The teens had a good time exploring Mistral--blissfully unaware of what went down with the older members.

Penny had joined them, since Kip was.... He was apprehensive at first, but he really wanted to see the city.

https://youtu.be/jhprGJVDoYs

[Hello, Hello--Elton John, Lady Gaga]

They went around the streets. Everything looked new to most of them. Ruby hadn't gotten a good look at the shops and market before.

Yang got hung up for a while at a place that was selling vehicles--particularly the motorcycles.

She couldn't afford a new one, but she could window shop, she said.

Actually this point interested some of the guys also--namely team SSSN and Mercury, though he didn't like to admit it, but a faster set of wheels would have been nice to have now that they had no transportation.

"But a car would be better," Sun argued, just as if it mattered. They couldn't buy--or even rent, either.

"I don't know, a bike can go a lot more places," Neptune said. "And Mistral cars are kind of...you know, not the best quality. Not Atlas standard, for sure. Unless you come to Argus."

"But the bikes are?" Scarlet asked. [If you don't remember, he's their teammate.]

"Well, it depends, but that brand is from Argus." Neptune pointed to one sleeker, long one. "It's more expensive because it's imported, but you know, you can't put a price on quality."

"Is that why you spend so much on hair gel?" Sun asked.

"Shut up," Neptune said.

Yang peered at the bike in question. "Hmm, you know, you're not wrong. I didn't think you guys knew anything about bikes."

"I don't really," Sun said.

"Neptune has his own," Scarlet explained. "I've been on it a couple times...but I think it's too scary."

Scarlet was always a wimp. He probably only was training to be a huntsman because his parents thought he should toughen up. [At least that's my headcanon. Guy complains about sand in his shoes.]

"You have your own bike?" Yang asked Neptune directly.

"At home," Neptune said, rubbing his head. "Geez, I wonder if it's even been polished in ages."

"Why didn't you bring it to Vacuo?" Sun said. "That would have been so cool."

"Do you know how expensive it is to ship something that big to Vacuo?" Neptune said. "And they steal everything! I wasn't risking it!"

"Good point, that probably would have happened," Sun said. "You are kind of an easy target."

Their other teammates laughed, and Mercury snickered also.

Emerald rolled her eyes. "Who cares?" she said. "Can we please go look at something else?"

"What, something girly?" Mercury said.

"And this is such a productive use of our time?" Emerald said.

"You sound like Weiss," Yang waved her off. "How did I not know this before?"

She was talking about the bike.

"You never asked," Neptune shrugged.

"Which is kind of funny," Sun said, "because I totally asked after I saw how cool he was balancing on that motorcycle when we fought on the bridge. You remember that?"

"I was literally the one driving," Yang said.

"Yeah, and you didn't wonder about that?" Blake said. "I mean, it makes sense. He wears goggles."

"Yeah, all the time," Neptune said.

"Thought they were for swimming," Emerald said.

She didn't understand why everyone laughed at that until Sun said, "Neptune is afraid of wa--"

Neptune hit him in the stomach before he could finish.

"Water?" Mercury said. "I remember that. That is so pathetic! Hey, look out, it might rain again." He pointed at the sky.

The fact that Neptune actually flinched slightly only made Mercury laugh more. "Wow, you're actually scared."

"I am not!" Neptune said. "I just don't want to get my hair wet."

"Are you a girl?" Mercury said.

"Stop saying stuff like that," Emerald said. "You sound sexist."

"I guess you're right--that's unfair to women," Mercury said. "Being afraid of raindrops is something I'd see more from a baby bird."

Yang grew tired of listening to Mercury and shoved him into a tree trunk.

"Shut up," she said.

"Hey!" Mercury got mad and turned to put his fists up.

But the look he got from Blake, Sun, and Emerald told him that if he started it with Yang he'd be fighting at least 3 people--and wasn't getting any help.

He backed off and walked away.

"What is his problem?" Sun rubbed his head.

