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“So, this is why I brought him here,” Welt concludes. “Mr. Sunday wants to join us on the Express. Of course, I can’t make that decision alone.”
March remains quiet as her friends debate. She studies Sunday instead- Sunday Oak, almost-Aeon, once-Ena, who tries his best to stand his ground and meet their judgment with earnest resolve. Himeko agrees with Welt, Dan Heng approves with solemn satisfaction, and the Trailblazer’s skepticism morphs into giddiness soon as the prospect of hazing a new junior Nameless reveals itself to them.
“I guess it’s okay,” March says as her turn comes.
That’s as much as she can give. A guess, nothing more. A coin toss. Heads, they all die in eternal stasis. Tails, they gain a companion.
Sunday inclines his head and thanks them, promising a great many things. He carries himself differently and March wonders, briefly, how much of it is performance. Make himself seem small and helpless and oh-so-grateful.
By the time they all part ways Sunday remains in the parlor car by himself. There is a spark of sympathy in March’s heart for the way he hesitates to even take a seat but she moves on, as well, to the daily tasks she has set aside for the end of their vacation.
Organizing photos is a quiet endeavor. Remembrance or Preservation, it takes time to assemble the full picture of a memory. Penacony, preserved in ice or amber, must reflect the experience as well as possible.
In case you forget again, it always threatens. March chooses the next frame with no hurry.
It all starts with the Reverie. A bellboy she couldn’t see, an IPC executive, and the two Halovians. Miss Robin, beautiful as ever, smiling even as her voice began to falter. Her god, corroded, decaying, by her family’s hand. Sunday isn’t in the photo.
March shrugs and continues on.
The picture comes together one glimpse at a time. A long labor, to build a world brick by brick. Displayed proudly.
The sights and sounds of the Golden Hour are still glamorous frozen in place. March adds pictures of the Moment of Dusk, the Blue Hour, many others that she passed through. An eternal night, never-ending festivities.
Once the foundation stands secure she fills in the rest of the story. Photos of an Emanator, of a dream below a dream, of the graves of Nameless to honor their long journeys. March smiles down at the sight, making a mental note to give the conductor a good hug later.
The last few pictures do not bring a smile. Coins raining from the sky. A grand theatre. An airship after the dust settles. Then, thankfully, more familiar faces. The crew, of course. Miss Robin, the IPC executives, Black Swan, and Acheron.
March fits them all where they should be. A few stickers of origami birds round out the full picture.
It is only when she closes the page on Penacony’s story that she takes note again: there are no photos of Sunday. A ghost within the margins. She frowns down at the whole of it.
“Mr. Yang, what made you invite him onboard?”
Welt looks up from his book. The cover is colorful, joyful, abstract. He pats the space beside himself and March follows the request, plopping down on the seat.
“Is there a particular reason you’re asking?”
“I don’t disagree or anything,” she says quickly. “I think everyone should get a chance and all. But I want to understand what changed. Was it the whole encounter with Miss Tingyun?”
Welt hums.
“First, I should say that I didn’t invite him. Mr. Sunday requested to join.”
It stills March’s heart. She blinks.
“Oh. Huh. That’s unexpected.”
“I accompanied Sunday throughout his journey to bid his home farewell and many of the things he said felt familiar,” Welt tells her with a smile. “How no goodbye is ever perfect and change, as inevitable as it is, requires both luck and resolve.”
“I guess maybe I should talk to the guy and hear some of this for myself.”
Welt sets his book down with a laugh.
“There’s plenty of time for that. But yes, when hearing Sunday speak of lacking the will to Trailblaze and a temporary stay-“
“-it does sound like Dan Heng,” March admits and frowns. “And me.”
“You don’t have to force yourself to be entirely comfortable immediately. That is not what giving someone a chance means. And if you have any concerns-“
“You and Miss Himeko will always hear me out,” March finishes and sighs. “I know. Thank you, Mr. Yang.”
In those terrifying first few weeks they were so patient with her. With the anger, with the grief for something unknown to even her, with the all-consuming sorrow of having left behind a life somewhere out of her reach.
Welt hugs her and March relaxes before she knows it. They are family here and she is safe. They are true family, not bound by scripture and obligation. Nothing will have to change.
Sunday sits alone in the Party Car. He always does, staying out of the way, cleaning where he finds time, offering his help whenever an opportunity arises.
“Hi,” she says and sits on the table next to him. “Aren’t you getting bored of staring out the windows? Asdana’s stars are still the same.”
Sunday folds his hands on his lap. Back straight and shoulders square and a smile so practiced it belongs to everyone but himself. March wonders when it has become easy to tell. Perhaps the dream veiled it better, shrouded in wishfulness.
“Miss March,” he greets, so formal. “I suppose it might be considered boring but I find the view quite calming.”
March nods.
“Calming? So you are nervous, huh? It is a lot to take in, I bet. Is it weird to be walking around in reality again when you’ve been in a dream for so long? Does it make sleeping more difficult?”
The surprise Sunday can’t hide feels like a victory. Smug satisfaction about proving him wrong. Vindicated to not let herself be underestimated.
“Both aren’t inaccurate,” Sunday says. “But none of it is truly debilitating.”
It is her turn to be surprised. Sunday sounds reserved, yes, and keeps his rigid posture, but there is clear relief in his tone.
It will take some time to click into place. That oh, right, being treated like a normal person, being spoken to without fear, must feel good.
“When I can’t sleep a night I wake up in the worst mood ever,” March says. “Maybe you can give me some tips on how to pretend to be sociable some time.”
“I consider your ability to stay true to yourself, no matter the judgment you may face, one of your most admirable traits, actually.”
She gives him a once-over.
“Hm. Then can I say something you may not like to hear?”
A twitch in the wings.
“Of course,” Sunday says and shifts his legs. “What is it?”
“Do you think I’m stupid?”
She makes sure, word by word, not to let it sound too aggressive yet. It is just a question, however blunt. Sunday’s eyes widen.
“I- no, I don’t.”
“The dream you gave me,” March continues. “It was this… shallow cotton candy place. Like a fairy tale. It wasn’t hard to break out of. And, yeah, it did kinda feel like you thought I would fall for most minimal effort deception.”
A childish vision, she doesn’t say. Pink and bright and so painfully dull after the initial novelty wore of. She ran from the grand banquet until her mind shed its sweet shackles.
“I don’t think you are stupid,” Sunday says and there is sadness in it. “But I understand that these are empty words compared to your experiences and I… do not want to keep making excuses.”
