Episode Three, Part 1:
Not Like Falling Out of Love

I woke up at dawn on a cold morning to find you gone. 
You slipped away, and I belonged, but now I feel so out of place. 

Back in the lounge area, Kodiak resumed his place beside Elara, slinging his arm over her shoulder and trying to listen back in to the conversation. Truthfully, he was glad his meeting about the Sovereigns had gone well because he wasn't sure how much pressure he could handle, or how either Wynn or Sol stepping down from their position would affect him. 

The implant had been in his head for several hours now and nothing had happened since Hannah and Josiah had set off the trigger when he was right in front of them. He had no clue how it worked other than controlling Bas or causing shock waves to be sent through his own body. He didn't know if they could activate it when they weren't around and his greatest fear seemed to be that something would happen to him when he was around Elara. 

He didn't want his friends to know what they had done to him - not until he was sure for himself of what it meant. But, without any answers, the best that Kodiak could do was the try and shut the thought of it out completely - pretend that he had no knowledge of it residing in the very back of his head and that there was nothing injected into him that could potentially kill him at any moment. 

"What was that about?" Elara asked, looking up at Kodiak and breaking him from his worries.

Wynn and Dreea had followed his lead and taken their seats around everybody else, but Sol hadn't returned yet. It was quite apparent that whatever they had been talking about had shifted the atmosphere in the room. 

Kodiak glanced over at Wynn and Dreea, searching to see if it was alright to tell their friends before they made an official announcement to the rest of their people. Neither of them seemed to have any objections. 

"Just confirming a few things regarding our positions," Kodiak said to everyone, noticing that Elara's expression was a dead giveaway to how confused she was. 

"Like, who's still a Sovereign," he added on, hoping to ease her mind, but had the complete opposite effect. 

Elara immediately sat up, snapping her head in her brother's direction with wide, worried eyes. "You're not a Sovereign anymore?" 

"No, I am," Wynn smiled tenderly, wishing Sol was around so he could thank her in front of everyone, but she was still in the map room, dwelling in her own thoughts. 

"So does that mean River..." 

"We're all still Sovereigns," Dreea announced, seeing the relief on everyone's faces. "And we made a new rule: there'll be four Sovereigns each time instead of three. So when the next group take our places in 20 years, give or take a little, there'll be four of them, then, as well." 

"You're allowed to just change the rules like that?" Elara looked up at Kodiak. "I thought it's always been three. It's it one of the fundamentals of Basilisk?" 

"Well, like Dreea said," Kodiak smirked, leaning down closer to Elara. "We're Sovereigns. We can do whatever we want." He poked his fingers into the side of her stomach, tickling her ruthlessly, letting her laughter fill up the room until it was cut short. 

Everything in the room suddenly began to rattle, and as the ground shook beneath them, books and shelves full of clutter began to fall off their surfaces, crashing around in every direction.  

Kodiak grabbed onto Elara, pulling her close against him as he wrapped his arms over her head, hurrying to get her outside of the Quarters as everyone else followed. With it being the only building in Basilisk - other than the cells which had been empty for years - it was a relief to have everyone outside, all in sight as the tremors that consumed the world slowly came to a stop. 

"Is everyone okay?" Dreea asked, looking around at everyone and counting them to make sure they were all there. 

"Sol's not out..." Wynn muttered, scanning the faces of his friends once again in the hopes that he was wrong, but he couldn't see her. Without even thinking twice about it, Wynn ran back towards the entrance of the Quarters, completely careless to the fact that it could have collapsed on him the moment he went inside, and only caring about Sol. But, as he reached the doorway, his running feet came to a still and his body let out a noticeable sigh of relief.  

Sol walked outside, one arm slung over her sister as she hurried Atlantis outside, pushing her clear of the building the moment they were out.  

"You guys alright?" Dreea asked, instantly picking up on Sol's annoyed expression. 

"Yeah," Sol muttered, quickly turning to face her sister. "Atlantis, your instinct should be to get the hell out of the building when there's an earthquake, not run further inside it." 

"I know," Atlantis said, struggling to flick through all the pages in her hold with her one, working hand. "But I needed to make sure I didn't lose these," she said. "I didn't know if the building would collapse and if it did-" 

"If it did, I could have lost you," Sol cut her off, implying that it was the most important thing either of them could have said. Atlantis softened at her words, understanding how afraid she was and what must have been running through her head. 

"I'm sorry, River," she said. "This is all the notes we've made on the wildlife, the lack of food, environmental changes and all that," she gestured towards the notes. "And when I realised that an earthquake was happening, I knew it would be the key to all of our questions. I didn't want all of these notes to be potentially lost under a pile of rubble." 

