“We are here,” Gregor announced as he turned off the street.

Aisha turned to glance out the window, and I leaned over her lap to do the same and blinked, somewhat taken aback. “Wait,” I spoke up, “are we renting a house?”

The house was made of a gray stone and trimmed with pale red wood in an old style—Victorian maybe? That sort of thing wasn’t really my forte—that looked a little uncared for. A couple rocking chairs made of differently colored woods were laid out on the covered porch, and what looked like an old school lantern but was probably an electric look-alike stood sentinel over the furniture. I could feel a decently heavy metal knocker on the door but couldn’t quite see it from where we were sitting in the driveway in front of the double-wide door to the attached garage. I also detected a SUV on the other side of the door, but whether by chance or foreknowledge, Gregor was idling on the side without it.

“Sort of,” was Melanie’s ambiguous answer as she brought her phone to her face.

I leaned forward and glanced at Masuyo and Elle, the latter of whom had been having a reasonably good day, but they mutely shook their heads to indicate they had no idea.

“Hey, we just arrived. Can you open the garage?”

I twisted around to glance back at Newter, who shrugged and remarked, “Don’t ask me.”

Well, whatevs. We’ll find out in a minute anyway. I turned back around and remarked, “Y’know, I could just lift the door.”

Melanie shot me a look as she tapped her phone before stowing it in her pocket. “That would be rude, and powers are not the answer to everything.”

“I mean, mine could be,” Aisha countered with a wide grin, prompting Melanie to divert her look to Aisha instead.

The door started to shudder open in that slow, groaning way that only a garage door could manage, and Melanie finally explained, “An old friend has been fixing up this house as a bed and breakfast, and she was kind enough to give us a discount on lodging.”

Was a discount the only reason we were staying in Philly? It seemed unlikely, but Melanie hadn’t actually explained why we had come here in particular. Philly was a nearly 6 hour drive from Brockton Bay when taking only the bare minimum stops, so it certainly wasn’t because the city was conveniently nearby like Boston or even New York, which we had passed by on the way here. I had tried to wheedle everyone into diverting to Brooklyn instead, since I was feeling awfully homesick, but Melanie hadn’t been remotely dissuaded and had kept us on course. Still, I suppose the neighborhood looked safe at least. It was the sort of street with trees and flora dotting reasonably trimmed yards that were cordoned off by little fences that one could easily hope over with minimal effort, but the city was still visibly within sight, just a scant few blocks down. Time would tell if the city would actually have anything worthwhile. The zoo seemed like a promising outing at least, based on my investigation on PHO. Hopefully Elle would like it.

The door finally finished rising, and Gregor pulled forward into the garage. It was actually somewhat spacious, though most of that space was filled with tools and supplies that were probably being used to fix up the place, going off what Melanie said. We all started unbuckling our seatbelts, and once Gregor slid the van into park, we began to slip out.

I was just climbing out behind Aisha when the door into the house all but flung open, revealing a brunette with tanned skin and faintly visible muscles. Her eyes locked onto Melanie, and with a wide, toothy smile, she cried, “Mel! It’s been too long!”

In no time, she was sweeping Melanie up into a hug, leaving our boss somewhat flustered. “Yes, it has, but there’s no need to make a scene, Ariel.”

“A scene? Nonsense! Greeting a good friend you haven’t seen in years isn’t ‘making a scene,’ it’s appropriate behavior!” Newter, Aisha, and I snickered at the look that elicited from Melanie, and the sound drew Ariel’s attention our way. “Ah, but this is your crew yes? Welcome, welcome! I’m Ariel, and it’s a pleasure to house you during your stay.”

“Thank you very much for your hospitality,” Masuyo responded, her straight-laced words prompting me to roll my eyes.

“Sheesh, over the top much, cuz?” I joked, lightly elbowing her.

“It’s not over the top to thank your host!”

“Ladies, ladies,” Ariel interjected with what seemed like amusement dancing in her eyes, “There’s no need to fight over me!”

“What?” Masuyo and I both flatly intoned, utterly thrown by the non-sequitur.