“Hey, I asked. So how did it work?”
“I didn’t handcraft every dream but I also didn’t let them develop freely without my influence. The Dreamweaving aspect of it was both caused by and influenced by my abilities but the material used still was the memoria composing Penacony original Dreamscape.”
March tilts her head.
“It almost sounds like you’re not a hundred percent sure what happened, either.”
“My memories are somewhat blurred, as though my mortal brain can’t fathom what I could as an Aeon. What I do know is that I realized that I- that these glimpses of happiness-“
He doesn’t finish his sentence, falls quiet again. March sits down on the couch and waits.
“Miss March,” Sunday begins again after a while, meeting her eyes. “Could you tell me what a good dream would look like for you? Not to recreate it, of course, I have no intention of repeating my mistakes. But I am curious.”
“Curious about…?”
Sunday’s wings twitch again.
“I suppose that is something I would like to learn from you.”
How to want something for yourself. March doesn’t roll her eyes and tell him that dreaming isn’t where wishes come true. It is difficult to wake up. It must be worse when one has spent their whole life asleep.
“Okay, right, so,” she starts and taps her chin. “First of all, it would start out small. Familiar. I’d be surrounded by friends. There’d be a little danger, a little thrill, but in the end it all works out alright.”
Sunday watches her closely.
“You were alone in Ena’s dream, then?”
“Yep. Just me and a mountain of sweets.”
“I-“ he starts and shakes his head. “No, nevermind.”
“No, come on, we’re being honest right now.”
It gets a curt laugh out of him. Then, Sunday clears his throat.
“Did I trap you in ice a second time?” he asks. “Did I make you relive your time in that… that coffin?”
March lays awake contemplating the question. Hugging a Pom-Pom plushie close only staves the fear off for a while and before she knows it she is padding outside to talk to whoever is rummaging around in the kitchen.
“Bad dreams?” she asks Dan Heng and doesn’t even ask before making him a cup of tea.
“You as well?”
“Didn’t get to the dreaming part yet.”
“I may have encountered a similar predicament,” Dan Heng sighs and hands her her own sweetened milk tea. “It is… difficult to shake the thought of never waking up.”
And night descends over her thoughts without fail. A shadowy, oppressive veil that keeps her unaware of even her own thoughts. Sheltered as a corpse already embalmed.
“Yeah,” she says. “I keep thinking-“
The words fail her. Bold and brash and at a loss for words, at times, as much as she remains at a loss for a past.
March isn’t surprised anymore when Dan Heng scoots a bit closer. His steps led him to the Express, too, running from a version of him he never gets to speak to.
She rests her head on his shoulder.
“Would I even know,” Dan Heng says quietly. “I awoke the last time but would it work again? What if there was no dream at all?”
“I talked to Sunday about it earlier.”
“Oh?”
“What do you make of him?”
Dan Heng deliberates.
“A weary traveler,” he decides eventually. “Someone who grants himself little kindness. Someone who might benefit greatly from journeying across the stars with companions.”
March nudges his side.
“Hey, I asked about Sunday.”
It makes Dan Heng laugh, if only a small little huff. Oh, how far they’ve come from the days when she spent every encounter rolling her eyes at his speech and demeanor and perceived arrogance. Stuck up stick in the mud, she kept thinking. Cold and heartless. His shoulder is warm to lean against.
“A weary traveler, huh,” March repeats. “I guess we’re all kinda like that.”
“Especially in the middle of the night.”
“Yeah. Especially then.”
The Trailblazer’s answer is as simple as it is determined.
“Sunny’s a little lost but I don’t think he’s a horrible person,” they say. “Well, okay, maybe a lot lost. Almost turning into an aeon doesn’t constitute as ‘a little’, probably.”
“Probably,” March repeats and helps them sort away a trophy from one of their many strange games they keep roping everyone into. “I feel bad for Miss Robin.”
“Well, she’s the one who believes in him the most, right? And she knows him better than any of us.”
March wonders if that is true. If there is not a part in a person’s life where every year spent apart is also spent un-knowing everything that came before, undoing every memory. Is Remembrance cruel or kind? Is a fresh start a farewell to oneself or everything you ever loved?
“Do you have a problem with him being here?” the Trailblazer asks and studies her.
March weighs the option.
“No,” she says and means it. “I don’t think so.”
“And no crush-“
“No crush, no, cut it out.”
“But you’re deep in thought, for the first ti-“
“Hey!”
Himeko’s gentle smile always puts March at ease. All of her razor-sharp determination is aimed at those deserving of it, as much as her love and care is reserved for those dearest to her heart. Just and decisive when it is needed, warm and patient when it matters.
“Something on your mind?” she asks. Her coffee steams beautifully, hiding the horrors that dwell within the cup. March smiles at the thought.
“I’ve been thinking about Penacony. And Sunday joining us after everything.”
“Mhm, quite the surprise it was.”
“Right?! I think I’m still trying to get used to the idea. I trust Mr. Yang’s judgment but…”
“March, it has barely been a day,” Himeko says gently. “It’s a lot to take in for everyone and that is with the events of the Wardance and Tingyun’s return barely behind us. There’s no rush to sort out your thoughts. The same goes for me, as well.”
March looks up.
“It does?”
“Mr. Sunday presented us a very specific image of himself in Penacony, one carefully curated,” Himeko says. “Discovering a new path or trying to become a more genuine version of ourselves takes time, too, just like we might take time to adjust to the change.”
One version before the ice, one after. March wonders, not for the first time, who she would have had to reconcile with. Is it easier to make peace with a past you don’t know or one you dislike?
“If I ever-“ March starts and bites her bottom lip. “If I ever forget again-“
“We will remind you,” Himeko says as she draws her into a hug. “And you have taken such diligent care to leave memories and mementos in your path. Should it ever happen, we won’t stop until you’re back with us, March.”
No dream ever stays permanent. She keeps waking up, day after day, to imperfect tomorrows.
“That one scenario you gave us to hypothetically ponder,” March starts and sits down on the seat first thing this time, “was it some kind of parable or did it actually happen to you?”
Sunday sets down his journal.
“Which one?”
“Oh, right, you had a whole lineup prepared. The middle one. The guy who sold his kids into slavery.”
“That, regrettably, was a real story, yes.”
“Fuck that guy,” March says. “I hope he’s dead.”
The faint sound of the phonograph drifts over to them from the parlor car. A slow, meandering song. Belobog, she guesses. It aches pleasantly in her heart. Nostalgia for that which she remembers always is less frightening.
