Pechi popped into Cassie's room as they were, if all was going to plan, closing in on the third planet. The white Canira had a large stack of mashcakes heaped upon a plate she was holding in her mouth, with just the slightest drizzle of reheated syrup. "F-f-figured I'd bring you b-breakfast."

Cassie's head tilted, a terse desolation in her gaze. "Leave it at the edge of the bed."

"S-still not f-feeling w-well?" asked Pechi, proceeding to wrap herself around the edge of Cassie's pillow pile.

Cassie took a bite out of one of the mashcakes. She had been unaware of how hungry she was until the burst of raw sensation washed over her tongue, the orange-flavored syrup heating her entire throat. "The journey was depressing. Unprecedentedly depressing." Cassie paused for another bite, chewing generously. There was no reason to appear a slob, even if it was just Pechi. "Given that the last world was a collection of petrified statues of previous adventurers, that was a low bar to cross."

"Sometimes y-you s-set the bar l-low and n-no one clears it anyways," Pechi agreed.

Cassie laughed, a dry sound with very little heart or mirth to it. "That's so mean."

Pechi's head tilted. "Oh." For a second, she didn't quite sound herself, then the white Canira recollected herself. "I h-heard about everything, and I just w-wanted to say, it's okay to be hopeful."
"Tabai's sentiment was similar," Cassie said, and Pechi flinched. "Can you two not talk about me behind my back? I know I messed up, and all those soarers are probably scattered to the wind, now... they were the ones who told us that they'd never see each other again if they left, and yet, when we removed the seraph horn, they all fled. They believed that there was something better out there, and there isn't! I can't believe..." Cassie turned to Pechi, so that the two were snout to snout. Cassie could feel the electric vibration between them. "You're the one who knows the most about seraphs, right?"

Pechi nodded.

"We're just playing into their game, right?"

Pechi gave her head a slow nod. "But it doesn't matter, if we win that g-game. A-anyways, th-that's not why I came in here," Pechi said. "C-Cassie, when you w-were in the crater, what did you say that m-m-m-made them all st-stop bothering you? How do-does the world end, Cassie?"

Cassie grew stiff as stone.

"Y-you'd tell m-me about it, r-right? We're f-f- we're f-f-friends?" Pechi's voice sounded honey-sick.

Cassie's voice curdled. All she could manage was, "Can you please get out of my room?"

"I- I'd k-k-k-keep it a s-s-s-secret," said Pechi, near hysterically, "Y-you s-sh-should trust your team-mates with your special, special ability, sh-shouldn't you, C-Cassie? C-can you see other kinds of apocalypses? H-h-how much c-c-c-can you see?"

Pechi's paw was uncomfortably close to Cassie's face. "Just the darkness," Cassie said. "It doesn't matter what I almost see. It just gives way back to the darkness. I'm functionally useless, except for timeline scoping, because it lets me focus on the energy of the timeline itself. Please just... Pechi, this isn't like you at all. Please, stop."

Pechi's pupils dilated to slits. "If you say so." She rose to leave, and the air around them both filled with a toxic aroma. Cassie coughed violently, several times, only to jolt awake moments later. She launched herself up onto her spindly limbs, looking around the now-empty room, and her entire body heaved with fear.

There was no plate on her bed, but her sheets were stained orange from where she'd lain her snout down. On top of that, the taste of orange and sweet in her mouth was almost sickening. Cassie nearly choked on the aftertaste. With a disappointed leer into the mirror, she stalked into the elevator.

The view of the white planet below was quite the sight. It appeared to be covered, like the previous planet, primarily in clouds, but what could be seen was white as the peaks of mountains back home. In fact, several dozen mountains shone across its surface, between deep oceans, and they were almost geometric, like temples, yet uniformly sharp as teeth.

"You've procured the coordinated?" asked Alexa, to Dusty.

"Sort of. Still no luck on the comms," Dusty said. "See, they don't line up with Tabulan principles at all. Any good Omnian engineer would tell you to work through the metal, but this metal is silent. It's like trying to hold conversation with a corpse. Depressing, isn't it?"

"Seems to be a word we're tossing around often," Cassie said, with a disinterested yawn.