Melanie meanwhile groaned and facepalmed. “I see you haven’t changed one bit, Ariel. May we come in?”

Ariel gasped before stepping back out of the way and gesturing broadly at the open door, her behavior edging into over dramatic. Is this how she really acts, or is she being over-the-top on purpose? “My god, where are my manners? Come in, come in! Welcome to The Vermilion Flycatcher!”

Aisha and I exchanged a confused look as Melanie and Masuyo stepped through the door, and Elle spoke up, quietly asking, “Vermilion Flycatcher? Like the bird?”

“Indubitably, little miss!” our host exuberantly replied. “They nested in the forest by where I grew up in Arizona and sang each Spring. They’ve always held a dear place in my heart, so when this little gem showed up on the market, how could I resist naming it so? But to recognize the name as avian straightaway—might you perchance be a fellow bird lover?”

“Yes,” Elle shyly answered, but she didn’t retreat into herself despite the extra attention on her. “I… Well, sometimes I can’t do much. I like to enjoy nature when that happens, but I’ve never seen a Vermilion Flycatcher myself.” A smile found its way to my face. I hadn’t ever spent time in the parks in Brooklyn, but I had walked with her to the small park by Palanquin a couple of times, and it was actually kind of nice. In any case, it was good to know that Elle was getting at least some happiness on her bad days.

Gregor moved towards the door from where he had been grabbing bags out of the back of the van, and when he briefly turned back to meet my eye before crossing the threshold, I tossed him a quick nod to let him know I hadn’t forgotten I needed to get the rest out.

“Excellent! Then you simply must make time to visit the zoo while you’re here!”

“Bird talk’s cool or whatevs, but I’m headin’ inside,” Aisha muttered to me before stepping around Elle and heading to the door. Newter jumped up onto the van then back to the ground behind Ariel before tossing a jaunty wave goodbye over his shoulder.

“Be in soon,” I called after them before glancing to Elle and grinning at the hopeful look she was giving me. “Well I’d meant for it to be a surprise,” I groused, tossing Ariel a brief, mild glare, “but yeah, I’d already been planning to take you this weekend after we’d settled in a bit. I figured you’d like all the animals, and they apparently have a rogue called ‘Menagerie’ who transforms into animals and does shows.”

Her eyes sparkled with visible excitement at my confession, so I gave myself a mental pat on the back for a job well done. “That sounds like a lot of fun!” she breathed out with quiet enthusiasm. “Yes, I’d love to go!”

“Aw, you go girl, getting a date!” Ariel interjected, heavily patting me on the shoulder with a grin. I sputtered, and Elle blushed brightly. “I’ll leave you two lovebirds—” Oh god, puns too? “—alone, shall I? Come on in at your own pace!” And before I could recover from being shocked into a mild stupor, Ariel pranced—for there could be no other word to describe the way the woman moved in that moment—over to the door and vanished through it.

I stared after her, debating whether I had just imagined that interaction, and eventually I turned to Elle, hoping to find some sense of reason there. Unfortunately, there was none to be found. My friend’s blush only intensified when she turned to meet my gaze, and she promptly and silently fled into the house. That left me staring after her and wondering what had just happened.

Does she have a crush on me? I pondered as I flexed my power to lift the remaining bags out of the back of the van using my orbs, which we had laced all of the bags with. What if she does? Does that matter? What am I saying, of course it matters! But would it make things different? I mean, after all, I really like spending time with her, and I don’t want that to change. Wait, wait, wait, ‘I like spending time with her’? Does that mean something? Do I have a crush on her? Fuck me, what if I’m the one with the crush, and she’s embarrassed because it’s really obvious, and—

I was yanked out of my spiraling thoughts with an “oof!” when, lost in thought, I ran headlong into Gregor. I would have fallen square on my ass, but thankfully he wasn’t nearly as affected by our collision and reached out to steady me. The bags I had been holding in the air weren’t quite as lucky, but it didn’t sound like anything broke when they crashed to the ground. “Is everything okay, Juniper?”

“‘Course it is!” I replied. Jesus, why do I sound all high and brittle? “Why wouldn’t it be?”

