Though Jason asked, Olivia refused to elaborate.

As he followed her in their shared silence to the ice cream parlor, he couldn't decide what was worse: this, or the soundless trance she'd slipped into mere minutes before.

She hadn't said a word, her face dreamy, as she started walking. He'd called her name so many times. He'd attempted to take her wrist and stop her, but she'd shaken him off with a freakish strength.

At first he thought he'd annoyed her somehow, but even annoyed, she'd always responded to him. And then there'd been that... that feeling in his chest, like someone was watching him, trying to lure him forward into something he couldn't yet see.

And now, lucid again, she still walked with a different, heavier silence that was somehow more difficult to deal with.

I don't think this is the first time it's happened.

The first time what had happened?

After minutes of silence, Jason finally consolidated the courage to reach out a hand for her shoulder, had drawn the breath to ask the question that flashed fear through her hazel eyes, when Olivia suddenly perked up.

Her shoulders straightened and she burst into a light-footed skip as she rounded the corner, and as Jason made it around the corner, he saw why.

"Riiiiikkky!" called Olivia.

Ericka burst from her chair in front of the ice cream store in an explosion of movement, leaping forward and wrapping her arms around Olivia. "Livvyyyy! Took you long enough, what kept you guys?"

"A successful shopping trip," said Olivia, gesturing behind her to where Jason stood. "Doesn't he look about a million times better?"

Jason stopped as the entire group turned their gazes on him.

His first instinct was to lower his head, but as his chin dipped, he forced it back up to the stars. It was a monumental effort to resist reaching up to cover his arms, ruined with scars. Ruined--He was ruined. The word squeezed his gut until it was painful. His eyes stung and his head went light as he forgot to breathe under the weight of their stares, their realisation, their silence--

"Wow," said Ericka. Her tone was unexpected enough to lure his gaze back, if only for a moment, to where she stood with an eyebrow raised and a hand on her hip. "Where'd you get all those from?"

Jason opened his mouth, but realised he didn't have an answer.

He managed an awkward shrug, his gaze falling to the wall beside him once more as Lucian's voice rose up.

"Oh, psht," said Lucian, stepping forward with an arm outstretched in front of him. "You think those are something? You should see some of the battle scars I've got from Pillarguard training, Ericka. Then maybe you'd know how to be impressed."

Ericka turned around, her second eyebrow shooting up. "Oh really? I don't think you're meant to get scars from training. They give you blunt swords--how bad do you have to be to get scars from those?"

Ariel said something in her soft voice that Jason didn't quite catch, and it was enough to set the group's conversation moving onto the next topic: dinner at Olivia's parents restaurant.

"Onward!" said Ericka, linking her arm through Olivia's and pointing a finger forward. "The dessert has been had, now time for some actual food!"

Ariel and Lucian followed close behind them.

Ella, however, hung back, and waited for Jason to fall in line with her before she started walking, her hands in her pockets. "You look good, Frostsong."

"Thank you," Jason replied in a tight voice.

Her gaze stayed straight ahead of them, even as she tilted her head towards him. "I don't know exactly what your story is, Frostsong, but make sure you don't let anyone shame you into hiding your scars, however they show. You wear them proudly, because you damn well survived in spite of whatever Other-curse scum tried to make it otherwise."

Jason inclined his head. "Thank you, Ella."

Ella's eyes flicked to his for the briefest moment as she grinned. "And if you ever need a certain ex-High Shadowspeaker's ass handed to her, you just let me know."

*+*+*+*

Despite having been there to pick her up every day during the festival month, Jason had never actually walked through or spent more than a few moments outside of the front entrance to Olivia's parents restaurant.

Vince's Orchard, the sign hanging outside the door said. It had an open, friendly kind of storefront, with large windows of thin, transparent starstone that spanned most of the ground-floor wall allowing street goers to peer inside. A second window on the corner of the building ran from the ground floor all the way up to the third, though the upper two levels were veiled by curtains.

Brightly flowered pot plants lined either side of the entryway as they stepped inside the building, herding their group to a reception desk while still making them feel part of the room.

Jason trailed his fingers under the blooms of some particularly pink flowers beside him. Faerie's Whispers, if he remembered correctly. They smelled incredible when they first bloomed, but gradually lost their scent and their brilliant pink hue as they faded.

