I have this some of the time

Isla

As expected, Ever manages to give an answer without actually managing to say anything concrete at all, but Isla listens and watches nevertheless, as if his responses are still managing to teach her things about his frame of mind now. About how he works, about how he doesn't, and how to read even the most subtle of tells he might give. "That's alright," she assures him. "Perhaps the explanation will become more clear with time. Like sleeping on a problem and revisiting it the next morning, only to find you have already mostly solved it."

Smiling back, the gesture as soft and open as it's ever been, Isla can't help but raise her eyebrows at his question, though her brows furrow as she considers it, and eventually she nods her head. "Sunjata said that once he was cured he could... see things. See the void for what it really was in other people who were infected. He could probably see The Family's true form as well, if you follow that logic. It isn't necessarily that I think they would harm you directly, though it's certainly possible, but... I don't think it would do you any good, to see them that way. It shook Sunjata to the core."

sooner or later, we all have to wake
and try forgetting everything

flew me to places I've never been

Everest didn’t correct her. He nodded, slowly, the way someone might when they don’t want to argue but can’t bring themselves to agree either. Isla’s hope lingered in the room like steam above her tea, gentle but persistent, and Ever—who believes in measurable things, in evidence, in cause and effect—felt its weight like something he wasn’t built to carry. Not anymore. "I understand why you’d think that," he murmured. "Sometimes things do come back... with sleep. Or time." His voice stayed level, but the pause after suggested a quiet ache. He didn’t believe it, not for himself. Not really. But he didn’t want to take the hope from her hands, either.

As for the Family, he nodded again—this time, more certain. "I know what you mean. I’ve seen it too. The infection... it warps things. Not just people. Faces twist, like they’re being pulled into shapes that don’t belong to this world. And it’s not always visible. Sometimes it’s a feeling, like your skin knows before your eyes do." His hand tightened slightly in his lap. "That’s one of the reasons I don’t go out much." His lips twitched faintly—an imitation of a smile, quickly gone. One of the many reasons he didn't go out much.

but now I'm laying on the cold hard ground

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3

Isla

"And sometimes they don't. And that's okay as well," Isla says slowly, as if recognising the way her own hope had ballooned in the room between them and doing her best to temper it back. For both of their sakes, it's probably better to take things at a pace best described as glacial. At least until she can understand Mateo's quest more thoroughly, anyway. Bringing her tea back to her lip, Isla spends a few moments to enjoy it in what she presumes will be silence, but Everest surprises her with the certainty in his next words.

"Yes, that's right. It's how Sunjata described it as well. It sounds terrible," she says, earnest in her worry - for everyone involved, not just for Ever. "This barrier might not stop you from seeing those things in others who have been infected, if they decide to stay. But you won't see it in The Family, at least. And there are only so many places to go in Haulani anyway, if it's any comfort to shrink the radius of your potential travelling."

sooner or later, we all have to wake
and try forgetting everything

flew me to places I've never been

Everest’s fingers curled slightly around the edge of the table, the motion quiet and precise. He let her words hang in the air for a moment, as if testing their weight—testing whether the shape of them made sense inside his head. The idea of shrinking his radius… it had a kind of logic to it. But there was no place like home. Not in the sentimental sense—but in the way that every creaking floorboard and scuff on the wall had already been catalogued and accounted for. Haulani, for all his time spent there, still held edges he hadn’t mapped.

"I'm not sure where I would stay." He thought of the sea breeze through Isla’s windows, of the bright scattering of light patterns. Of lying on her floor as a dog because it was the only way to make the noise stop. His thumb tapped once against the edge of the table before stilling again. "I wonder if Mateo wanted to move La Verbena down, I could stay on the boat." It felt safer somehow. Contained. Familiar, in a different way, if only because he'd long ago internalized his friend's chaos.

but now I'm laying on the cold hard ground

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3

Isla

Silent to allow Ever to process everything she's said, Isla quietly finishes her tea and sets the empty mug back down on the coaster, smoothing out her skirts beneath the table. Glancing across at him as he finally speaks, she just about manages to cage the offer to stay with her that threatens to spill from her lips. If he had wanted anything like that, he would have said it, and besides, he isn't the only one who remembers the last time he'd been in her apartment.

Tilting her head at the suggestion of Mateo and La Verbena, she gives a slow nod, considering it. "He has been down to Torchline quite a lot lately," she agrees. "I wonder whether his parents plan on asking him to stay in Haulani anyway. They may have already sent something to him, for all I'm aware..." All of which is to say that there's every likelihood that the lavender-clad schooner will be over Torchline's skies soon enough.

"If you asked him, I imagine he would be happy for you to stay. You stayed with him before, right?"

sooner or later, we all have to wake
and try forgetting everything

flew me to places I've never been

Everest’s thumb tapped twice against his opposite wrist before settling again, and then immediately began again—one-two, one-two—as if repeating it might help him process more efficiently. "Yes," he murmured, eyes fixed on a faint scratch in the woodgrain of the table. "I’ve stayed with him many times." He paused, as though waiting for Isla to nod before continuing, though he didn’t check to see if she had.