“You looked distressed and did not respond when I asked what was wrong,” he carefully explained, his normally slow cadence even slower as he stared at me funnily. “Then you walked into me as if I were not here. I believe it is understandable to question whether everything is okay, no?”

“Ah. Um.” I nervously glanced through the vestibule’s door into what appeared to be a foyer. Melanie, Masuyo, and Ariel were talking in there, and though they didn’t appear to have noticed me bumping into Gregor, the thought they could be listening in made me even more flustered. “Um. So I, um…”

Gregor glanced behind him at where I was looking, then he gently laid his hand on my upper back and steered me out of the vestibule and back into the garage before quietly shutting the door behind us. “We are alone now. You may speak freely. Is everything okay?”

I opened and closed my mouth silently for a bit longer, trying to find the right words, and when I couldn’t find them, I decided, Fuck it, and just blurt out, “Does Elle like me?”

I had gotten much better at reading Gregor’s expressions, even in dark areas, so despite the dimness of the garage, I didn’t miss the faint confusion that spread across his face. “Yes? I believe it clear that Elle enjoys your presence.”

“No, no, no, I mean… Ugh!” I started pacing almost without realizing it. “I mean, does she like like me?”

“Oh. Oh, I see,” he remarked as the ridges where his eyebrows would have been rose. “You like Elle then?”

“I don’t know!” I blurted. The urge to start swirling metal around me was almost overwhelming, but both of my backpacks were in the other room, and if I went back into the vestibule, then someone else might notice I was acting weird and— ugh!

“What has brought this on? Did something happen? You weren’t like this a few minutes ago.”

“Ariel, she… We were talking about birds because Vermilion Flycatcher, right? I mentioned I was gonna surprise Elle by taking her to the zoo this weekend, Elle got excited, and Ariel was like, ‘You got a date!’ then Elle got all red in the face, and I felt weird, then Elle left while things were still all awkward, and—”

“Juniper,” Gregor interjected, cutting off my rant by putting a hand on my shoulder and shaking me just a bit. “You may stop. I think I understand.”

“You do?” I doubted I would understand anything after that jumbled mess of an explanation, and I was there!

“Earlier this week, do you remember asking me to look after Elle?”

“Yes…?” I responded, not sure where he was going with this.

“I mentioned at that time Elle does not need supervision, but even since then, you have never left her alone for long, if at all. I confess I had not suspected your feelings may lean towards… romantic—” Oh geez, I could feel how violently I was flushing. “—and you may yet decide they are platonic. If nothing else, it is obvious you care about Elle.”

“W-Well, yeah? I mean, Elle’s been through a lot of shit and is still going through a lot of shit, but she never lets it get her down. She always tries to be cheerful and upbeat, to look on the bright side and make the bad days better, y’know? It’s really nice spending time with her, and I want to do things to make up for the bad times, so I… I…” I trailed off.

Holy shit, maybe I do like Elle? My legs felt weak, and I half slumped backwards, my butt and lower back coming to rest against the still warm hood of the van. My shirt had ridden up a bit, and the feeling of the metal against my skin blessedly helped ground me. “Gregor, you’ve gotta help me! I have no idea how to be in a relationship! I’m probably the worst person to be in a relationship with! Fuck, what do I do?”

Whatever I was expecting, it wasn’t Gregor bursting into laughter. When I glared at him in a mixture of incredulity and indignation, he paused chuckling long enough to explain, “I apologize, but this is the first time you’ve had an issue that is stereotypical of a teenager. I am laughing with relief, I assure you.”

That somewhat mollified me, but I still crossed my arms and huffed. “That doesn’t exactly help me figure out what to do.”

“I would talk to Elle.”

“Wha— easier said than done!”

“Yes, it is.” I goggled at him in disbelief, and he chuckled again. “I never said it would be easy, but that is where I would begin. Communication is important.”

I groaned and buried my face in my hands. “Talk to her.”

“Talk to her,” he confirmed.

“F-Fine, I’ll… I’ll try.”

“That is all we can ever do,” he sagely responded, and I couldn’t help but roll my eyes behind my hands. “Take your time and stay here until you are ready to come in. I will take care of the bags.”