"Ah, Olivia! And I see you've brought some friends along for dinner?"

Distracted as he was, it wasn't until he heard the familiar voice that he glanced up from the flowers to find Mark--the same Mark that cleaned and kept his mother's house--standing behind the reception desk in the restaurant's casual uniform.

"I have indeed!" said Olivia, leaning on the reception desk. "They're gonna be paying though, the cheapskates." She glanced behind her, right at Jason. There was something exhausted in her eyes--no, restrained? He couldn't quite place it, and she looked away before he could figure it out. "Except Jason. He's on me, because I kinda owe him big time for the glasses and stuff."

"What!" said Ericka. "What about all the stuff you owe me, like for the rollerblading outfit and--"

"You've already eaten your weight in free pancakes this month, Rikky."

"Completely beside the point."

"Well, while we discuss it, may I show you to your table?" said Mark. "I believe another group of customers will be coming along shortly, and miss Ericka has the tendency to make people think the restaurant is full."

Ella snorted. "And no one is surprised about that."

Ericka gave Ella the evil eye, who just smirked back in response.

Wisely, Mark took a pile of menus and started walking at a brisk pace, forcing the group to follow along behind him. He seated them at one of the more private tables, and Olivia gave him a quiet word of thanks as she took the most obscured chair of them all.

Mark passed their menus around and took their drink orders. As he got to Jason, he gave him a familiar smile, the only genuine one that Jason had ever seen inside his own house--well, his mother's house.

"And what can I get you, Jason?"

"I'll just have a water, please," said Jason, inclining his head before curiosity struck. "How is it you find yourself working here?"

"Ah," said Mark, noting down the order. "Well, after her... dismissal, your mother was rather unhappy, and I happened to ask whether you were coming home for dinner that night, since you were usually not so late. I believe I then disagreed with her following assessment of your character, and now I'm working in a far more enjoyable environment."

Ella's expression grew pained. "You worked for Aurelia too?" As Mark nodded, she looked to Olivia. "You should re-open this place as the 'Aurelia Refugee Centre'. You'd make a killing from all the people she's terrorised over the years."

Olivia shook her head and gave them a thin-lipped smile for Ericka and Lucian's amusement, but Jason noted that it didn't reach her eyes.

Mark left their table, and the girls fell into a conversation around the contents of Ella's sketchbook. Ericka had apparently been going on about some design at the ice cream parlor, which had led to Ella sketching it, which had led to Ericka snatching the book and flicking through its pages, gawking at the other treasures within.

With the other four engrossed in the conversation, Lucian leaned over to Jason.

"Jason," he said in a voice low enough that the others wouldn't hear. "I'm sorry. I didn't know, but that isn't an excuse."

Jason felt each and every scar burn like the day they'd been put there. "It wasn't your fault. You did more for me in those years than you can likely imagine."

Lucian took a heavy breath. "If it were me, I would have left or snapped the first few times. I don't know how you held out for so long."

"I don't know either."

There was a flurry of movement between Ella and Ericka as Ericka plucked the sketchbook from Ariel's hands.

"Okay, no, I swear you're all wrong," said Ericka. She placed the sketchbook firmly down in front of Jason. "That is totally you, isn't it? Ella keeps denying it, but it's totally you. Why you drawin' our Jason, Ella? Hmm?"

Ariel's lips lifted into a half smile. "Why are you calling him our Jason, hmm, Rikky?"

"Because we've adopted him at this point, haven't we?" said Ericka. "Now, you two boys, look. It's totally Jason, right?"

Jason glanced at the page. The pencil was smudged, but the drawing was still fiercely talented. It was a side-on view of a male with long, black hair that reached just past his shoulder blades, tied into a neat ponytail. Only his right, emerald green eye was visible, but the white, long-sleeved undershirt with a turtleneck and the green and black-striped vest was unmistakable.

There was writing beside it, three lines.

Did you do that?

Yup. Suits him, right?

Without a doubt. I like it.

The first and third lines were in the same, sure hand as the artist, but the second line was in a different, messier hand that Jason recognised. He looked up at Olivia, whose attention was firmly fixed on the drawing, a lazy, sneaky smile curled on the side of her mouth.