"La Verbena is one of the only chaotic environments I’m comfortable in," he said, his voice measured. "Because it’s patterned chaos, or maybe I've just been around it for so long I can predict it. The cushions change colours, but not positions. The plants grow but don’t move." His hands stilled briefly, then pulled the edge of the tablecloth a quarter-inch straighter, aligning it with the corner. "It’s different from here. Or from Torchline. Or most things."

His gaze flicked—plate, cup, coaster, back to cup—and hovered. "You finished your tea," he said. "Would you like more?" His head tilted very slightly, though he didn’t lift his eyes past her collar.

There was a pause—slightly too long—before Everest reached for an earlier snippet of their conversation. "I wouldn’t want Mateo to move La Verbena just because of me. That would be… uneven." His fingers flexed once in his lap. "He lives here. It’s his skyship. It should stay where he wants it." Not like when Ever had taken it for several weeks while on his educational trip to the east.

but now I'm laying on the cold hard ground

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3

Isla

”Oh?” Curious, yes, but also understandably invested in any further information Ever wants to give about the places where he feels comfortable, Isla listens as he describes La Verbena and how she seems different to other chaotic environments, ones that she imagines are much more abrasive to his psyche. ”Perhaps a combination of the two,” she agrees readily enough. ”Repeated exposure to something necessarily creates familiarity - perhaps you’ve been able to find those patterns because you’ve been in the space so many times, to track the changes over time.”

Mateo, though, is likely also part of the reason for it, but Isla doesn’t mention that part; Ever has always seemed comfortable around the botanist regardless of the location, and that probably carries across to any place where they are together. Following his gaze down to her empty teacup, the Remedy considers it a moment before politely shaking her head. ”Thank you, but I am quite alright for now,” she says, knowing that any non-verbal cues might be missed given how he isn’t really looking at her.

”Uneven?” She echoes, before considering the word and humming an agreement. ”Well, I can’t imagine that he will be unaware that the barrier is going up,” Isla says. ”So perhaps he will mention something to you outside of this conversation. It might be his idea to move her.”

sooner or later, we all have to wake
and try forgetting everything

flew me to places I've never been

Everest nodded—twice, deliberate and small—at Isla’s interpretation of his comfort with La Verbena. His thumb pressed against the side of his index finger now, a repetitive pressure he didn’t seem conscious of. "That makes sense," he murmured. "It’s easier when the variables change slowly. When they announce themselves over time."

He folded his hands neatly atop the table when she declined the tea, taking a mental note to pour out the cooling water later.

The word uneven caught on him like a snagged thread, and when Isla echoed it, he flinched inwardly in the subtlest way—a hitch of breath, a too-tight swallow. "Yes. Uneven," he said again, more quietly. "If someone changes their life path because of you without natural progression, it creates imbalance. An obligation you can’t repay." His gaze skittered briefly over her hands, her braid, the steady way she breathed, before dropping again.

At her suggestion that Mateo might bring it up independently, Everest gave another clipped nod, though it didn’t seem to reassure him much. "Maybe," he said, and after a pause, corrected himself: Probably." A careful recalibration, as if saying maybe out loud had made it feel too loose, too unsafe.

He shifted minutely in his seat, realigning the seams of his pants along his thighs. "If he does, I’ll stay on La Verbena," he added, voice even but the effort showing in the tightness of his hands. "If he doesn’t, I’ll stay here." A logical fork in the road. Something he could manage.

but now I'm laying on the cold hard ground

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3

Isla

Isla's lips part as if to apologise for anything she might have said to cause Ever discomfort, having spotted the subtle flinch in his body as if she had mapped it there herself with her bare hands. But she stops herself, giving him the space and time to speak, ending up silently nodding her agreement to his point. "Well, I am sure Mateo does not view you as an obligation," she assures him, for all the good it might do. It's still easier to refer to the botanist in those terms than to suggest the same for their relationship. (Or whatever remains of it at this point).

Maybe becomes probably, potentially infinite choices close and narrow down to only two, and Isla senses the natural close to their conversation like a heavy book falling shut. "Perhaps I will see you, then, down at Torchline, if you decide to accompany Mateo," she says. "Only if that is something you would be comfortable doing though, of course. For now, I will let you get on with the rest of your day. We have both always been quite busy people, after all."

sooner or later, we all have to wake
and try forgetting everything

flew me to places I've never been

Everest blinked slowly, the gesture unhurried and unreadable. "I know he doesn’t," he murmured, voice even. "That’s part of what makes it harder. When someone offers something freely, without condition, it’s more difficult to say no without creating imbalance in a different direction." There was no resentment in it—just an observation, turned over in his mind like a coin being examined for authenticity.

He didn’t look at her, but the shape of her words—the phrasing, the tonal cues—was enough for him to clock the shift in the conversation. The soft descent. The closing. His breathing slowed in preparation. "You might," he said, of Torchline, the syllables faint and precise. "It’s hard to predict, but I’ll try to let you know ahead of time if that’s the case. I don’t like… surprises." A pause, small but taut. "But you know that."

His hands adjusted the cup on the table one final time, rotating it so the handle pointed exactly outward. Then he folded his hands again, resting them carefully on his thighs.

"Thank you for coming," he said. "I hope your flight home is smooth."

He meant it; of course he did. But like everything else since she'd arrived, the words sat too neatly on the surface—neither cold nor warm, only constructed, like a house built with all the right tools but none of the furniture inside.

~FIN

but now I'm laying on the cold hard ground

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3