“But…” I started to object, but when Gregor held up his hand in a stopping gesture, I huffed out another breath of air and plopped back down against the van, enjoying the feeling of the metal on my back. “Okay. Thanks, Gregor.”

“You are welcome. Also, if I may offer one other piece of advice: Do not try to force things. If a relationship happens, it happens. If you remain friends, then that is good as well.”

I snorted. “Sounds like something outta a fortune cookie.”

“I do enjoy Chinese food,” he replied with a teasing smile as he turned back to the door and left me to my thoughts.

[A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. . . .]

I yelped and gripped Elle’s arm in surprise when orchestral music abruptly flared out of the TV set. Aisha and Newter snickered loudly, and I gave Aisha, who seated on the couch to my right and therefore the closest target of my ire, a baleful glare. “It is not funny,” I hissed. “None of you warned me that would happen!”

“Apologies,” Gregor remarked. “Even knowing you have not seen these movies, it is easy to forget you will not know some things that are otherwise well known.”

“You’re missing the story intro,” Masuyo pointed out, and when I turned back to the screen from where I had been scowling at Aisha, I was surprised to find a wall of text scrolling up the screen. “Wha— I thought this was a movie?”

“It is?”

“What movie has a novel at the beginning?”

“I would hardly call a few paragraphs of text a novel,” Melanie chimed in with a hint of a smirk.

“That’s not— you can’t— Mean!”

“Very articulate,” Newter contributed. “Clearly that’s why the text is bothering her. She can no English well.”

“I swear to god, Newts, I can’t touch you myself, but that won’t stop me from putting a coin through your skull!”

“It’s starting,” Elle softly said, lightly squeezing my arm, stopping my ire in its tracks.

“Right, sorry,” I replied, much more quietly than I had been speaking a few moments prior. Ariel shot me a very unsubtle double thumbs up, and when I shot her a death glare, she returned the look with a wide grin before retracting her hands.

I did my best to leave that bucket of worms alone and focus on the movie. The last of the text was scrolling up—apparently a princess was trying to get home with stolen plans while being pursued—and the camera moved to focus on a planet with two moons in orbit over it. Almost immediately two ships, one much larger than the other, flew into the frame, and we were thrown straight into action. I let myself settle into watching the movie, enjoying the opportunity for what it was. We had never had many movies around the apartment while I was growing up, so I was actually really excited to see these films, especially since they were apparently classics. Newter had said he preferred something else called ‘Star Trek’ more but had nevertheless agreed these movies were still a must watch.

My enthusiasm started to wane somewhat after about ten solid minutes of the two robots tooling around a desert and getting into shenanigans while the talking gold one bitched at the beeping shorter one, and I finally asked, “Is there going to be much more of this?”

“Nah,” Aisha replied. “Intro shit. They’re gonna get bought by this farmer dude, and—”

“Spoiler alert!” Ariel cried out. “Shush-ola!”

“Hey, she asked.”

“She asked if this was going to continue for long, not what was going to happen!”

“Yeah, Aisha,” Newter said, throwing in his two cents. “The line separating those isn’t exactly a fine one.”

“Anyway,” I cut in, before they could continue bickering, “I got my answer. So, y’know, thanks for that or whatevs.”

The movie did shift gears not long after, and though it still didn’t grab my attention much at first, I got a lot more interested before long. It wasn’t until Vader started choking a guy without touching him that I spoke up again. “Holy shit, that’s crazy. People actually thought powers were like this when capes first started popping up?”

“This movie came out years before the first capes,” Melanie answered.

“Wait, really?” I replied, flummoxed. “Then where the hell did they get the idea from?”

“Who’s to say?” she said with a shrug of her shoulders. “This series exists on Earth Aleph as well, where the creator, George Lucas, went on to make three more entries. Unfortunately, his counterpart here on Bet died not long after episode six was released, so we’ll never know how capes might have influenced the series.”

It was still kinda crazy to listen to how similar yet different Earth Aleph was from our world, especially since the differences all seemed to boil down to Bet got capes in the early 80s and got crazy afterward. “So wait, there are six of these movies?”