"I believe," said Jason. "That this was to commemorate the day Olivia first introduced me to hair ties, though this has been my first glimpse of the sketch that did it."

"Knew it!" Ericka crowed.

Across the table, Ella huffed and took her sketchbook back. "Yeah, well, you ain't keeping it, Frostboy."

Their drinks came soon after. Mark took their orders for food and disappeared back off to the kitchen. The restaurant was nearly at maximum capacity by the time their food came, the whole room buzzing with conversation and joy. None of the places his parents had dragged him out to had ever felt quite this alive. They'd felt more like a punishment would befall any that clinked cutlery too loud against their plates, whereas here, his ears were constantly bombarded with scrapes and clangs.

Yet every so often, the atmosphere would flicker when a too-curious group of customers would wander in, their mouths slightly open as their eyes roamed the room, looking for someone in particular.

Even on their private table, in her obscured chair, with her long, auburn hair pulled over her shoulder, the odd person still found her. Still pointed. Still tried to wander over to her table for a closer look until Mark or one of the other waiters escorted them back to their seats.

Jason's attention flicked to Olivia every time, and then some.

Whatever realisation she'd had after that trance, it was still stuck to her like thick, hot tar. It suffocated the smiles off her face after everyone glanced away. It cut her laughs off to the nervous silence that Jason was so familiar with himself.

Whether she noticed the stares or not, he couldn't tell, because she already looked like she was ready to let herself sink under it all.

*+*+*+*

Dinner was nothing short of amazing.

After they'd finished, their empty plates and cups stacked neatly at the end of the table to be picked up, their group stood up and headed out the front door. Standing in the street under the full cover of night and its winking stars, they made their farewells with a strange combination of words and hugs.

"I'll see you guys laterrrr!" said Ericka, hugging Olivia for what was probably the third time before turning to Ella. Ella raised an eyebrow at her, but not even she was safe from Ericka's embrace as she stood there and accepted her frizzy-haired fate. "Alllll of you later! Includes you, Jason!"

Jason opened his mouth to reply and was taken by surprise as Ericka crashed into him and gave him a brief, rib-cracking hug before bouncing away down the street, touching two fingers to her forehead.

"We'll be going also," said Ariel, her hand resting on Lucian's arm. "We have a rather long day of temple work tomorrow, though with any luck, it should be productive."

"I'm gonna vanish too," said Ella. "Got some meeting or something tomorrow at a stupidly early hour of the morning."

"I thought you were always up early regardless?" said Olivia, tilting her head even as she wrapped her arms tight around her stomach.

Ella just shrugged. "I'm up whenever I need to be up. This is just gonna screw with my usual morning run, but ah well. Dealing with idiots can be my exercise for the day." Her lips tweaked into a vaguely amused smirk. "I'll see you guys later. Thanks for dragging me out tonight."

And then, it was just Jason and Olivia standing there, with the buzz of the restaurant feeling far more distant than the few metres it was.

Olivia clucked her tongue. "Just if you're curious, the restaurant's been picking up business recently so we're looking to hire a few extra staff. I'm not saying anything is guaranteed, but it's there if you wanna give it a shot."

"I don't believe I'm in any position to refuse such an offer," said Jason, inclining his head. "Thank you, Olivia."

She gave him a small smile. "At least something good has come outta this Songstress thing. Most people come in here to gawk at me, but, welp, they like the food so much that they come back again after."

That tar was still clinging to her voice, dripping off in fat chunks that stifled her flames. He had to pull her out of it--he just had no idea how. "May I ask how you're handling everything?"

She chewed on the inside of her cheek and looked away before answering. "Dunno. Kinda hard going from nobody to stare-worthy, but it's not a big deal. I'll cope, and people will eventually get over it."

Jason pushed a little further. "And about earlier?"

Olivia hunched her shoulders inward. "Eh, I dunno. There's a couple of times where I've just kinda... lost time during the auroras. It's only ever a few minutes, so it's no big deal."

"Are you sure?" asked Jason. "I'm here if you need someone to listen."

