrupt legion could get their hands on him?!" Verando's outburst makes me jump once more, and I search the table with my eyes. 

This can't be the end of days. There has to have been something else we are missing. There has to be a reason for all of this. There has to be someone behind this.

Tonic rolls his eyes, running a hand through his hair. "With what army, Randy!? Reid and I? Fergus was not our responsibility and when Tomas died-" I see the pain cross my warlords face. "When Tomas died, Fergus went off on his own. It was released some years ago that the government has collected a mythical being. Sources confirmed it was Fergus."

"Lovely. So, this is a rebellion. You're not out to save the planet; what you need to do is pick up where we left off, and in case you were wondering, we were gearing up to lose that fight. Mafia, government, the fucking gods, you can not stand against that many with so few. You can read it the same as I did in those very texts you gave me, if this is an inside job, we have already lost."

"We're trying to buy time," Tonya tells him firmly. "If we can stop the earth from deteriorating, then we can maybe reset this."

He laughs, shaking his head. "How? Nic? One Solomonari can not control the weather of the world."

"So you suggest we don't even try?" Marcello stands, and Verando rises to meet him.

"I'm saying, accept the bed you've chosen to lie in!"

"Stop!!" I yell, smacking my hand on the table. Everyone falls silent once more. "The government has to live in this world, too. Ending it seems rather self-destructive. Even my sister didn't want to end the world; she wished to rule it." I stand up to walk over to Rhea, asking her to show me a close-up of the expanse of land. 

She enhances the image, and I'm shocked such a request can be fulfilled. I try and make sense of what I'm looking at, watching the scattered plains of dry, wet, and abundant as if they were stacked layers. "This is where we are?" I point to the North American continent. "What's this look like? Across the pond." She turns the globe, showing me the European side.

"They seem to be going through a 'healing' period." She remarks. "See this? Patterns are returning to normal. But if you look here-"She points to Africa. "Massive flooding, and here-" She leads to the Asia region. "No clouds at all."

"So, the clouds are clustering..." I frown. This doesn't make any sense. "Randy, I know we came from a world where the Mafia controlled every aspect of our lives, but... this doesn't look like a 'government' thing. This is different." I try and meet his gaze, but he's not interested. 

"I think we need to try." The room breathes a sigh of relief. Helen hugs me tightly from the side, and I awkwardly pat her. "There's nothing to lose. Its do this or wait for oblivion; I've never been good at waiting." The weather is something I can do, something I was trained to do. If it really could be as simple as training Tyler and returning balance to the universe, I had to try.