“Yes, but the first movie, this one, is actually Episode Four. We’re just watching the original trilogy tonight,” Melanie clarified, though her explanation left me feeling more confused.

“Uh…”

“Oh, Luke,” Elle whispered, squeezing my hand.

I blinked, looked down at where somewhere along the way we’d begun holding hands, then shook my head before focusing back on the movie. Luke had just arrived back at the moisture farm and was calling out to his relatives. Before long, he properly took a look at the damage that had been wrought while he was away and seemed to realize he was too late. I squeezed her hand back as the scene transitioned away and winced once I realized Vader and his lackeys were going to torture Leia. Goddamn, that’s a hell of a one-two punch.

When the movie eventually ended on a high note a while later, I languidly stretched to get the feeling back in my muscles. “Well that was an interesting movie, I guess. So if that was number four—” Ugh, what a dumb numbering system. “—and we’re watching a trilogy, then we’re watching five and six next?”

“Not before I get more popcorn,” Newter quipped as he smoothly leapt to his feet and stalked off towards the Flycatcher’s large kitchen.

“Yo, hold up, you overcooked it last time!” Aisha called out as she scrambled to follow.

“Want anything, Elle?” I asked, turning to her.

“Water please?” she asked, holding up her glass. Though she turned towards me and met my eyes, her own were starting to look a bit unfocused. Where she anyone else, I might have thought she was just readjusting to not looking at the screen or maybe even just tired, but I had started to learn the signs that a bad day was building and recognized what was happening.

“Sure thing,” I gently said, carefully taking the glass from her hands before rising to my feet and moving to the kitchen, where Newter and Imp were bickering about the best method for cooking popcorn.

“I’m telling ya, break up the dust on the kernels first by squishing the bag back ‘n’ forth!”

“I’ve never heard that ever, and there was nothing wrong with that popcorn!”

I snorted but stayed out of it, since I didn’t particularly care one way or the other. I had more than filled up on our actual dinner before we started the first movie. I added a few pieces of ice to the glass before topping it up with water from the fridge’s dispenser then made my way back toward the living room. To my surprise, I found Masuyo had moved over to my seat from where she had been sitting by Gregor.

“Uh. What’re you doing?” I asked, only just barely keeping the sharpness out of my tone.

“Your hair,” Masuyo replied with a raised eyebrow. Whoops. Guess I didn’t quite keep myself in check. “Come here and sit down.”

“What’re you gonna do to it?” I suspiciously asked.

“Braid it. I think you’ll like it.”

I dithered, biting my lip in consideration. Part of me wanted to just focus on the next two movies, but having your hair braided was a feminine right of passage or had seemed that way to me. Perhaps it was a bit silly to think of it like that, but I really wanted to experience it at least once. “Okay. But I reserve the right to hate it.”

Masuyo rolled her eyes but gestured at the carpet in front of her. I swore I saw Melanie smirk, but I pointedly ignored her as I cautiously handed Elle her glass. Once I was sure she had a secure grip on it, I plopped down between Masuyo’s legs, and her hands almost immediately dove into my hair. Aisha and Newter only spared mine and Masuyo’s new positions a passing glance, somehow still debating the merits of different popcorn cooking methods, and before long, Ariel was starting the fifth—What a stupid numbering scheme!—episode. The gentle tugging and manipulation of my hair was actually kind of soothing, and I felt a bit of a smile creeping onto my face as we watched. I perked back up though when Luke and the other rebels began to fly cables around the large, lumbering Imperial walking ships.

“Hey Melanie, we should get some cords, so I can do that!” I might have been able to make them myself, but my fine control wasn’t very good, so I probably couldn’t.

“Oi, quiet in the theater!” Aisha jeered.

“Yes, quiet in the theater, Aisha,” Melanie drawled with a quirked eyebrow at a much more reasonable volume. “And noted, June. I’ll talk to my contacts tomorrow while you’re all out shopping.”

The trio of leads split up in different directions just before the Imperials took the Rebel base, and though I enjoyed the twist that the Millennium Falcon had landed inside of a creature the size of an asteroid, I couldn’t help but speak up about it. “Isn’t that, like, scientifically impossible or whatever?”