“I’m not sure that he is,” Sunday replies, his voice carefully neutral. He sees the challenge for what it is, she’s sure.
March nods.
“Does it bother you that I think that way?”
“It might have, once,” Sunday says and folds his hands again. “But I didn’t ask those questions only to prove my point.”
“Sever my path with your own hands.”
“That isn’t to say-“
“Yeah, yeah, you’re not making excuses,” March says and sighs. “It’s fine. I’m not asking this stuff to be mean or make you feel bad, you know.”
“I see. That is reassuring.”
“What, did you think only Mr. Yang was going to try and debate you?”
“I had no real expectations of my stay with you all,” Sunday replies. “It was… more spontaneous than I am used to.”
One step of many. Leaving a home behind and with it all stability.
“Well,” March says. “There’s a lot more spontaneity ahead of us. That’s what Trailblazing is like most of the time.”
An exciting thought. Ever-changing days full of possibilities. In a dream where time stands still what meaning does tomorrow have?
Sunday shifts beside her, his feathers rustling.
“I find myself looking forward to it.”
March looks over, eyebrows raised, and knows her surprise may also be victory.
“Really?”
“Does it bother you that I think that way?” Sunday asks, a dash of amusement, a dash of genuine uncertainty.
It doesn’t, she finds.
Dan Heng is the one who makes her aware that Sunday sleeps in the Party Car’s uncomfortable chairs.
“There’s no way,” March says and immediately rubs the side of her head. “No, actually there’s absolutely a way.”
Change is gradual and takes time and reflection but she feels something shift acutely during the few hours where she pulls Sunday along to one of the empty rooms past her own. The Trailblazer bustles around the place, tidying up, and Dan Heng carries bedding over.
“You really should have said something sooner,” March comments. “Your poor back. Don’t your wings hurt? Have you not been having any snacks?”
Sunday stands in the middle of them, embarrassed by all the fuss. There’s a flush on his face and a constant flutter to his wings and for the first time it fully sinks in that he is their age, that he is away from a stable home for the first time, that he has little experience with a lot of the things that have nothing to do with a grand purpose or the burden of administration.
“It was quite alright,” Sunday will say. “I didn’t want to impose and-“
“Anyway,” March says and pushes a particularly fluffy pillow into his arms. “This is your room now. Next time we go to an Interastral Peace Mall we can look for some nicer decorations.”
Their third curio in a weekly Simulated Universe one summons an exploding sphere in their vicinity at every encounter.
March screams the first time it pops up behind her. Only with the help of one very swift general does she manage to dodge out of the way. This is a chance to prove herself to someone with mastery of many weapons, someone so effortlessly confident.
A blond merchant heals her scrapes expertly but any other time enemies pop up on their path, March glances over her shoulder nervously.
“They can’t keep jumpscaring me,” she laments to the silent man in a purple hood who occasionally sinks into the floor. “I’m too young and pretty for a heart attack.”
“The two most important factors when assessing health risks,” the merchant-healer answers. “I don’t believe the blast can ever be lethal so as long as I remain with you all and alive nothing shall ever happen.”
“Don’t push it,” the foxian general replies. “This is already very lenient treatment for a wanted criminal and you know it.”
March tunes out their discussion and focuses on her own swordplay. The weapons still rest unfamiliar on her palms and with every exploding trap set off near her the ringing in her ears grows louder. Sweaty hands and racing heart and by the time their run is over she feels nothing but gross and shaky.
The lobby outside the Simulated Universe is empty. March steps through the portal and takes a deep breath, steadying herself, calming down. The world surrounds her, her body as its center. Balanced and unshakable.
She waits a while but no one else appear. Her phone gives little answers. They must all be busy. March buys a soda from a space station vending machine and strolls back to the Express.
Pom-Pom left a note on one of the Parlor Car tables about going out for supplies. A pawprint signs the stern writing. Take care of yourselves out there!
March smiles, weary as she is. Home. This is home.
She takes a shower. Steps back out into the train in fresh clothes and there is no one to tell this day’s story to. They are taking too long.
What if they never come back?
It’s a silly thought. Of course they will. They do this every week, a run of the Simulated Universe, going with different friends, meeting back up on the Express when everyone is done. It is like this every time. Every time.
Except March can barely remember a day when she was alone on the train. There is always someone awake, always someone to hang out with. A tune playing or water being boiled or another sign of life. All vibrant reds turn dull now. All the stars outside hollow, painted on, dead. Everything around her, nothing but-
“Miss March?”
March yelps and drops her swords to the floor. The loud clang has her wince in unison with Sunday. He stands in the doorway, one hand on the frame. A second of silence passes before he steps inside. Carefully schooled features. Poorly hidden concern.
“I apologize for startling you,” he says. “Here I thought my group was making record time but it seems you put us all to shame.”
March huffs.
“How do you know we even finished our run?”
“Didn’t you?”
“Maybe so,” she replies. “Who did you go with?”
Sunday avoids her eyes as he kneels down to lift her weapons from the floor. He holds them out handle first and she accepts them, studying him with growing curiosity.
“I was… encouraged to help some of the IPC executives,” Sunday admits finally. “To mend some of the more strained relationships and facilitate cooperation with the Express in the future.”
“How did that go?”
The worry hangs over him like a raincloud. For a man named Sunday, March notes, he really is a little gloomy.
“It went as well as could be expected,” he says.
“Uh oh.”
“Miss March,” Sunday says, clearing his throat and speaking with added gravitas. “Could I trouble you to demonstrate to me how you made the drink you had yesterday? It looked intriguing.”
She stares at him and he stares back without breaking eye contact.
Halfway through measuring ingredients March realizes how soothing it is. Clear instructions, easy to explain. Her hands move on their own. Crush the whole spices, boil them, add tea, then milk, and let it simmer. As she strains the finished product into two cups she frowns up at Sunday.
“You’re not as sneaky as you think.”
“Apologies again,” Sunday says and shifts his weight. “You seemed… troubled. I hoped it might help.”
“It did. Thanks.”
“Would you like to talk about what happened?”
Would she, March considers. The mug is warm in her hands and the anxiety spell is broken and the Express is home again.
“I kinda just want to grab a snack and watch a horrible movie now,” she says. “It’s okay now, don’t think this one requires a counseling session.”
Sunday nods.
“Thank you for the tea and the instructions, then. I’ll return to my room, if you-“
“You’re uninviting yourself from movie night that quickly?!”