"I don't know," Emerald said. "I guess he still doesn't really like being here... I'm sorry. I can't really control him, you know. We're just teammates."

"Well, maybe he should keep his mouth shut then." Yang had not forgotten Mercury humiliating her in the festival--or Emerald, but since Emerald had been more help, she was inclined to direct her anger at the other party.

"I mean, he was just ragging on you a little." Emerald wasn't anything like polite enough yet to really feel that bad for Neptune. "It is a pretty stupid phobia."

"It is not!" Neptune said. "And I'm not afraid."

"Everyone knows you are," Blake said. "It's fine. No one but them is judging you anyway."

"Sure," Yang said. "Blake is afraid of dogs."

"No I'm not!" Blake's ears went back.

"Everyone has stupid fears," Sun said. "I'm afraid of Blake's dad...except that's not really stupid. He's kind of terrifying."

"Uh, yeah." Blake didn't even try to deny it. "And Yang, you hate it when people cut your hair."

"Okay, that's not a fear," Yang said. "That's like...a trigger."

"You ever have that dream where someone cut your hair without permission?" Neptune said. "Like, half of it?"

"Yeah," Yang said. "I hate that dream. Or that they dyed it, like, this horrible color."

"Is that normal to dream?" Sun said.

"I don't know, I've dreamed that I ran out of tuna..." Blake said.

"Oh, I've had the same thing with bananas," Sun said, "or that they were moldy. Wow, this is like a whole thing?"

"I never dream about dumb things like that," Emerald said. "Real nightmares are a big enough problem. "

She walked after Mercury.

"Well, that was weird," Neptune said. "Is it just me or are they kind of not warming up to the rest of us?"

"Oh, no, it's just you," Blake said, flatly.

"Huh, that's funny, because I had the same thought," Sun said.

Blake just gave him a look.

"Who cares about them?" Yang said. "They're being buzzkills. I don't even know why Black came--he's supposed to be resting. And we all know he stabbed us in the back. I can't believe we're acting like nothing happened."

"Can we not talk about that?" Blake said. "Let's just get back to exploring. I think Ruby and Weiss went on ahead with the younger kids...and...uh, not to be too paranoid, but should we be worried about that Kip kid and Penny? They're not the most socially aware people."

"A robot and a cyborg going across Mistral, the most superstitious kingdom?" Neptune said. "I wonder what could go wrong there. How is he a cyborg again?"

"His mom," Sun said.

"Uh...but have you noticed how much of him is a cyborg?" Neptune said. "Like...he's gotta be 50% at least."

"So?" Sun said.

"So his mom took his body parts off and replaced them with robot parts," Neptune said. "All of them..."

Sun got a weird look. "Oh...hey, that's pretty messed up."

"Ew!" Blake said. "I don't even want to know what you're thinking, but I can't imagine doing that to my own family."

"Isn't there, like, some law against operating on your own family?" Yang didn't really know.

"It's not illegal," Neptune said, "but it's like...strongly advised against. Too personal."

"Dude," Sun said, "I told you to stop lawyering people. Even if your mom is a lawyer, it's weird."

"Your mom is a lawyer?" Blake said.

"Uh...yeah..." Neptune didn't look like he wanted to discuss it.

[All from the wiki again.]

"Didn't we talk about this already?" Sun said.

"I forgot if we did," Blake said. "But I guess it's not really weird. Just not what I expected."

"She's scary," Sun said. "You know, it explains a lot."

"Shut up " Neptune said.

"Better than a bandit, I guess," Yang muttered. "Not by much, but..."

"What does your dad do?" Blake asked.

Silence.

"Uh, my dad isn't around," Neptune said awkwardly.

"Oh..." Blake said. "Sorry."

It could be easy for Blake, one of the only people with two parents out of the whole group, to forget that that was far from common. In Remnant, relationships were hard enough due to the general division between the people groups, but Grimm attacks and other dangers made it even worse. As much as 50% of the population, some people said, had only one parent at home growing up or currently. 