“In what way?” Masuyo asked, sounding distracted. She then grunted and brushed out my hair with her fingers to restart, having apparently made a mistake.

“Duh. The hell is a huge ass critter like that gonna eat on an asteroid?” Aisha answered, clearly picking up on what was bothering me.

“I think it’s plausible,” Newter said before swallowing the mouthful of popcorn he had been chewing. “I mean, nobody’s seen an Endbringer eat, right?”

Everyone turned to look at him incredulously, but Aisha was the one who spoke up first. “Dude. Not cool.”

“It was relevant to the conversation!” he defensively exclaimed under the weight of everyone’s stink eye. “Besides, it’s not like talking about them jinxes them to appear or whatever!”

“Who fucking cares about some dumbass superstition?” I bit out. “You don’t just bring them up. Everybody’s got someone they know who’s died to one of those monsters, so it is not cool.”

“Fine, fine!” he said, his tail agitatedly whipping back and forth through the air over the armchair he was in. “Let’s just watch the movies, yeah?”

The silence over the group, ordinarily not out of place when watching a movie, felt heavy and oppressive as we watched Luke continue his training on Dagobah. The funk didn’t dispel until quite some time later when Masuyo abruptly declared, “Finished!”

I blinked, having grown so comfortable with my hair being played with that I had all but forgotten there was an end goal. “Lemme see!” I enthusiastically blurted before coughing and shooting the snickering Aisha and Newter a glare. “I mean, um, I’d like to see a picture? When you get the chance, that is.”

“Sure, sure, hang on,” Masuyo muttered as she fished in her pocket for her phone. “Right, okay. Turn back around and hold still.”

A few seconds later, she passed the phone forward, and I stared at the picture on the screen. It was a relatively simple braid, and there were spots where it was tighter, looser, or even a hair lopsided. It certainly wasn’t the prettiest braid I’d ever seen on a girl, but it was still a braid. On my head.

“Sorry, I know it’s not the best,” she said, sounding anxious when I didn’t say anything. “I haven’t had a chance to practice in years, but I can—”

“I love it.”

I twisted around to look at her, and I couldn’t have hid the goofy grin on my face even if I had wanted to. She blinked, caught off guard by the compliment, but the surprise softened into a small smile with what looked like fondness in her eyes. “Good. I’m glad.”

“Pretty,” Elle agreed, her hand softly feathering over the top of my hair, prompting me to duck my head a bit to hide the blush creeping onto my cheeks.

I heard Ariel quietly ask Melanie, “Has she never had her hair braided before?” and stiffened as I waited to see how my boss would respond.

“They grew up apart and only recently discovered they were family,” Melanie replied, deftly leaving the truth intact while massaging it into something more palatable and easier to explain.

“And on that note, if we’re all ready to resume the movie?” Aisha spoke up with a hint of humor and just a touch of impatience in her voice.

“One sec,” Masuyo said as she rose to her feet and moved back to the loveseat Gregor was sitting on. “Let me give June back her seat. I’m sure she’s tired of sitting on the floor.”

I was, truth be told. The carpet could only soften the hardwood floor underneath so much, and it just wasn’t comparable to the cushy seat of the couch. I pushed up off the ground and settled back down on the couch between Aisha and Elle, the latter of whom was still staring at my shoulder next to her and the braided hair now draped over it.

“Alrighty!” Ariel said, once everyone was back in place. “Here… we… a-go!”

The movie resumed with Luke arriving on the planet with the city in the clouds, and the rest of the group was forced to watch as the Empire set about freezing Han. I rose an eyebrow at the ‘I know’ line from the smuggler, but I had to admit the line did seem to fit him. Still a stupid response to someone telling you they love you. I wasn’t internally lambasting him for long though, since in short order a duel broke out between Luke and Vader.

“Oh man,” Aisha whispered, sounding gleeful as she practically bounced with excitement on the cushion to my right. “Get ready for this shit, Junebug.”

“What, the fight?” I whispered back, my eyes still riveted to the screen as the two traded blows in the chamber where Han had been frozen.