"Good morning, Cassie," said Tabai, with a respectful nod. "You woke up late, but you'll be happy to know we've been following yesterday's schedule just fine."

All of Cassie's fur stood on end. She stalked past the green Canis to the quivering white Canira, who was eating her breakfast in the corner. She looked straight up as Cassie slammed a hoof onto the chair. No one had been this disruptive since Benn left, but the resulting swing of Pechi's ears was more than enough reaction to justify it, at least in Cassie's eyes.

"Were you in my room this morning?" asked Cassie, craning her long neck down so that she was level with Pechi.

"I w-wasn't i-in your room," squeaked Pechi.

"What do you mean, 'you weren't in my room'?" asked Cassie.
"I-I wish I ha-had been in your room," said Pechi. "N-never mind. B-bad joke, y-y-you didn't hear that b-bit."
Cassie leered. "You Canii have better noses than I do. Go on upstairs. Tell me if Pechi's been in my room."

"Why do you care?" asked Alexa.

"Because it's a serious invasion of privacy, and atop that, she said some sincerely troubling things regarding my abilities, things she shouldn't reasonably know. Here. Let me take a counterposition. Let's say Pechi wasn't in my room, and that the seraph is bored of us and has decided to molest us directly. Wouldn't we like to have that down for the record, too? We all decided, by consensus, that he most likely took out G'ana. He could just as easily rip back through here and give us all trouble."

"I think you're blowing this past its due proportions," Tabai said.

"It's not a bad point. You're going to have to-- stars above! Adjust the schedule, but that aside, I'd be happy to check it out," Dusty said. "You can spare me a moment from the ceaseless repairs I've been undertaking, can't you?"

"Given that you've fixed two of the ten things I've asked you to fix within the last few days, this is actually a question worthy of contention, and it really shouldn't be, Dusty," Cassie informed him. The Canis looked like he could not possibly be less interested.

"She's grumpy because the fridge is broken," Alexa suggested, from her usual position at the front of the room.

Cassie flashed them all her best smile. "I didn't know that, but that's absolutely critical, it is unacceptable that it's broken, and thank you for bringing that to my attention, Alexa!"

"Are we sure that a-all this clamor is n-necessary?" asked Pechi.

Dusty slunk into the elevator. "Not if you aren't guilty. Then again, you all should be... upstairs in five beats to begin personal maintenance before the day starts, according to Supreme Leader Cassie, over here. Toughie, can you cut us a break every once in a thousand years?"

Cassie had had her 'tough' hooves insulted enough times to almost take it lying down. "You're going to find these 'toughies' on your tail if I catch you saying that again," she argued.

Dusty smirked just as the elevator closed, shielding his face from view. Cassie gestured to the other elevator. "We really should be getting up."

Pechi crowded into the elevator with Cassie. Tabai stood outside, dawdling, and as the doors shut, sighed, "Guess I'll get on the next one."

Cassie stared up at the ceiling. As her only friend, she could trust on the ceiling not to betray her, or to insult her, or to otherwise demean her. The ceiling was lovely. The gray was almost, but not quite spotless, and Cassie admired that kind of integrity.

Pechi shuffled at her side. Cassie could feel every single movement of the Canira's fur.

"You did it?" asked Cassie.

Pechi asked, "W-what d-did I 'say' to you?"

"Kind of a stupid question," Cassie snapped.

"B-because I d-d-don't remember saying anything," Pechi said, still shuffling. It was almost irritating. "I f-f-feel like I'm being f-framed here, but I also c-can't ask you to take me on my word."

"There are some things about my past I don't want to talk about," Cassie said, as if talking to a small pup instead of a legally certified adult who should reasonably understand how to deal in situations like these. "Like all of it. You were bringing things up that made me uncomfortable, and the worst part is, I don't know how you got all that information. I thought maybe Tabai..."