And March gets to witness Sunday’s expression shift from that baseline politeness to shock to something more subdued. It’s all admittance. Leaving the disguise behind to replace it with resolutions.
“Are you sure?” he asks. “It’s been a long time since-“
Since everything, they’ve all noted. Since Robin dragged him to social gatherings, since he allowed himself a life, since anything. March shrugs.
“I’m sure, yeah. Dan Heng got more of that hazelnut ice cream, too, so we could raid his stash.”
“Ah, I wouldn’t want to take anything without his permission.”
“That’s why I’m gonna do it. I’ll take the blame if he minds, which he won’t. He’s always trying to sneak you snacks anyway, right?”
Sunday’s wings flare out briefly. It’s more than embarrassment, something none of them succeeded in coaxing out so far. He holds himself like he might sink into the ground.
“I- yes, some of the others have made an effort to try and get me to eat more, I believe.”
“Because a stiff Belobog breeze could knock you out.”
“It is not quite that bad.”
“If you don’t want to hang out, just say so,” March tells him. “I won’t be mad. But you don’t have to worry about being bad at movie nights or whatever. The first time I tried to have one I got so dizzy from looking at a screen for the first time I fell over the conductor and broke a vase and a coffee table. So, like, I get it, okay?”
And Sunday squirms, as he tends to, as though fighting his own body for sovereignty. March wants to ask, one of these days, as much as she is sure he has questions he is too considerate to ask. It comes easier now, to see his compassion for what it is. It isn’t a sickness anymore, an obsession. A sincerity now, just as her pictures turned from necessity to hobby.
“I would like to join, yes,” Sunday admits. “Your insight and patience are much appreciated, Miss March.”
“Calling me ‘Miss’ makes me feel old, you know.”
They settle into her room with some of the ice cream and their warm drinks. March doesn’t miss the looks Sunday gives her collection of plushies but can’t decide if it’s judgment or surprise. A talk for a later time, perhaps. He doesn’t know how to relax or settle down but neither did Dan Heng for the first ten times.
“This is a very cozy space,” Sunday comments, nonetheless. “You have a talent for making those around you feel at ease.”
Not you, not yet, March doesn’t mention. It’s a work in progress.
They watch a movie about swords and sorcery. Long ribbons of vibrant fabric follow every warrior in their deadly dance, clashing under the change of seasons. Monumental, in image and sound. March grows drowsy soon enough, slipping away.
When he thinks she can’t hear, Sunday hums along to the main theme, a few careless notes.
The Trailblazer’s protective fire keeps the rain of acid at bay. March smiles up at the clouds where the blessings of water begin to clear up the monster’s vicious blood. It pours from the cuts Himeko’s saws left, from the black holes bored through its rotten hide. A mountain of a snake, scales the size of a house, and yet March knows they need only a few more strikes. They can win. They can always win.
The halo settles behind her head with the warmth of a firm hug. Energy burns in her veins, agility and precision. Her swords hum with it, too, the empowering tune. Today, she gets to slay the fiercest foe. Soaring, March cuts a path through terror. Falling, she knows she will be caught. This isn’t a simulation but there is nothing to fear.
“You have to admit that was pretty awesome!” she laughs and shakes off the nerves. “Do I get first pick on our run this week?”
Being loud feels good and right. Making herself known and heard and last in this world. To project this person she carefully put together is to make her come alive, to weave March 7th into being with reaction to reaction.
The cleanup is a blur- helping the residents move back into their homes.
“Miss March,” Sunday calls out to her. “May I ask for your assistance?”
She follows the call, squeezing past a few heaps of shed snake skin. As conjured as the creature was, its effect on the planet remains.
Sunday kneels in the dust with a few of the survivors, their wounds bandaged and faces less grim than only a few hours ago.
“You all wanted to meet the valiant knight who cut down the monster,” Sunday says with a smile. “Well, here she is.”
March flushes bright red but soon settles into being her humblest self. Trailblazing isn’t about becoming a savior. They weren’t the only ones who fought today.
“I only recently picked up swordfighting,” she explains. “With enough practice it isn’t so difficult! I’ve been trying to get better exactly for moments like this where I can help out when it’s needed.”
She doesn’t have the soothing hymns of the Harmony at her disposal but her chatter helps. She’s with them here, on even ground.
The day grows long. March treks back and forth between places so many times she could find her way in her sleep and by the time the Express is ready to leave most of the others have already left the planet.
“Sunny’s still wearing himself out,” the Trailblazer tells her. “Wanna go pick him up?”
They find Sunday easily enough. March files it away as a talk they need to have, of doing too much, but for today all they do is put a hand on Sunday’s shoulder and tell him it’s time to leave. No need to drag him, no need to force it.
“How come you never sing for us, Sunny?” the Trailblazer laments on their walk back. “It sounds so nice, are we not distressed enough usually? I can cry more when I stub my toe if that would help-“
Sunday huffs.
“That won’t be necessary.”
“So you’ll do it for free?!”
“It isn’t- It is not meant to be a performance.”
“Aw.”
“Aw,” March echoes. “You could always sing just because. We like it. One time I saw the conductor stop cleaning to listen, can you imagine?”
Sunday mumbles something noncommittal. Embarrassed by their praise, ducking away from it. March nudges him, then another time, and it makes him laugh instead of flinching away. They are also here, on the same path, returning home in the setting sun.
March follows her routine. Cleans up, then returns to the Parlor Car.
The Trailblazer loses a match of Starchess to Dan Heng and threatens to eat all his pieces. Welt ensures the conductor has a break, all duties done. And Sunday has fallen asleep with his head on Himeko’s shoulder, wings folded in to shield his eyes.
The Express isn’t abandoned. It never is. March smiles and bounds towards them, loneliness ready to be cast aside.
“Why do you do that?” March asks.
Sunday jumps, lifting his hands from the counter. Caught in the act but the look he gives her is not the sheepish hesitance she expected. It’s fear, dull as blunt force trauma.
“I apologize,” Sunday says and straightens up like a puppet on cruel strings. “It will not happen again.”
March crosses her arms over her chest.
There is a gentle way to ask, a careful approach, but that is Dan Heng’s specialty. Calm and considerate in the face of oddities.
Sunday has many of them, those oddities. He hides them well, most days, the tapping and counting and blank stares as though he was fading from the world into the stars again.
“You don’t have to apologize,” she says and tries not to furrow her brow. “I was just curious why you pause and start the tap so many times. It’s not a big deal, though. I just wanted to grab some of the leftovers. The sushi. Wanna share?”
