Pascal was generally considered weird even among the Amarcians - no one could deny that she was a genius, but her personality quirks put off a lot of her kin in the Enclave. She knew she was a handful for her uptight sister, Fourier, but most of the time she was too busy with some idea or gadget to care. But when she turned seventeen and still hadn't shown any interest in bearing children, the whispers and glances became a little bit too much. It wasn't her fault everyone was so boring, she reasoned, but it began to bother her just enough that she left to go exploring the rest of the planet, maybe dig up some old relics of their ancestors and figure out where they'd come from, since they were totally unlike the other humans in the world - and not just for their hair.

When she found some old ruins years later, wherein fiddling with a control panel showed her an image of a girl, she'd been working her way through tirelessly for days, and decided to go outside and take a nap under a tree…and when she woke to find that same girl standing over her, real and solid this time - she touched her just to make sure - it felt like a sign from her ancestors.

The moment she saw Sophie, Pascal just knew the two of them were meant to be.

As she spent more time with Sophie, Pascal fell harder and harder. Sophie was mysterious, childlike but powerful - everything from her difficulty with emotions to her love of crablettes was totally adorable, and yet she could fight like no one Pascal had ever seen. Sure, she turned out not to be human as Pascal continued adventuring with Sophie and her other new friends, but in a way, that was even better - maybe, since she wasn't human, they could have children even though they were both girls. Pascal made a mental note several different times to ask Fourier about it the next time she saw her, as their adventure brought her back to the Enclave and her biologically-inclined sister, though she always quickly forgot. Pascal lived distracted, dancing through life at all different angles - only by looking at life from all kinds of angles, she figured, could she ever see things other people didn't, and maybe make some exciting discoveries - but when her thoughts weren't on the present or her gadgets, they always returned to Sophie, and she'd get a warm, fuzzy feeling in her chest. When her best friend, a certain Strahtan lieutenant, told her his every waking thought was consumed by her while they were talking about his upcoming wedding, she was too busy thinking about weddings and how she would totally propose to Sophie during their next poker game to really even think about what he was saying.

Then they faced Fodra's core, Sophie merged with the Little Queen, and everything changed.

At first, it was kinda cool, Sophie being all grown-up-looking now and being able to cry and actually, truly laugh. But it was on the shuttle ride home from Fodra that Pascal started to realize that Sophie was different. Not only did she not look the same, she didn't sound the same or act the same either. Everything that had made her so delightfully Sophie was different now, and Pascal knew Sophie would start losing some poker games with all her new emotions and expressions. Sure, she still loved crablettes - Pascal made sure to ask - but the way she confirmed it, the smile and the giggle and all the emotion that went with the reply, made even that much different. Too different.

During the shuttle ride and the goodbyes, Pascal put up a front for her friends of still being all happy-happy, maybe even overdoing it a little - they had just saved the world again, against impossible odds, after all, she knew she was supposed to be happy even if it wasn't just her default emotion - and good-naturedly played along with her sister giving her away to Hubert like a stray cat. She even agreed to give Hubert a different nickname, just to keep him happy and keep up the act that everything was happy. She told them she wanted to explore Zavhert, but after the others all left, she said goodbye to Malik and started up the mountain by herself.

She just wanted to be alone.
Because her Sophie was gone.

With no friends to put on a false smile for, she let herself frown and sag and mope her way up the snowy slopes of Mt. Zavhert to the warp pad that would take her home. No tears, not yet, it was too cold for tears, but she let herself be sad, let herself acknowledge the strange ache in her chest that only seemed to grow with each passing moment that her Sophie didn't exist anymore. The monsters she had to get past weren't even much of a distraction - they were mostly normal ones now, and after all her fights with Fodran abominations, they went down so quickly they were hardly worth noticing. Still, she found herself chasing everything she saw on the way up, just to think about and feel, however briefly, something, anything other than her heartbreak.

Then she was home. Alone. She had been planning to insist Sophie return with her and continue their poker match, but not the new Sophie. The new Sophie wasn't her Sophie. So she went to her room, alone, tucked herself in a corner, and finally let herself cry, careful not to be too loud just in case her sister came home, heard her, and bugged her about it. There weren't many people, Amarcian or otherwise, who knew that Smiling Pascal even knew how to cry, but Fourier was one of the ones who did, and she would ask questions Pascal didn't want to answer.