Because men tended to work more dangerous jobs where more Grimm were, often that parent was the mom, but not always, since there were plenty of huntresses. Ruby and Yang's situation wasn't that uncommon.

Yang didn't want to think about this, so she changed the subject. "Do you think there's any place where we can find some real music playing instead of all this street stuff?"

"I kind of like that," Blake said.

"It's not catchy enough," Yang said. "I'm more in the mood for the club scene."

"Uh, this isn't Vacuo," Neptune said. "I don't think they're going to let us in."

"Have you forgotten who I am?" Yang scoffed. "I always get in."

"Right..." Neptune recalled that. "But at gunpoint?"

"Okay, what did you guys do when you were hunting for leads?" Sun asked. 

"Oh, Junior's guys just got a little gun happy," Yang blew it off. "It was no big deal. I handled it."

"Yeah, it was pretty cool," Neptune said carelessly. "The whole room was, like, terrified. Too bad it wasn't useful... Wait though, isn't the guy with the hat the same one we were looking for?"

"Yeah...you didn't realize that till now?" Blake said.

"Hey, excuse me if that wasn't my first guess when I thought he was supposed to be some big problem," Neptune said.

"At this point, Torchwick seems like a schoolyard bully compared to what we're dealing with," Yang said. "But it is weird that he's working with us...though now that we have that b---- Cinder, and Watts, that kind of puts a new spin on it. Ugh, I still can't believe we're letting her follow us."

"I thought we weren't going to talk about it," Sun said.

"It pisses me off!" Yang said. "I mean, I agreed to it, but it's still...ugh!"

"What did Shine say to you?" Blake asked. "I didn't think you were ever going to agree. It must have been pretty powerful."

Yang went silent.

After a moment of waiting, Sun changed the subject. "Maybe we could find somewhere that serves noodles. I'm hungry."

They dropped the subject of the villains for the time being.

The young group, and Penny--who really wasn't any age in particular--ahead of them were looking at the stalls of knick-knacks.

Kip's eyes were huge.

"Everything is so colorful," he said.  "So much green...and there's no sand."

"Nope," Penny agreed. "Mistral is sand free!"

"Cool." Libby, who of course had tagged along, lifted a dagger off a table. "Look at the engravings on this. Must be worth 50 lien."

Whitley wasn't very interested. "This whole place looks like a den of thieves," he muttered.

The craftsman gave him a dirty look.

"Oh, don't mind him--he's just out past his bedtime," Libby winked.

The craftsman smirked.

Whitley was put out.

As they were turning away, he saw Libby slipping the dagger into her jacket.

"What are you doing?" he said. 

"Nice distraction--he looked away," Libby said.

"How can you do that? Put that back," Whitley said.

"But it's worth a lot..." Libby said. "And he has plenty. Come now."

"I am not moving another step." Whitley stood stock still. "And I'm taking it out of your pay."

"Hardly worth stealing it if I have to pay for it," Libby sighed. "Fine..."

She turned back. "Whoops, forgot to put it down." She grinned at the craftsman, who gave her a look that said he wasn't buying it

But he couldn't exactly yell "thief" if she put it back.

"I never have any fun around you," Libby complained, walking away.

"I thought you had a positive outlook," Whitley shot back. "There can't be any stealing in a SDC employee--our reputation has suffered enough."

"You and your rules," Libby said rudely.

But she forgot about it, as she was more interested in the marketplace.

Ruby spent more time than she really needed to at a comic book store looking for new issues that she could not lend Jaune next time he ran out.

Kip was interested in the bookstore. He apparently also read a lot, but he'd never seen so many books that weren't about science.

"I did find the encyclopedia of Grimm," he said, "and a history of Atlas development. My mother's favorites."

"Why is that not surprising?" Yang had followed them thus far to keep an eye on Ruby.

"Did you read those?" Blake asked more politely.

