The mechanical hand swings back and forth, an audible ticking noise filling the basement. Fresh smiles, closing her eyes and listening to the nostalgically familiar sound.

“Well, that’s annoying,” says Jubilee dryly.

“Hmm…” Basil leans over, looking at it. “It reminds me a lot of the stuff back in the west, like the clocks and all of that.”

“That’s because it is a clock!” beams Fresh, holding her hands out to the little thing on the table. A single hand continues to tick around in a circle.

“Looks like a heap of shit to me,” remarks Jubilee, looking at the pile of bronze and copper.

Fresh frowns, puffing out her cheek in defiance. “Rude!”

“I’m sure you worked very hard on it,” says Basil. “But I’m not sure if this should be a priority right now?” she asks, looking around the basement at their other project.

“It is,” says Fresh, poking the thing and staring at it for a moment. “We need it for Jubilee’s idea.”

“I take back what I said,” says Jubilee. “This is the greatest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Basil sighs, lowering her gaze for a moment. “That was fast,” she remarks, sounding a little glum. Fresh understands why this whole thing is bothering Basil so much, but it’s just another one of those spiritual conflicts that the priestess will have to work her way through, one way or the other.

“Better safe than sorry,” says Shamrock, looking away from his work for a moment.

“Right?” remarks Jubilee. “This is our back-up,” they say. “We’re not going out there with our pants down,” says Jubilee.

“I understand that,” says Basil. “I just think that it’s grim, you know?” she asks.

Jubilee shrugs, looking around the basement. “Basil. ‘Grim’ is our family name at this point.”

“That’s kind of edgy,” remarks Basil dryly.

Fresh gasps. “Can we go to the city and get some kind of official certificate?” she asks excitedly, clenching her fists. “Like, some real document that says we’re a family?!”

“No,” replies Jubilee, pointing at her. “Written proof of me having had to live with you people is a step too far.”

Fresh frowns, rubbing her arm. “…That one hurt, Jubilee,” she mumbles, looking away to the side. “I’d sign it and frame it and hang it up in the bedroom and everything.”

“Get a grip, weirdo,” sighs Jubilee, shaking their head. “You realize the disconnection here, right?” they ask, pointing at the clock. “Why it’s weird for you to be sad about this after just making that?”

Fresh stares at the clock for a while, sighing, her enthusiasm birthed from the completion of the project dampened. “Can I just be sad about both things then?”

“Sure. Just do it quietly and get back to work,” replies Jubilee.

“Yes, Jubilee…” sighs Fresh, letting her shoulders drop as she returns to their big project.

Fresh is upstairs, staring out of the library window.

She’s sitting on the little bench of the reading nook, leaned against the wall as she gazes out over the marketplace.

“It’s a ghost town, huh?” asks Basil’s voice.

Fresh yelps, sitting upright. “I wasn’t slacking off!” she swears. “I was just, uh…”

“Don’t worry,” assures Basil. “It’ll be our secret,” promises the priestess, holding her finger to her lips. Fresh sighs in relief.

“I’m super tired, Basil,” she admits, looking over the market-place. The vendors are gone. The stores and stalls are all closed. There is foot-traffic, but none of it is normal. People are being evacuated, the central-authority has opened up the castle-courtyard again for the entire city to flee inside of, given the soon to fall shield. None of them have really slept yet, since this whole process started.

“Just a little longer,” says Basil, sitting down across from her, pulling her legs in so that she can fit on the other side of the small nook. Fresh squishes herself together too, making some more room. “I guess none of us have slept much, huh?”

“Are you scared, Basil?” asks Fresh, watching some people rush by in a somewhat larger hurry than the others around them. “I’m scared.”

“I’d be worried if you weren’t,” says the priestess. “But we’re going to be fine.”

“You promise?” asks Fresh.

“I promise,” assures Basil. “After all, we’ve been fine so far, so why would we stop now?”

Fresh laughs. She’s not sure if it works like that, but she’s glad that Basil is trying her best to be a positive force in the world. “Is everything set up?” asks Basil.