Sol let out a deep breath, bending down beside Atlantis who had to lay all the pages out on the ground to see them all, and gathered some of them up, holding them and helping her to scan through them all. 

"You think it's all connected?" Kodiak asked, approaching both of them as Wynn and Dreea left to check on the rest of Basilisk who were all understandably unsettled. 

Atlantis nodded. "Animals, in particular, tend to predict when things like earthquakes, eruptions or even floods are on their way," she said. "They scatter or leave their habitat completely like we've been experiencing. Unfortunately, this could just be part of the foreshock sequences." 

"Foreshock sequences?" Sol asked. 

"Minor quakes, like this one, which builds up to a more severe one." 

"This wasn't just a one-off?" Kodiak asked. 

"It could be," Atlantis shrugged. "Or there could be more. We'll find out either way: the wildlife will return to the forest, or this will happen again... But I've got our notes. I'll keep an eye on it, let you guys know if there's an update." 

Kodiak smiled gratefully her way, it quickly fading as he turned to Sol. "We should make an announcement to our people," he said. "Let them know that this is why there's been fewer rations." 

"Good idea," Sol agreed. "Wynn and Dreea are making their way around to people. Come on, we'll do the same." 

////// 

By the evening, things had calmed down in Basilisk, and everyone slowly started making their way back into the Quarters, trying not to focus too much on the thought of the roof suddenly collapsing in on them t any given moment. 

Emotionally exhausted from everything the day had brought his way, Wynn immediately retreated to his room, lying on his bed without so much the energy to lay underneath the sheets. He didn't even seem to care that he was missing his already limited rations or that he hadn't finished all of his duties; he just wanted the day to be over. 

As he could feel himself finally beginning to drift off, there was a movement outside of his door, and as he peeled his eyes open, he saw Quill come inside. 

"Sorry. I didn't know you were sleeping," he apologised, barely even glancing in his direction as he walked over to the shelf behind his bed, pulling out a clean shirt to change into. 

"That's okay," Wynn said, sitting himself up to make sure he wouldn't fall asleep. "I wanted to find you, anyway. Are you alright? Did you feel the earthquake?" 

"Everyone felt it, Wynn," Quill sighed, once again, hinting that he wasn't all that interested in a conversation. Wynn felt his answer was a little cold, but he shrugged it off, knowing that he was so out of character lately that he probably didn't mean it. "I heard that there was a meeting today with you, River, Dreea and Kodiak... Are you still a Sovereign?" 

"Yeah, there's gonna be four Sovereigns from now on," Wynn answered. 

"Oh," Quill mumbled, digesting the news. Surely with Wynn still being a Sovereign, he wouldn't want the pressure of having to be a leader and having to watch out for him all the time, would he? 

"Anyway, how are you? I feel like I haven't seen much of you lately. It's weird," Wynn said. 

"Fine, like always," Quill said. "I'd appreciate it if you stopped asking all the time. If I want to talk, I will." 

"Really?" Wynn mumbled. "Because it doesn't feel that way. Things aren't great and I could really do with talking to my brother right now." 

"Yeah, I wish I could talk to Ares, too, but it doesn't work that way," Quill rolled his eyes, chucking his worn shirt down by the foot of his bed, barely having any care about what was being said. 

"I'm talking about you," Wynn clarified, swallowing back the growing unease that was building inside his chest. Quill had to have known that he meant him, and what made him even more concerned was his rashness at Ares' name. 

"Quill, can we just talk? I don't know what's going on with you." 

"Maybe if you stopped making a big deal out of everything, I'd want to. But I don't want to get into it. I don't want to talk about everything with you because it doesn't concern you." 

"Is that what Hannah said?" Wynn asked, noticing something eerily familiar about his words. "Is she telling you not to speak to us? Is that what's going on?" 

"Why don't you think I'm capable of making my own choices?" Quill asked, squaring up to Wynn as he stood up. "Everyone thinks they know how I'm feeling, or what I'm thinking. You're constantly telling me one thing, and then Hannah is telling me something else," he said. "I can figure out who my family is on my own, okay? I don't need people telling me how to do that. I'm the one who has to figure it out." 

"Quill!?" Wynn exclaimed, his voice too soft for the brutality swarming in his head. He tried to call out to him again, but he left the room in such a hurry that Wynn had no hope of catching up to him, even if he tried. 

Completely overwhelmed, Wynn spun around, wiping everything that rested on top of the trunk to the floor, letting it crash around as he collapsed onto his bed. Was that Quill's way of saying that he didn't see himself as their brother anymore? Was he trying to tell him that now Hannah was in the picture, he didn't need Wynn there to watch out for him anymore? 

Three // Part One
I could have lost you.

This was an...eventful chapter.

22/07/20