"Mother used to read them to me as bedtime stories." Kip looked through one. "It's fascinating. But there's so many other kinds of stories here... Fairytales?"

"Those might just be history at this point," Weiss mused.

"Botany!" Kip beelined for a different section. [There's a joke in that sentence, if you look hard enough.]

"Who wants to read about DNA?" Ruby said.

"Remember what his mom is into," Weiss said. "And Botany is the study of plants, Ruby. Biology is DNA."

"Oh, right," Ruby said. "Hey, it's not my fault--I never got to that class."

"Botany wasn't a class at Beacon," Weiss said. "It's a hobby."

"A useless one in Vacuo." Libby picked up a book. "But you read what you can get. I never was that picky. When I don't know what a book is about, I just play games with guessing it. Like this one word I saw--'Paraplegic' sounds fun. I pretended it was about sky-diving."

"Uh...but it's..." Weiss looked pained. "...not about..."

"Oh, I could see that." Yang wasn't helping. "Like parachute, right?"

"Right," Libby said. "I don't know what it actually means, but it's more exciting to picture that, isn't it?"

"Yeah, but..." Weiss said, "it's--"

"Isn't that someone who can't walk?" Sun broke in unceremoniously.

Blake nudged him.

"When they're paralyzed," Neptune supplied, "that's all."

"That would make that account make more sense," Libby said.

"How could you get those things mixed up?" Weiss was dumbfounded. "They're completely different."

"Hey, I don't know what you high class people do with your time. Anything is possible," Libby said.

"Where did you find this girl again?" Neptune asked Whitley.

"In a sandstorm," Whitley said. "Apparently she used to live in a sewage pipe."

"Oh..." Neptune said. "Cool..."

"I think it's awesome," Sun said, "one of us Vacuo people moving up in the world, though she really could be a huntress if she wanted to do that."

"Apparently the school wouldn't take her," Whitley said.

"Well, that's just rude," Sun said with a straight face.

Blake choked on a laugh.

"Ruby, can we go yet?" Weiss said.

"I'm surprised you want to leave somewhere with books," Yang said.

"Well, I got more than I really should have." Weiss held up a bag. "It's not like we have time for studying, but Winter always says to keep your mind sharp between missions."

"You know your problem, Weiss?" Yang began to give her unsolicited feedback. "Is you never do anything just for fun. It's all discipline. " 

"And yours is you never do anything for discipline--it's all fun," Weiss shot back.

"Oh, here we go," Blake sighed.

"What's going on?" Sun asked.

"This is going to go on for 20 minutes at least," Blake said. "This used to happen every time Yang wanted to leave the dorm on the weekends at Beacon. We had to tell Weiss there was 'observation value' before she'd even go to the docks with us."

"Both my sisters are allergic to fun," Whitley said. "Honestly, I think they literally will break out in hives."

Libby laughed. 

"I just don't see how you can really call it living if all you do is work." Yang was still on.

"At least working is bettering yourself instead of just frittering around wasting your time," Weiss replied.

"Hey, I think we've all been working hard enough," Yang said. "We could use some wasted time."

"That is the kind of thinking that is just mind boggling," Weiss said.

"Because it's so genius?" Yang grinned.

"No!" Weiss was almost too horrified for words.

Ruby was backing away slowly. "So I'm just going to grab a few more things," she said. "Maybe I'll get something for Oscar, since he didn't feel like coming out."

"Ruby--" Blake decided to just follow her. "--did something happen to Oscar? He looked kind of bad when you guys finished your meeting... Did we miss something important?"

"Oh...uh..." Ruby hedged. "I think...he'll be okay."

Actually Ruby didn't know if Oscar would be okay. That had been scary. Was the curse getting worse again? It had been getting better for so long, they'd taken it for granted that Oscar would stay himself...but what if he didn't?

That made Ruby sad. She'd gotten fond of him.