Fresh nods, pointing at her flying broom, which is leaned against the overgrown bookshelves. “I just got back. It’s funny, you know?” she asks. “After all of this time, trying to be secretive and now I just kind of got to fly around the city during the day,” says Fresh, looking out over the plaza. “It was nice, actually,” she says, scratching her cheek. “It’s become so normal for us to hide and to pretend about who we are that I didn’t even notice how… stressful it is,” explains Fresh, rolling her shoulders back. “I’m telling you, Basil,” she starts. “I was stressed about stuff I never even knew I was stressed about.” Fresh lifts her hand, moving it through the air. “The moment half the city saw me just now, without my hat, I could really feel my back relax and my neck unstiffen. Honestly, I thought I’d get super scared,” she explains. “But it was the opposite.”

Basil smiles. “I understand that,” she says. “Secrets are heavy,” agrees the priestess. “But they’re like pieces of armor. If you carry them every day, you start to not notice how heavy they actually are.” She gestures towards the window. “Then, one day, you let them fall for the world to see and you suddenly realize how much stuff you were actually carrying the whole time.”

“Wow. You’re really smart, Basil,” notes Fresh, amazed. “That’s a great metaphor.”

“No, not really,” says the priestess. “Sometimes I wish I was smarter, you know?” she asks. “Maybe then I’d know what to do. I mean, I talk a mean game. But then when it comes down to it, I never have the guts to let that armor fall,” she says, looking back out of the window.

“Mm…” says Fresh, staring back out of the glass too. She pulls on a strand of her hair, thinking about how to handle this. Surely it’s something that they have to talk about eventually. She doesn’t want her cherished friend to just have to stay locked away forever with her feelings, as the only one in their family.

Should she just tell her that she knows?

Would that help her just to talk about it? Or will that make her feel pressured? Fresh stares at her own frowning reflection, who just shrugs back at her, not having the answer either. Feelings sure are complicated.

Even if it is true and Basil really does like her in a way past the ‘normality’ of their friendship as members of the group, then what? Does she reciprocate those feelings? Does she feel the same way? If she does, would that make things weird in their group? In their home? In their future together?

In a sudden moment of clarity, a cold shock running through herself, Fresh now understands why she has always been playing dumb around Basil, regarding the topic of Basil’s feelings this entire time. Why she has never thought about it and her own feelings on the matter, always pressing it out of her mind. It’s because she’s just scared that the outcome, either way, could jeopardize their life as a family. It could jeopardize her life. What if feelings get hurt? What if something irreparable happens to this precious life that they’ve made?

What a horrible, selfish, disgusting thing she is. Even after all of this. Maybe she really will never be better than this?

Fresh turns to look at Basil. “Hey, Basil?” she asks, her friend turning to look towards her. “I’m not going anywhere,” she says. “So just, whenever you’re ready to talk, you can find me, okay?” she says.

Basil stares at her for a while, realizing something and then looking away, playing with her red-string bracelet. “Did Jubilee tell you?” she asks, her eyes wandering out of the window.

“Huh? Oh…” Fresh’s fidgets with her long strand of hair. “Yeah, we talked about it a little after I cursed the hero,” she admits. “But I didn’t believe it at first.”

“Neither did I,” sighs Basil, shaking her head. “Life is funny, what it does to us, isn’t it?”

Fresh nods. That was kind of a confusing answer. “Yeah.”

“Listen,” says Basil. “The truth is, well, I -”

Somebody screams outside. The two of them turn their heads to look. People are starting to run at full sprint now, heading towards the castle. Fresh jumps up to her feet, grabbing her broom. “Basil! Go get the others!” she says.

“On it!” replies the priestess, jumping up and running downstairs.

Fresh hops onto her broom, looking out of the window, staring at the giant shield around the city that is starting to dim and falter, shuddering as the magic comes apart, at least a full day too early.

She kicks off, flying over the shelves of the library and then upstairs over the now empty tower and then out through the hole in the roof.

The broom rises up into the air as she looks around for the problem and then, she sees it, standing off in the distance. The broom shoots towards him, but not fast enough.

The man turns around, looking at her from the shadows, a ripple shooting up through the shield from the ground up.

“Small world, isn’t it?” asks Patala, the man from the thieves’ guild, looking over his shoulder.

The shield begins to tear apart and fade away.