"I don't care," Pechi said, then, seeing the rage and dismay on Cassie's face, clarified, "Th-th-that couldn't have b-b-b-b-- sorry, sorry-- been me, because, because I don't care about your p-p-past! At all! I f-fi-figured you c-came out here to g-g-get away f-from something, because the rest of us are es-essentially government, right under the Auspicia, and w-w-we didn't expect volunteers--"

Cassie nodded. "I had a job, and I'd done timeline scoping before. I wasn't exactly a volunteer, it was just an unorthodox transfer from where I was, with planning, to where I am." Cassie figured she shouldn't ask the logical follow-up. "My purpose on the ship is practically over, anyways. If they had turned me to stone, the only thing that would have changed is that instead of running around with our heads cut off, we'd wake up a few minutes later. Or you would. Anyways..." The elevator opened. Both of them breathed a silent sigh of relief, but they were also not leaving the shaft. It was comfortable, unfortunately enough, and the hallway had so much space for them to be not pressed against each other. "What were you trying to get away from, by joining?"

Pechi hesitated. She scanned the hallway before admitting. "W-well, it's more like wh-what I was g-going towards. I w-was told to, b-by a string of predictions, the Auspicia herself at one point, and th-then I g-gu-guess, even though my prof-f-fessional opinion barely matters, I w-w-wanted to see a s-s-seraph. E-e-even if that just im-im-plied dying in the vicinity of one. It felt like something c-c-cosmically relevant I could do."

"No offense," Cassie said. "Seriously. I mean--"

"Wh-whatever you want to say, just say it."

Cassie closed her eyes tight. "Pechi, I love you, and that's really stupid."

Pechi paused, slackjawed and silent. A darkness flickered behind her eyes and disappeared. The elevator shaft remained unmoving, the open door gesturing for them to leave. They were wasting time and being a public impediment, now. Cassie was fairly sure Pechi had maneuvered her left haunch up against the open button, which would explain why they hadn't been forced back onto the last floor. It was only when Cassie took a deep look into Pechi's longing eyes, her tilted ears, that she realized she's spoken far too abruptly. "W-what did you say?"

Cassie blurted, "Oh, nothing! Literally nothing! Anyways, I know I was aversive earlier... if that was really you, because, frankly, I'm beginning to think it might have been a fever dream, but here's the truth: my life was never terrible. It was just never very good," Cassie admitted. "Years of bullying. Bad omens. Bad... habits? I suppose. You survive, but it's not enough, I guess? No matter what you do, you get by, but you get by wondering why you haven't called it a lifetime and given some other sap your heart, and somehow, in my mind, that was the worst tragedy of all."

Pechi's ears fell. "C-cassie."

Cassie closed her eyes again. It was hard to look right at her. "We can go now. It's getting really stuffy in here."

"It is?" asked Pechi. "I m-m-mean, yes! Terribly!" She hopped out first, unwrapping herself from around Cassie. Something about the way she got up was distinctly different from that morning... just another thing to add to the mounting list of suspicions in Cassie's mind, but it had started with paranoia for Benn, too. Would it be better to pretend to play stupid? The seraph couldn't get a hold of her if she just pretended she trusted everyone to death and back, could it?

Should she feel worse about lying than she did, at the moment?

"Let's go," called Pechi from down the hall. Cassie followed her down to her room, where Dusty was already waiting.

He gave them the most incredibly dully look. "It's her scent. Could have told you about eight beats ago, but I've been... I've been out here, you know, waiting."

"Thanks," Cassie said. "My deepest apologies."

Dusty gave a quiet mumbling noise that could have been assent, disagreement, just about anything.

"Alright, s-so I was in th-there for a little bit. I just wanted to see something. Y-you wouldn't believe me if I s-said I never s-said any of th-those things, would you?" asked Pechi.

Cassie looked at her schedule. "Forget it. We've already wasted maintenance time, and we should be undocking."

"You're going to let her get away with whatever it was that has you so riled up, but me calling you 'toughie', that's tail-stomping territory?"

"Pechi and I talked it out, and more importantly, unlike you and Alexa, Pechi isn't so unbearably Canidcentric that it makes my antlers burn," Cassie responded. "It wasn't a seraph, we discussed it in the elevator, things aren't really resolved, but you should never expect resolution up here. What you should expect is a nice, clean buck in the face and for the universe to spite you for trying."