Her first love in twenty-two years of life, and it had been taken from her in a way more cruel than death. At least if Sophie had died, Pascal would have been able to hold on to precious memories of her wonderful Sophie - but no, Sophie had changed, into a completely different person but still with bits and pieces the same, she would live on as someone else, the memory just barely not quite a memory so it couldn't be clung to. Sophie, but not her Sophie…and it hurt. Until now, her best understanding of emotional pain had come from lamenting the fact that she was short, but this was something else entirely - it hurt, like nothing else ever had. Why did it have to be this way? Why had Pascal's ancestors seemingly given her such a clear vision of who she was meant to be with, only for it to be ripped away like this? It wasn't fair!

As was usually the case when Pascal was hyper-focused on something, time went all wonky on her. She didn't know how long she spent mourning and moping in her room, going out only to get more bananas and banana pies that didn't taste as good anymore, not in a world without her beloved Sophie. She occasionally dug through her piles of gadgets and gizmos and odds and ends, looking for something else to think about, but all she could think of was the lack of Sophie that now plagued the world. Once or twice she tried summoning mecha-Sophie from Fodra, but it wasn't the same - Hubert had said there was something 'off' about her, and Pascal hadn't understood at the time, but now she did; it looked more like her Sophie than Sophie did now, but it still wasn't her Sophie. She even took a bath once, as if she could wash away the pain, but that didn't help.

Then, out of nowhere, a carefully measured knock that she didn't recognize sounded on her door. Pascal allowed herself one groan, then plastered a big smile on her face. Whether it was another Amarcian or not, she didn't want anyone fussing over how she wasn't her normal happy self. Then she opened the door, saw various shades of blue standing in front of her, and suddenly, her grin felt a bit less forced.

"Oh hey Little Bro - I mean Hu," she amended before he could protest. "Sorry, gotta get used to that. What's up?"

"Hello, Pascal," he replied. "I was just in the area on business and thought I'd drop by."

"Business?" Pascal asked. "I just saw you like a day or two ago."

Hubert blinked, then pushed his glasses up his nose. "If you're referring to when we said our farewells in Zavhert, it has been nine days since that occurred," he informed her. "I assume you've been busy with some invention or other."

Sophie. "Yeah, totally," Pascal lied. "Time gets all wibbly-wobbly on me when I'm busy. Sorry. So what business are you here for?"

"Well," Hubert replied, "as you know, now that the three countries are working together in an attempt to build true peace, Windor and Strahta have been requesting that they also be allowed access to Amarcian resources. Fendel only recently agreed to open up access to Mt. Zavhert, and as I already have ties to this community, the President thought it best if I lead the ambassador party to meet with the Overseer."

"Ohhh. Windor too, huh?" Pascal asked, stepping outside to lean against the frame of her house. "Does that mean Asbel will be coming back up here soon?"

"Most likely, though I suppose King Richard himself would be able to handle the matter personally, as he's also been here," Hubert replied. "I would be surprised if whoever came didn't visit you, though. Plenty of commoners unfamiliar with even the continued existence of the Amarcians are too intimidated to come here without at least one person who knows the area leading the way."

Great. More reminders. The fleeting thought that Sophie might also join whatever group came up to the Enclave on behalf of Windor crossed Pascal's mind, and her smile felt forced again.

"I'm surprised Windor's party hasn't already arrived, actually," Hubert went on. "They certainly have easier access to Fendel and Mt. Zavhert than Strahta."

"Yeah, but they've also been totally at war with Fendel for like, ages," Pascal said thoughtfully. "Maybe it's just harder to convince anyone from Windor other than one of our friends to cross the border."

"That could be," Hubert agreed. He cleared his throat, pushed his glasses back up his nose, and said with an air of finality, "Well, I'd best be on my way, my men will be eager to leave. I simply wanted to ensure that you were doing well, and…" Another awkward cough.

"What?" Pascal asked when he hesitated to continue.

"…I'm unsure if he told you about this, but Captain Malik gave me the communicator you gave him so that he might stay in touch with you," Hubert said at last, "and I decided it would be rude of me to not offer to give it back to you, as it was not intended for me to use."

"No, he didn't tell me that," Pascal said, her forehead creasing. "Why'd he give it to you?"

"Something about all that 'stray cat' nonsense we endured when last we saw each other," Hubert sighed. "I've no idea what the man was thinking. But as it was not intended for me, I felt it only fair that I offer to return it."

"Nah, keep it," Pascal told him, then gave him a playful grin. "Meow."

"Oh, please," he sighed, eyes rolling in exasperation. "You are not a cat, Pascal. It was barely amusing the first time."