Blake could at least see it was bothering her enough to worry herself personally.

"Is it Ozpin?" she asked.

"I.. Maybe we should just ask him," Ruby said. "I don't know if I should talk about it without permission."

That worried Blake further.

Ruby didn't volunteer any more info about it or the meeting after that either.

They were still trying to enjoy themselves, but it put kind of a damper on it.

After leaving the bookshop--with Yang and Weiss still arguing, but it was petering out--they headed more towards the center of town, where there were wider streets.

Here you also could see more innocent fun than in the back streets. It was still early autumn, so people were out and playing music. Some were even doing folksy dances around a fountain or trees, or making banners.

"Is there an holiday here?" Libby asked.

"Oh, I guess it's just about time for the Vytal Festival," Neptune said. "Forgot about that. They hold it a little earlier here than in Vale, Mistral style."

"Haven't you been?" Sun asked.

"Uh...once when we were really little," Neptune said. "Don't remember that much except the food--that's pretty good. Mostly Argus doesn't do much. I mean, it's small compared to Vale's celebration anyway, but they do the stuff in the kingdom's colors and all that."

"Wow, you are just a bevy of information," Yang said. "Closet nerd. Who knew?"

"I am not a nerd!" Neptune said. "I'm just from Mistral! Why wouldn't I know? Do you know about the Vale stuff?"

"She was just kidding," Weiss said.

"Yeah. Geez," Yang said.

"He's a little touchy about it," Sun hissed. "Just pretend you don't notice if he says something that sounds smart."

"That shouldn't be too hard--it doesn't happen that often." Yang couldn't resist that.

* * *

They were on their way back to the house when they saw Shine and Wally on one street where some people were playing music and dancing or singing.

The mood seemed upbeat.

"I'm glad that the refugees didn't cause too many problems here," Blake commented.

"That looks fun," Kip said. "What are they doing?"

"Do you...not know what dancing is?" Ruby asked.

Kip gave her a blank look.

"Oh, that is sad," Penny said. "Even I know what dancing is, because of the party at Beacon."

"I mean, I guess living in your mom's basement isn't the best way to learn..." Yang said.

"We should go," Penny said.

"Oh, I don't know. Isn't that kind of awkward?" Blake said.

"But Kip would like to try it," Penny said.

"I would?" Kip said. "Is it fun?"

"Oh, it's loads of fun," Sun said. "If you're into that. Of course Neptune--"

Neptune gave him a look.

"--But you should if you want." Sun changed his mind.

"Ah, shy about your lack of skills, Twinkle Toes?" Yang teased rather mercilessly.

"Shut up," Neptune said. "I just don't like it, all right?"

Weiss rolled her eyes.

"I don't think it's that official," Ruby said, "so no worries. Maybe we should help Kip have fun. I can't dance though."

"Come on, Ruby." Yang grew tired of this defeatist talk and grabbed her arm, then yanked her toward the group of dancers.

Weiss, Blake, and Sun followed willingly enough, and Penny and Kip.

At first Kip just kind of watched nervously, but finally they pulled him into kind of try to hop around.

Neptune hoped no one made him join in.

Shine and Wally were dancing, but they waved at the kids.

"Who knew they'd show up here?" Wally said.

The song ended.

"Hey, you, Vacuo people," said one of the musicians, "why don't you give us a tune from your kingdom?"

"Oh no..." Sun said. "Do they mean us?"

"Is it that obvious?" Weiss asked. "How? Do I look like Vacuo?"

"Well, you do have sand on your shoes." Libby had found them by this time, though Whitley refused to participate in this. She was tapping her foot.

"I do?" Weiss looked at her heels.

"You could sing an Atlas tune," Ruby said, "couldn't you, Weiss?"

"Relax, girls, I've got this," Shine said.

"Oh, well, that does make sense," Sun said. "Hey, remember that cool song you sang at the tents? People loved that... Something about glowing?"

"I think we can do better than that," Shine said. "But first let's see if they can find the tune."