"I can't tell if that was angry or uplifting," Dusty muttered.

"We're like eight whole beats off-schedule by now," offered Cassie, instead. "Go on downstairs. I'm very sorry for throwing you off our tempo for the day, and in the future, I'll try to be less of a hassle when adhering to my own plans. Does that sound like a fair enough agreement to you?"

Dusty looked to Pechi, who was still shivering slightly. "Do you ever know how to pick 'em." The Canis sauntered back down the hall, presumably to his room to follow instructions, or to his tinkering shop, to pretend he was doing his job.

Pechi began to stammer violently. "W-wh-what was-- I wouldn't-- I'm-- I'm so not--"

"You aren't?" asked Cassie, disappointed.

Pechi shook her head. "I m-m-mean, depends on wh-what the acc-accusation was, but he seemed to be inferring that we-- and I-- it just seems-- given our dispositions, and, if you want to be old fashioned, the mechanics--"

"I grew up in a Canid-centric town. I don't know if you've ever heard of Esperada? Nice place, exactly what you think of when you think Opphemrian supersettlement. My parents were outskirters, who lived with a bunch of vegetarian plant-based Canira. We spent my childhood having tussles of opinion with the hunters, laughing on the farms, and it was perfect, even though I couldn't stand how slow it all was. When I moved to the innards of the city, I found everything I wanted, but I also found that I wasn't supposed to have anything I wanted. Jobs were hard. I spent most of my time trying to get inside doors that could only be opened by telekinesis," Cassie began.

"A-alright. Wh-when I s-s-said I di-didn't care, I w-wasn't trying to s-sucker you in," Pechi said. "You d-don't need to tell me all this. It d-doesn't answer my question, either."

Cassie finished, "And I sat in a lot of corners at parties, thinking about being in the middle. I guess I'm digressing, but it just feels good to say it, and, well, I mean, over all the time I lived there... I've loved a lot of girls."

Pechi's eyes fell to her paws. "C-Cassie, we're p-probably g-going to e-e-end up dead."

Cassie playfully nudged her with her longer antler. "Did your trees tell you that?"

Pechi bristled. "C-common sense! I can't see the future, but I know-- I know enough! And so do you! We c-c-can feel good about it, or bad about it, but this is a suicide mission."

Cassie nodded. "Sorry. I was being unprofessional."

Pechi's gaze softened, her fur flattening out. "I'm sorry, too. We can still... I mean, I'm not v-v-very good at keeping attached, but we could just... We should go get r-ready. It's g-going to be a big mission today, and the s-signs I've gotten say it's about as h-hospitable as it l-l-looks." The Canira began to walk away at a quick trot.

"Wait," Cassie said. "Can you please tell me what you think about the mission from two days ago? Did I do the right thing?"

Pechi turned. Her eyes were wide. "Wh-what do you mean, th-the right thing? Wh-what did you do wrong?"

"Nothing," said Cassie. "I was just wondering what you'd heard."

The white Canira cast Cassie a slight smile. "W-well, if you w-w-want to digress about that, b-b-be my guest," she said. "I'm g-g-going to g-g-get ready."

"Me too," Cassie said.

Pechi was already gone. Cassie entered her room. She still needed to use the facilities, just to clean her teeth up and get the scent of orange out of her mouth, but it was all over the room, too. Cassie looked across her meticulously organized belongings, from the little feather she had found when she was three, on the farm, to a moving picture of her and some friends from the city. She wished it made her feel anything, but she had assumed everyone else would bring momentos, and hadn't wanted to seem callous. All of that seemed like a joke now, given who she actually ended up on a ship with.

Still, as her eyes traced the flimsy shelves, she found that a plush of hers was missing. She had debated even bringing that, but it was collectors', and the kinegraph show it was from, Rose Buster, was this old crime drama based on a historical figure who they had blatantly flanderized into a combination vigilante and almost psychic detective, even though the real Rose Eudica, though an impeccable judge, had almost no magical talent to speak of. It would be a silly thing to steal, but somehow, someone had found it necessary.

Pechi had been in there twice this morning. Somehow, Cassie preferred the one who had stolen her stuff.