Sunday opens his mouth and closes it again. That distant look is easing up. Following her back to earth, grounded.
“No, thank you,” he says, voice slightly strained. “You may have it all to yourself.”
“Wooo! Are you okay, though?”
“I’m fine, thank you.”
“Do you want me to leave or can I talk your ear off about what happened in the show I’m watching right now?”
She sees him wrestle with it. Winding roads and mazes, she’s sure. March waits, patient, until he nods.
“I would love to hear how the story continued.”
And there will be a day when he admits what happens when the spirals send him towards his own self-destruction, when she excitedly gets to relate how it isn’t so different, in some ways, from not being able to stick to a thought and focus sometimes.
For now, she hops onto the counter and tells him about whatever bounces around in her skull to fill the dreadful silence. Sunday listens. The fear comes and goes.
It starts with a simple text.
There’s an Interastral Peace Mall close by right now, do you want to go get some stuff?
Sunday agrees. It doesn’t come as a shock anymore to see him join a trip or gathering eagerly. March grins at him as he shows up and hooks her arm into his.
“Wouldn’t want to lose our favorite bird,” the Trailblazer agrees. “Actually, that’s making me realize how many friends we have who could qualify as birds.”
Dan Heng joins them quietly, ever the watchful shadow.
“Two peacocks alone.”
“Oh, you’re right. And at least two crows, depending on who we count. Also, is a firefly a bird?”
“No.”
“Are birds mammals?”
“No.”
“What are they, then?”
March pulls Sunday along with her.
“Let those two figure out the mystery of birds,” she sighs. “We’ve got shopping to do.”
They start with clothes, bolstering Sunday’s limited wardrobe.
“I do not wish to keep borrowing so many things from you all,” he says, sorting through jackets. “You reassure me you don’t mind but-“
“You feel like a burden anyway.”
“It has gotten better,” Sunday tells her with a happy flutter to his wings. “It is moreso about… allowing myself to settle.”
To nest, with things of your own.
March urges him to try out everything he likes, to spin around in every new outfit and let it be judged by their Trailblazing committee. Dan Heng and her give thumbs up at almost anything, encouraging, while the Trailblazer asks Sunday unrelated questions every time he steps out of the changing room.
“You don’t have to just let them bully you, you know,” March comments.
Sunday laughs, adjusting a waistcoat that would have been three sizes too loose just a few months ago. The Nameless take good care of their own.
“I am an expert in tuning,” he says and inclines his head. “That includes tuning out nonsensical input, it turns out.”
The Trailblazer gasps in mock offense.
“How dare you? I’ve never been this offended.”
“My sincerest apologies.”
“I can see you laugh, you know. To atone, you have to try out something more daring.”
“…which would be what exactly?”
“You’ll just have to try and convince me that it counts.”
Sunday takes a breath.
“Miss March,” he addresses her with a smile. “Would you help me pick something to pass this trial of atonement?”
She sees it for what it is, goes to the rescue. This does remain a rarity, the times when Sunday asks for help outright. To make a demand is to hope others agree on the share you take up- is it too much, too much, too much of you?
“There are a few things I would like to try out,” Sunday admits, fidgeting and flighty. “Things that were considered unsightly or improper or-“
The shadow the Order’s cage cast rests on him the most. March sees it some days, the something bad that still clings to Sunday, the something happened to you that left its mark.
“Hey, no need to be nervous,” March says. “Worst case we don’t end up buying it, right?”
Sunday nods quickly.
“That is true. There is… more to regret if I never try.”
The skirts flow well around him. March laughs a few times, genuinely elated, but reassures him within seconds.
“It’s cute, I’m not making fun of you. I know how exciting it is to find one with pockets, believe me. Hey, let me get a matching one.”
They take a good few bags home to the Express. The room fills with the new and the adventurous, a nest assembled.
March considers it a milestone, later, because suddenly one text every week becomes three every day.
“You have a gift to make others feel at home,” Himeko always tells her. “To allow them to lower their guard.”
March can’t help but agree. The unspoken truth remains- it includes herself, too. To trust with all her heart is not an easy feat, to care so freely. A choice, every day, one she never regrets.
“I wasn’t sure how well he’d fit in with us,” the Trailblazer comments, carrying the largest pot they could find in storage to the kitchen. “Didn’t expect to have to get scared to get replaced so quickly.”
They say it like they say everything, flippant and casual and dismissive of themselves and all else. When March hugs them they slump into her hold.
“No one’s getting replaced, silly,” she says.
It sticks as a thought, however. Her own fears only ever see a different, uncaring version of herself take her place. Someone who remembers nothing or gives no thought to her precious memories. March takes photos for them, too. Maybe they will love what she loves if she works hard enough.
They get drunk together, the four of them. Somehow a bottle of expensive wine- courtesy of a particular gift-giving Stoneheart- made its way to their movie night. Half a glass in March knows it is not meant for human tolerances. Pretty colors explode before her inner eye and she feels as light and bubbly as the liquid itself.
“Ready for takeoff,” she giggles and expects to float towards the ceiling, confused when she stays crammed into the couch’s corner next to Dan Heng. “Why are your horns wobbling, Dan Heng?”
“They are- they are not.”
“Is your tail wagging, too?!”
He is saved from having to answer by someone beginning to sob loudly on their other side. March’s eyes are sluggish to follow the realization.
“Sorry for being so hard on you all the time, Sunny,” the Trailblazer mumbles, hugging a crying Sunday around the waist. “Most of it was in good fun but I was also kinda jealous you got along with my best friends.”
The movie keeps on playing. Someone onscreen says goodbye to their old life forever. Sunday hiccups through another sob.
“It’s alright,” he says. “I knew it was meant in jest.”
“You still always think you deserve it.”
He has no answer for that. March pats Dan Heng on the shoulder, urging him to move.
“Group hug,” she informs Sunday as she deposits herself across him. “Wait, are those your wings?”
They curve out, massive and fluffy, a mind of their own. Soon they are all sheltered in the feather’s embrace. Dan Heng purrs against March’s side.
“Is that okay?” Sunday asks, still sniffling. “I don’t want to-“
The Trailblazer pats March’s face before finding the wing. She keeps her complaint to herself, lets them mumble their reply.
“’s all good, Sunny.”
Welt gets injured on a mission.
The worst part, March finds, is the boring part. Pacing back and forth, willing the clock to turn faster towards news, good news, any news. Waiting is slow attrition, is helplessness, is her hands shaking in her lap and her legs too tired to move too restless to hold still.