"If you can hum it, we can play it." The musicians were offended by that remark.

"I might have known she'd do this," Yang said. "Show off."

"Hey!" Weiss said.

"What?" Yang said.

"So singing in public is showing off now?" Weiss put a hand on her hip. "That's just rude, Yang."

"Oh, please don't start again," Blake said. 

"I didn't mean you," Yang said. 

"I felt included in it," Weiss argued.

https://youtu.be/eajF4LsyuUA

[101Zeus101 AMV to "Soldier, Poet, King".]

The song picked up before this argument could get much further, to the others' relief, and went on for a while.

https://youtu.be/-5Ha1JJC0pM

[Eurielle, "Break Free".]

Ruby, the only one who knew about the fight out of the group, wondered a little if Shine might have been blowing off steam by her choices.

Especially the last one:

"Time is always right in past tense

"Avoiding is my newest obsession
Started with the right intentions
But left 'em on the shelf. So tell me how to live in tension
'Cause every could've been kills when
Living here has been hell
And I can't hold it myself. The whisper in my heart, it could never speak up
The message in my chest gathered too much dust
I can't afford the truth even if it's unjust
Keep it top shelf, keep it all locked up. So yippee-ki-yay, it's not my blood
But every single day it calls my bluff
It's not okay, then it ain't quite done
Then it ain't quite done
No. The time's always right to fix what's wrong
The time's always right to fix what's wrong...

 "Oh, my God, it ain't quite right. Oh no, it ain't quite love. Oh no, it ain't quite done..."

https://youtu.be/vyhuxgok3ek

[Official music video by the band. I have seen them in concert--they do dancing there too.]

* * *

Oscar didn't really sleep while he was alone in his room. He was tired after everything and worried.

Ozpin was also restless.

"I think we should talk to them," Oscar said. "What happened earlier was weird, but it wasn't their fault."

"She stabbed us," Ozpin said.

"But it didn't actually do anything," Oscar said.

"I thought she was going to kill me," Ozpin said.

"I'm sure you didn't really think that," Oscar said. "She wouldn't do that."

"Am I mistaken, or were you also afraid?" Ozpin asked.

"I don't know why I was afraid," Oscar said. "I would have normally agreed with her doing something to stop you--or it.. . It makes no sense... Looking back, I'm all right--"

He felt a cold shiver along his spine.

"I mean...mostly," he amended.

"Very convincing," Ozpin said. "I think we should just stick to what we know from now on."

Something about that sounded wrong, but Oscar couldn't think of what it was at the moment.

When he finally heard the others coming back in, he went down.

They seemed like they'd had a good time.

Kip especially seemed upbeat.

"There were so many wondrous things," he said to Vara, who, of course, hadn't gone anywhere but had asked him about it. "I didn't see anything frightening."

Vara leaned on her hand. "Well, I hate to agree with Vic on anything, but that doesn't mean it's safe out there. You can't talk to strangers. There's stuff we just can't explain. I mean, I could explain it--"

"Vara," Shine warned her.

"Well, he'll have to know at some point," Vara said.

"Maybe let him at least spend a few weeks out in the world before we drop it all on him." Shine tugged her hair.

"Oh, you're back." Winter came in.

"We had fun," Weiss said. "But someone stepped on my toes at least twice."

"If you didn't wear heels, it wouldn't have mattered that much," Yang said.

"Is that an excuse?" Qrow asked, also coming in.

"It wasn't me--it was someone else," Yang said. "I got stepped on too, but I wear boots."

"They've been bickering all night," Blake said, looking non-plussed. "I guess things are finally back to normal."

"Actually Yang seems the happiest I've seen her in ages," Shine remarked to Wally.

Tai and Zwei came in.

"Well, at least it's before midnight..." Tai said.

"Isn't that Cinder's curfew?" Wally joked. "Get it...? Because...she's, you know."

"A child?" Winter said.