“Shush-ola!” Ariel said from her spot, her eyes glinting with something I couldn’t identify in the poor illumination the TV provided the otherwise dark room. “No spoilers!”

Everyone remained quiet after that until Vader parried Luke’s frantic blow and sliced off the hand holding his lightsaber. Elle made a distressed sound and squeezed my hand, and I quietly murmured soothing words to her, though I couldn’t possibly have told you what they were, since my focus was split with the movie playing out on the screen.

“Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father.”

“He told me enough,” Luke painfully replied, as he tried to put distance between himself and his enemy. “He told me you killed him.”

“No,” Vader intoned. “I am your father.”

I sat bolt upright from where I had begun to slouch into the cushions. “No fucking way.”

“Yeeesssss!” Aisha crowed before cackling gleefully while Newter and Gregor both chuckled as well. I finally dragged my eyes away from the screen when someone paused the movie, and while Masuyo looked vaguely uncomfortable, I saw Ariel was grinning widely and Melanie was openly smirking. I whipped back around to face Elle on my left, and though she wasn’t smiling or laughing, she clearly wasn’t surprised either.

I slumped back into the chair, shaking my head in disbelief. “I can’t… He’s… Really?”

“Really,” Newter confirmed, looking inordinately pleased.

I had only two words for that: “Holy shit.”

The shock from the revelation lasted well into the next movie, and though I felt a hint of weariness begin creeping up on me after a long day’s road trip followed by a movie marathon, I forced myself to stay awake. Aisha and Newter would never let me live it down if I fell asleep. Elle, however, felt no such compunctions and started to fall asleep around the time Jabba took the heroes out over the sands to be killed. She tried to snuggle up into me but couldn’t seem to get comfortable on my arm. Unsure what to do, I tried moving my arm a bit, and she abruptly slipped underneath it and laid her head down on my lap. I felt self-conscious since everyone was right there, but when her breathing evened out a few minutes later, I knew there was no way I could bear to disturb her.

Eventually, around an hour and a half later, the credits finally began to roll. Ariel paused the film, and everyone but me stretched out their sleepy limbs as they began to fully move once more.

“So what did you think, Juniper?” Gregor asked.

“I liked it,” I confirmed. “The low end effects didn’t bother me or anything, since the movies were made decades ago, and that reveal in the middle movie… I still cannot even.”

The rest of the crew seemed to accept that assessment, and I could clearly see they had all had a good time as well.

“Okay, does everyone remember where their rooms are?” Ariel chirped, somehow still cheery despite the six hour marathon.

We all answered in the affirmative, and I gently shook Elle’s shoulder and whispered, “It’s time to get up.”

It took a moment, but she slowly twisted in place to look up. Her eyelids sluggishly crept open to reveal the pale blue eyes hiding behind them, and her gaze was definitely unfocused, more aimed at the ceiling than at me. “Sleep?” she said, the barest hint of a whine in the word.

“Soon,” I promised. “The movie just ended. We’ve gotta get you to bed.”

She sat up with my help and didn’t grumble any further about being awoken, but if I wasn’t off my mark about her beginning to slip into a bad day, then that probably had a lot to do with it.

“Do you need help getting upstairs and ready for bed?” I asked, once she was upright in her own seat.

She responded by silently trying to rise to her feet, but when she dangerously wobbled, I quickly rose to steady her, already tugging the coins I had been keeping in my casual backpack behind the couch up and into the air. I quickly siphoned out enough coins to gently keep her steady and upright, then turned to back to the rest of the group to wish them goodnight. We all started towards the stairs up to the second floor, but I suddenly stopped when a thought hit me.

“Wait, but… What is a padawan?”

“Huh?” Aisha replied behind me.

I turned around to face her, my eyebrows knitting together in confusion. “Y’know, a padawan? That was the thing, the whole reason why you said I had to watch this! You called me a ‘padawan’ at the hospital, and when I didn’t know what it was, you insisted we had to watch these movies!”

She stared at me a second, blinked a few times, then finally said, “Huh. I guess they didn’t actually use that term until Episode One.”

“You mean I have to watch more?!”