March finds Sunday in the waiting room of the resort’s medical unit. She sits with him, drags her legs up to rest her chin on her knees.
“So much for a little vacation,” she says weakly. “And here I thought my biggest worry would be what sunhat to wear to the pool.”
Sunday watches her in silence for a moment. The weariness has returned. An ache familiar.
“May I hug you?”
March blinks.
“Yeah.”
Sunday is less careful about it than he used to be. They’re not going to break. They’re not going to be hurt. March only notices she is shaking when he begins to rub his hand over her arm, up and down.
“I always appreciate your ways of cheering others up,” Sunday says. “But please have some consideration for yourself.”
She wants to protest it. It isn’t some self-sacrificing grand gesture, she could argue. It isn’t anything more than what it is. But March ran here from seeing Mr. Yang pale and unmoving in a hospital bed only to temper her own fear the second she saw Sunday huddled alone like a scared little finch.
“It will be alright,” he tells her. “I… have faith that it will.”
“I hope so.”
“It seems for once it is my optimism that will have to prove your fears wrong.”
March settles into the thought.
“You better be up for that.”
“I think I am.”
Sunday keeps himself busiest as they wait. Procuring drinks for all of the ones waiting, checking in for updates, and listening to everyone’s worried rambles. March falls asleep on the uncomfortable seat only to find herself covered in Himeko’s coat with Dang Heng’s rolled up below her head.
Sunday’s with her, still. She hears the shifting of feathers every now and then. March smiles, too bleary to get up quite yet. The sound of a coin flipping brings a frown to her face.
“It will have to wait,” Sunday says in a low tone, weary but not insincere. “I understand there are things we need to discuss and clear up but only after Mr. Yang’s safety is assured.”
The chuckle he receives is familiar.
“Of course, of course. The safety of your companions takes top priority. I am not heartless, after all.”
“Thank you for your understanding.”
“Try not to worry your pretty head too much. He’ll be back on his feet before you know it.”
Only after his expensive boots have carried Aventurine away does March crack her eyes open.
“That guy sure loves to compliment you.”
“He requested a meeting,” Sunday says absentmindedly. “I’m not sure what to expect but that’s a worry for a later time.”
“Just don’t let him be horrible to you as some kind of punishment.”
“I won’t, I promise.”
“How are things?”
“Calm,” Sunday responds and sighs, leaning against her. “Tiring. He’s stable but he has been stable for a while. I keep thinking about the last thing I said to him.”
“It won’t be the last thing. Mine was something super mundane, not a proper farewell at all.”
“Is it ever?”
“Hey, you’re supposed to be optimistic this time.”
“A momentary lapse in judgment.”
“Come on, Mr. Momentary Lapse,” March says. “You lay down a bit now. I’ll take over.”
She leaves the Trailblazer to watch over Sunday and heads out with Dan Heng. They trade a few more times, making hesitant plans for after. After he wakes up because he will because he must because he can’t not.
She spots Aventurine a few more times, strolling around the facilities, always with an eye on Sunday. March considers threatening him but decides to grant the merciful benefit of the doubt.
Welt hugs them all tight after he finally wakes.
“I gave you quite the scare, didn’t I?” he asks when they have helped him back to the Express, back home, back to the mountainous stack of foods they acquired to celebrate. “March, did you make the donuts? They look wonderful.”
She takes a picture of them all around the table, smiling and laughing and having cast aside a tragedy. Joyful moments, preserved in ice.
Sunday isn’t in any other pictures and March stares at her albums and displays with a furrow in her brow. It isn’t right. It isn’t true.
“Selfie time!” she exclaims the following day, pulling him in and squeezing him while snapping a picture. Sunday yelps but it fades into laughter, wings puffed up. It makes it onto the photo, too, that joy.
“Do you have something against my plushies?”
Sunday sets down the box he carried over from the Parlor Car and turns around to face her.
“What makes you think that?”
“You stare at them a lot,” March says and puts her own package next to his. “At first I thought you were just judging me for being childish but that was when we didn’t know each other super well. So assuming that isn’t it, spill.”
Sunday stifles his laugh behind his palm. There is still an embarrassed flush to his face but his wings flap much more excitedly now whenever the occasion calls for it.
“I suppose I do find them childish,” he says and reaches out, tentatively, to stroke the giant Pom-Pom plushie’s head. “But in a comforting way. In a way I still envy.”
March doesn’t make her comment yet. A lump in her throat and a sadness for both of them, for all of them. The Trailblazer joins with the third box within the minute.
“No being somber and reflective until we’ve started with these,” they say. “My hair needs the care and while March’s is a lost cause we can still do something for Sunny’s feathers-“
“What do you mean!?”
They duck under her attempt to ruffle their hair into a mess with practiced agility.
“Hey, hey, joke, it was a joke-“
It always goes that way with them. Barreling into a situation, loud and certain, and once the dust settles they add seriousness back to the levity.
“None of us have really had a childhood in that sense, I guess,” they will say with their nose in the preening kit manual. “Dan Heng didn’t either. We’ll get him to join again next time, his scales looked a little dull too.”
“You three do have very unique backgrounds in that regard,” Sunday agrees. “It seems only natural to want to make up for it.”
“No, no, Sunny, you don’t get to exclude yourself. I meant all of us.”
“I don’t mean to diminish my experiences. It is only making me question whether a lack of memories can be considered the same as having made unfortunate ones.”
“As long as you’re not comparing-“
“Only a little.”
“Every time you do that, you have to join one extra socializing session.”
“The horror,” March says dryly. “He’s more excited than anyone else for them now.”
She remembers something similar, at the very start. Shying away from Pom-Pom and Welt and Himeko because they were as much strangers as she was a stranger to herself. Dan Heng, eyes sharp and muscles coiled to strike back at any of them who could threaten him. They all mellowed, with care, with time.
Sunday’s wings flutter every time they invite him, too. Squirming still but he comes over for movie night, for baking, for whatever is on the agenda.
“I was always wondering if you’d think you were above all this,” March admits, following the preening guide to the letter. “This isn’t some kind of special Halovian ritual I should be aware of, right?”
The feathers are smooth and soft and Sunday holds as still as possible to make her job easier.
“It’s not. It’s nothing different from hair braiding or hair brushing. Whether it is romantic or platonic depends entirely on the context.”
“Aw, romantic wing grooming sounds adorable. Did you ever…?”
March trails off. There are topics they haven’t broached yet, some of that which has stayed in Penacony. Welt goes quieter any time Sunday’s guardian comes up and it is a silence that only hides anger. March wonders, always, but not every can needs to be pried open to reveal its writhing insides.