"No, she's..." Wally said.

"Crazy?" Vara said.

"You know what? Nevermind," Wally said.

"Here." Ruby handed Oscar a bag. "Since you didn't come with us."

"Oh...wow..." Oscar was stunned. "You didn't have to..."

"No, we wanted to," Blake said. "Figured you could use a little cheering up."

"That's actually really nice..." Tai said. "Good job, Ruby."

Qrow gave Ruby a dubious look and then Oscar.

"They had so many books!" Kip had a stack.

"Who bought that for you?" Vara wondered.

Penny waved. "I thought it was important to promote education."

"Who has time to read?" Theo ran a knife under his fingernails.

"Miss Likstar," Winter said aside, "we should really discuss things after earlier."

Shine looked at her kind of tiredly. "Couldn't that wait?" 

"Perhaps...but is that wise?" Winter asked.

Shine rubbed her head. "Can we at least wait till the kids go to bed? I assume this is going to be more an adult conversation?"

"I don't really know," Winter said. "But if you prefer... Perhaps it's not going to be as unpleasant as you're imagining."

"At this point, I never know what to expect," Shine said. "Did Raven ever come back?"

"She's back." Qrow answered this. "But her magic isn't doing too well. Got stuck as bird again... Can you fix that?"

This was sure a tonal change from before... Winter gave him an odd look.

Shine studied him like she was wondering the same thing.

Then she said, "I might be able to help. If she's willing... But it may be time to talk about something else...but after earlier, I don't know if you're willing to hear it."

"I'm willing," Winter said immediately. "After further consideration, I think your idea had merit."

"It might be worth talking about," Qrow said.

"What did you do while we were gone?" Shine was as blunt at her partner for the moment.

They both looked awkward for a second.

"Nothing," Winter said.

"Just gave it more thought," Qrow said.

Shine gave them another weird look.

"Fine," she said. "We'll talk, but I need to check on Oscar also."

However, this got her nowhere, because while Oscar had wanted to talk to her, as soon as she even looked in his direction, he felt suddenly very apprehensive about it.

Ozpin was no help--he was practically shaking in his soul.

"Just can we not?" he said.

"This is nuts," Oscar argued with him. "We need to work this out."

But his body wouldn't cooperate with his thoughts--and to be honest, he didn't want to as much as he thought he should.

Maybe it could wait till tomorrow...

He went back upstairs in a hurry.

Team JNPR returned just about when the others did, and Pyrrha saw Oscar leave. This troubled her.

Shine didn't like it either. She was sure this was out of character.

Wally asked her too. "Is it just me or is Oscar avoiding us? Did we scare him with that display?"

"You didn't do anything, I did," Shine said.

"But he knows how your powers work," Wally said. "You weren't trying to hurt them. He's been okay with that before. That doesn't make any sense."

"I'm not sure it's purely that," Shine said. "But I might have jumped the gun."

"I mean, you did act really fast, but I wouldn't call it jumping the gun. I saw what happened," Wally said. "It was weird... I probably would have if you didn't."

They didn't know what else to think.

"By the way, Kip," Blake said, while everyone was getting sorted out to go to bed, "I've been wondering, is your name short for anything? Kip just seems like a nickname."

"It is short for something," Kip said. "My real name is Katevaino Kanap."

"Katav--what?" Ruby said.

"That's why he has the nickname," Vara said. "No one wants to say that."

"Vic and her weird names," Theo said.

[So Katevaino, according to my sister, means "to descend" in Greek. It's part of how his full name is a reference to Icarus. Kanap means "wings" in Hebrew. So you could say the full thing means to fly downwards, which references Icarus' story.

A point of interest: Kip actually means "sleep" in British slang. While this is a total coincidence, I almost see it as fitting, because Victoria basically wants Kip to sleep on seeing the world, instead of allowing him to fly, which is literally what she designed him to do. The endless irony of her character is part of why we liked her as a villain.]