She gave him a bright smile that he believed as much as her words. "Yeah, I'm fine, Jase. You don't have to worry about me, and I'll tell you if something new develops. Besides," She winked at him. "You've made a pretty big step tonight. I'm proud of you, though I hate to tell you that you're stuck with us now."

For her sake, Jason managed to get a smile onto his face. "Oh no. I couldn't imagine a more horrific fate."

Olivia laughed--an actual laugh that reached the rest of her, unlocking her arms from her waist. "Somehow, I have a feeling that you're only half joking about that."

"As usual, your perception is amazing."

She shook her head. "You'll learn, Frostsong. You'll learn. You gonna be okay getting home?"

Jason glanced behind him. Inner Cevinari to the temple grounds... he could fly, but in all honesty, he could use the walk. "I'll be perfectly fine."

Olivia touched two fingers to her forehead. "Then I'll see you later, Frostsong."

He knew that she hadn't been honest with him, but perhaps she needed more time to work it out herself. This... lost time had spooked her, but she was strong. He knew that. She was stronger than he'd ever be, and he trusted her.

"Until next time, Shadowheart."

*+*+*+*

That night, as Jason lay in Cryo's bed at the Starlight Hall, Sae was behaving rather strangely.

The Ascended would usually be snuggled at the base of Jason's throat, but tonight, Sae was sitting by the heavy-curtained window, staring through them like he could see the answers to the world woven through the fabric.

Come to think of it, Sae hadn't bothered with his usual barrage of questions, either. There was no I'm so proud of you!'s, no sarcastic remarks about how he was growing as a person or disparaging comments about it happening in spite of your mother. He was unusually quiet, and given the recent discovery of a broken Ascended...

"Sae?" asked Jason, propping himself up on an elbow. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." Sae fluffed his feathers and hopped away from the window. "Sorry, featherbutt. Just Ascended stuff."

Jason held out a hand. "Anything you might want to share with me?"

Sae accepted the offer, fluttering down onto Jason's finger, sitting low enough that his puffy chest feathers brushed against Jason's skin. "Lots of stuff I want to share with you, not much I can share with you." He preened under his wing, and with his head still under it, said, "It'd take all of us to change that rule."

Jason considered it. "All the Ascended?"

Sae pulled his head out from under his wing and gave Jason a knowing look.

"Did you know about Nereid's Ascended? About Kaladrel?"

"We knew something was wrong, but we didn't know what." Sae ran his beak through his chest feathers. "And I swear to Starsong if you start calling me Sylrael I'm gonna turn you into a literal featherbutt every time you transform."

Jason put Sae on his chest and leaned back on his pillow. "Were you always this threatening with Ella?"

"Nah, she needed a cautioning voice in her ear." Sae tucked his head into his back. "Being sarcastic with you is way more fun."

Jason studied the ceiling, tracing the delicate whorls in the starstone with his eyes. "Is sarcasm your natural personality, or is the caution?"

"Neither. We are whatever you need us to be, featherbutt."

Jason lifted his head to look at his Ascended. Sae was nestled in the perfect ball of fluff and frost right over his heart. His violet eyes were closed, and after a few, sharp movements to adjust his beak amongst his feathers, he settled down entirely.

It was hard to imagine Sae like Nereid's Ascended; nothing more than a crystal stamped with an insignia. It was hard to imagine him as careful, as cautioning, as anything else but the blunt, sarcastic bird that mocked because he cared.

Jason let his head fall back on the pillow, his eyes once more on the ceiling. It was uncomfortable, he realised, to realise that the Sae he knew might be nothing more than some deity's attempt to... what? Counterbalance Jason's own cautious, logical personality?

He didn't know quite how to feel about it.

Regardless, Sae had given him another piece of vital information: that the Ascended's limited-information rule could be changed, and that they hadn't known the Kaladrel Ascended had been broken.

Those were pieces of information that he could use.

Jason closed his eyes, an arm over his head.

The information would have to wait, though. When he woke, the first thing he was going to do was apply to a certain restaurant that was hiring.

*+*+*+*

A/N - The chapter that just went up on Patreon... ooooh lets just say things got REAL

Click the star to vote or leave a comment if you liked the chapter? Bonus cookie for both ;D

Some more art by 46Kibahime - Vince's Orchard, the restaurant that Olivia's parents own <3