“No, not really,” Sunday says. “I have had a few ‘encounters’ but nothing serious or long-lasting.”
The Trailblazer pokes his side.
“Well, if you get a crush on someone, tell us so we can wingman for you. Extra wings.”
“I’m scared of losing myself the more I lean into the power of Remembrance,” March says into the side of the seat. “Like… if I remember who I used to be would that mean March 7th gradually disappears? What if I end up someone I don’t want to be? What if by the time I realize I don’t want to remember it’ll be too late and I’m stuck as some… chimera. Neither me nor fully… not me.”
Sunday scoots closer until his leg presses against hers.
“Your experiences are what makes you March 7th, aren’t they? Even if there lays a past hidden before your memory, the things that happened to you still happened. You helped who you helped and changed so many lives for the better. Perhaps that, too, can be Remembrance. The memory of your impact, the traces you left on others.”
“That’s a nice thought.”
“You won’t have to face it alone, whatever awaits.”
She draws spirals into her notebook.
“Does using the Harmony ever bother you? You weren’t happy with it, either, were you?”
“I wasn’t,” Sunday confirms and adds another small flower to the page of his journal. “I think about it often. That- that what we are meant to revere and rely on is also what brought us the cancer to kill us all. Order wouldn’t have solved it. Whatever I would have brought into the world wouldn’t have, either. No solution is ever going to be perfect but…”
“It shouldn’t come with a cost as high as those.”
“Yes.”
“So the answer is that there’s no answer,” March sighs and picks a blue frog sticker to add to her page. “Ugh.”
“Unfortunately.”
“Annoying.”
“When I expressed similar doubts to Mr. Yang he assured me that on our long journey we will have many more opportunities to figure out that which has us stumped right now,” Sunday says. “Oh, does this one count? It is… creature-adjacent I would say.”
What he hands her is a cartoonish cloud with big round eyes, seemingly enamored with a rainbow to its left.
“It counts,” March decides and accepts the offering. “I think I saw some flowers in my pile, too, if you still want some of those.”
“Yes please.”
“Are you gonna send one to Miss Robin?”
Sunday’s wings flap once.
“I was considering it, yes.”
“You should! This is so cute. She’ll love it.”
“Who will have the honor of receiving the frog collection?”
March shuffles through the completed pages of the scrapbook.
“Well, this one’s for Serval. This one’s for Bronya, this for Seele-“
She continues for a while and takes a breath full of warm nostalgia.
“Really shows you how many friends I’ve made out there in the world since I woke up,” she says just as she realizes it, as it forms as a full thought in her mind. “Wow.”
Sunday laughs.
“And they will all keep your memories and experiences safe with them out there across the cosmos.”
“Ah, fuck, I can’t cry or I’ll stain the paper.”
“Would another frog help?”
“Yeah,” March says and can’t stifle her own giggle. “Of course it would.”
After another page is filled, she notices something on Sunday’s. Leaning over his shoulder she points at an array of different patterns. A mosaic, red and green and light blue.
“Who is that one for?”
Sunday doesn’t answer until he has fully taped the last scrap to the paper. It looks like feathers, the whole of it.
“That depends on how courageous I am feeling.”
“OH?! Not Robin?”
“The musical one is what I intended to send her.”
“And you’re going to leave me in suspense?”
“For now,” Sunday says and flushes under her expectant gaze. “I- I will tell you in time.”
March laughs as her back presses to Dan Heng’s.
“You take the left three, I can handle the other twelve.”
“That is not a fair distribution of labor.”
“Okay, you get two.”
“All that talk,” Dan Heng sighs with that endless fondness he has for her and the other Nameless. “I see few results.”
The Trailblazer’s bat swings at the first of the simulated IPC grunts with its usual precision.
“You’re both so slow!” they shout, triumphant, the golden halo burning behind their head. “I get the bird blessing today, so you’ve already lost! Surrender now and maybe I will be merciful-“
March surges forward, her blades aimed at one of the huge automatons preparing to sink its sawblades into them.
“Tough words from someone three points behind!”
They flip coins before Occurrences and chase trotters around their domains and by the time the boss enemies come around March’s arms are getting tired once more.
“One last fight,” she says and gives a thumbs up to her three companions. “Let’s make it a good one!”
She gets scraped by missiles a bit and Sunday exhausts himself fully trying to bestow his blessing upon all of them at once. March finds herself steadied by the Trailblazer while Dan Heng uses his draconic strength to keep Sunday up on their walk.
“A celebratory spa night is in order,” March decrees. “Lushaka sea crystal masks for everyone-“
Pom-Pom greets them with a shake of their little head. They’ve made sure to be there every week now. March gives them an extra hug wherever she can.
“Take good care of each other,” they scold. “No overworking yourselves, even in the name of science.”
March gives them a thumbs up, too.
“Thank you, conductor. We’ll keep each other safe.”
No doubt, no question. The Nameless take care of their own.
Aventurine steps onto the Express with all the confidence of a seasoned performer. He flashes March a smile, tipping his hat. As suspicious as she’d like to be she notes the softer lines to his mouth, the twinkle of genuine enjoyment in his eyes.
“Good evening,” he says. “How are my friends of the Astral Express faring?”
March gives him a skeptical look.
“Pretty good, we just came back from a trip to the Yuque.”
“Pretty this time of the year, I’m sure.”
“How about you? What brings you here?”
“Can I not visit some friends without ulterior motives?” Aventurine asks and adjusts his gloves. “I was in the area and remembered that unfortunate encounter we had a while back. Mr. Yang is recovering well, I trust?”
March exhales a long shaky breath.
“He is.”
“Wonderful news. Speaking of, where are your fellow Nameless?”
March sips some of her tea and glances towards the door separating the Parlor Car from all compartments.
“I’m waiting for Dan Heng to get done with some files, he promised to play cards with me. Are you looking for someone in particular?”
“Perhaps.”
“That’s not ominous at all.”
Aventurine lets a coin wander over his knuckles, the picture of unbothered calm.
“Where could one find Mr. Sunday?”
The surprise gives way to wariness. March eyes Aventurine critically, the whole façade of him, and sets her mug down.
“What do you want with him?”
“Have a little chat, nothing more.”
“What if he doesn’t want to talk to you?”
The smile wavers, just briefly.
“I wager he does,” Aventurine says. “Either way we should ask him, yes?”
And as well-versed as he is in subterfuge and masquerades, March sees the something else shine through all the best laid pretense. Aventurine struts around, not a care in the world, not a worry at all.
“Must be pretty important for you to show up in person,” she tries, gentler.
Aventurine’s shoulders hitch, then drop again. A give and take, a come and go. He takes a piece of paper out of his suit pocket, unfolds and refolds it with the ease of someone who has done so many times over.
“What’s a man to do?” he asks giving her a wry smile. “Getting a beautiful letter on handmade parchment, how could I not make the trip?”
March’s eyes go as wide as saucers. The dots connect themselves. This is still well-traded vulnerability but vulnerability nonetheless. She lets this gamble go.
“He’s learning what a roguelike is upstairs, I think,” she says. “Don’t ask how there’s an upstairs. You’ve been to the Party Car, right?”
Aventurine gives her a little theatrical bow.
“Much obliged.”
He goes, sashaying and confident, but he tucks the letter back into the pocket over his heart. Pretty feathers, neat tape.
“Passengers, prepare for the Warp Jump!”
The conductor’s voice echoes through the Express. March fixes her ribbons in her hair before hurrying to the Trailblazer’s room to drag them out of bed and to the realm of the living. Dan Heng awaits her in the data bank as always, Welt has already been up since the early hours of morning.
A glance into the kitchen lets her know that Himeko and Sunday are having a theological debate over horrible coffee no one but the two of them can stomach.
“Warp Jump about to happen!” she calls out. “I’ll try not to fall over in the Parlor Car if you need me!”
She is alone when the train speeds up but it bustles around and behind her. It soars on the silver rail upon the stars and March staggers and stumbles but doesn’t fall. She laughs, a hand to her heart, and beholds the destination outside the windows. A new adventure awaits.
March opens her eyes on just another ordinary day and can’t bring herself to get out of bed. The regular burst if energy doesn’t come. The room around her doesn’t feel familiar.
She buries her face in one pillow and hugs another close to her chest. Life can be hollow and gnawing at times, at dawn, at random.
It is quiet outside the door, too. No steps on soft carpet. March waits and waits and finally grows bored of being bored. Morning has come and gone.
She pulls the photos and displays from their secure spot below her bed to let them rest on the ground before her a while. Her life, her work- March 7th’s life, March 7th’s work. Not steady as stone, changing on a whim however the wind blows. Her memories remain here, assorted, recorded, remembered. Safe and sound in the past.
March bounds into the Party Car to crash her surprise party. A shower of glitter and balloons rains upon her and even though she can’t stop sneezing the grin doesn’t leave her face.
“I hope you enjoy the cake, Miss March,” Sunday says and looks so pleased with himself she can’t help but hug him tight.
“Is this why you didn’t show up for movie night yesterday?! You spent all night baking? I thought you were sick!”
“Sick with it,” the Trailblazer says from behind her. “And ‘it’ is all the baking utensils.”
They pull March along to look at the playlists they curated for her, the decorations they assembled, and the gifts carefully wrapped.
“To our favorite day of the month,” they sing and hug her, too. “Dan Heng, get over here, group hug before Himeko’s pyrotechnics get too loud.”
Dan Heng’s tail wraps around them. He purrs so freely now, for those who he lets into his heart.
“The candles are from me,” he explains. “With some help from Mr. Yang on the designs.”
March brims with their love. She isn’t just a vessel, an empty slate. She is what the pictures hold and what these people cherish. The past dictates nothing and neither does the lack of it.
“Our March,” Himeko laughs and pats her head. “How much sadder a journey it would be without you.”
“It wouldn’t be the same journey at all,” Welt agrees and looks proud, so proud. “How do you feel?”
March takes a deep breath, surrounded by them all and their efforts to take the sting out of the day that marked the death of whoever came before.
“Like the luckiest girl in the world,” she laughs and wipes her eyes. “With the best friends in the cosmos.”
Every day comes to an end.
“One more,” the Trailblazer urges. “For March~”
Dan Heng and Sunday sigh at the same time but do not protest as their glasses are filled once more. The champagne bottle glitters in the dimmed lights, jewels set in already audacious god wrapping. March almost toppled under its weight as it arrived, a package big enough to dwarf the conductor.
“Another couple glasses and I won’t be waking up until March 9th,” March says and flops down on the bed between her friends. “Doesn’t have the same ring to it.”
The Trailblazer nods sagely, squeezing her shoulder.
“And Sunny and I are gonna cry, as we do every time, and Dan Heng will start to get really cuddly-“
“Sounds like a great time.”
“Cheers to that,” Dan Heng says, the faint amusement not hidden at all. “Sunday, will you sing for us this time?”
Sunday has already curled up in the nest of pillows, his headwings stirring faintly. His halo produces a soft sound, barely a chime.
“Love you all,” he mumbles, barely audible against the gigantic blue bird plushie they got him for his own anniversary. “Happy birthday, March.”
“Are you drunk already?!”
“No.”
“I was gonna say,” she laughs. “We have not taken enough pictures yet and also I want to see you all lose at Catcake Party.”
Her hubris comes back to bite her within three minutes when her adorable deercake gets tossed into the virtual river by Dan Heng’s dragoncake.
“On her birthday?!” the Trailblazer shrieks before their own creature, a manta ray cake, gets launched as well. “Sunny, not you too! They’re corrupting you!”
Sunday’s crowcake sits triumphant on the bridge above the river. Then, dramatically, it hops into the water with them.
“We are in this together,” Sunday says sagely from where he has wedged himself to ensure he is the warmest.
“That’s not how the game works, Sunny-“
March’s chest hurts from laughing by the time the Trailblazer wins the longest round of a party game ever played. The champagne bottle sits empty on the desk, the lights dimmed, the snack bowls set aside.
“Has it been a good day, March?” Dan Heng asks her and picks a piece of popcorn out of her hair. “Worth remembering?”
March nods, shuffling around until she can fit between Sunday’s fluffy flight wings and Dan Heng’s tail. The Trailblazer is snoring already.
“Let’s take another picture,” she says, nudging them all to arrange themselves properly, fitting them into frame.
She snaps the photo, slightly crooked, slightly out of focus. A second to get it right. A third where Sunday’s halo doesn’t reflect the lamps glaringly.
March considers, for a moment, to place the pictures down onto the display, to show Sunday where he fits between them all after many days of Trailblazing. An adversary, then weary traveler, then a friend on a new journey.
She shrugs and lets the photos linger on her nightstand for now.
“To another year together,” March says and beams. “And more happy memories.”