"But I thought I made a pretty good kitty," Pascal pouted. "Meow, meow!"

"Enough!" Hubert barked. "If you don't want your communicator back, so be it. I merely thought it would be polite to offer."

"Yeah, no, you can have it," Pascal told him. "Message me whenever you want, okay Hu?" She tilted her head and tapped her chin as something occurred to her. "Y'know, it's kinda silly that you'd need to come all this way about a communicator when you could totally just send a message asking."

"Again, I thought it would be rude to use it without your permission, as it wasn't intended for me," Hubert repeated.

"Yeah, but why does a communicator have to be 'intended' for anyone?" An idea was forming in Pascal's mind, and she let her mouth run with her train of thought to get her where she was going. "It'd be totally cool if those things weren't all exclusive, and like everyone could have one. Or, better yet, if no one needed one, and there was like a big system everyone could use."

"I suppose…" Hubert said slowly.

"Like, think about it," Pascal went on, getting excited now. "No more sending groups of people or pigeons or whatever you people do - no, anyone could talk to anyone about anything whenever something came up! Like, if your president and Richard had to discuss stuff, they could totally just beep-beep-boop-boop and tada, instant chit-chat without organizing people to deliver the message or even leaving their fancy palaces!"

"The president's home is not a-"

"And it'd be totally awesome if it wasn't just an Amarcian thing no one else could use," Pascal continued, momentarily forgetting her friend's very existence. "If no one had to come all the way up here just to get a messaging device and risk all the monsters and the cold and getting lost only to end up dealing with someone who totally just thinks they're a poliacarié-"

"A what?"

"-but instead everyone could just chit-chat, you know? No awkwardness, no hassle, no worrying about the messenger getting lost or eaten or something. Information could just travel totally freely and securely to anyone. Wouldn't that totally be awesome?" Pascal opened her eyes and turned them on her blue-clad friend.

"Er…well…yes, I suppose that would be quite useful," Hubert agreed, his cheeks flushing slightly for some reason. He hesitated, then added, "If there's anyone who could figure out a way to do that, it would certainly be you, Pascal."

"Awesome!" Pascal sang. "I totally know what my new project's gonna be! Thanks for the idea, Little Bro!"

"It's-!"

"Hu, sorry, Hu," Pascal corrected herself, still grinning. "Sorry, habit. Anyway, I'm totally gonna get on that now. Message me anytime, okay? See ya!" And without even waiting for his response, she dove back into her room and started sorting through her piles of supplies, looking for something she might use for her international communication system. It wasn't until a few minutes later that she realized that for nearly her whole conversation with Hubert, she hadn't even thought about missing Sophie.

~o~

Though she knew her idea was brilliant, Pascal's enthusiasm slowly died as she remembered that she was mourning her beloved Sophie. It was better to focus on an invention than her heartbreak, but it turned out to be a lot harder, too. As she started drawing up a few plans, she found her hand moving more and more slowly across the paper, as the pain began to return. She was just about to set the pen down when a bzip bzip bzip noise caught her attention, and a little ball of light reached her communicator. Immediately, she sprang for the thing, glad for the distraction. Naturally, the message came from Hubert.

Testing. Did I send this message correctly?

Pascal giggled, her first genuine laugh since Fodra, the tension in her chest that had just started to make it hard to breathe easing almost all at once. Only Hubert would send a message just to test to see if messages could be sent. Quickly, she typed out a response.

Relax, Hu, these things totally work. What's up?

She watched the light zip out of the room. It would be a few minutes before the response came back, she knew - if one was even going to be sent at all - but it was difficult to force herself back to her cluttered desk to keep working while she waited. Barely had she managed to draw a few more lines before a message returned, and she threw her pen aside to grab the device.

I had a few moments and thought I'd test this device, nothing more.

And that was all. Feeling oddly disappointed, Pascal returned to her diagram with a bit more vigor. True, she had no idea what she was doing, but that had never stopped her from inventing things. The initial idea was something along the lines of what they'd found in Fodra's core, but that was old tech, and way too big. Frowning at her design, she dove into her supplies again to see if she had anything that might work on a smaller scale.

As she dug through scraps of metal, she slowly felt her thoughts return to Sophie, and again, her hands began to move with less enthusiasm as they pawed through the piles of gizmos. She wished Hubert would send her another message.

Bzip bzip bzip.

Pascal stood up and lunged for the device again, her heart giving a little summersault in her chest.

How goes your research?

Eh, y'know, early stages, she replied. Gotta find something different from how these babies work. "And I gotta find a way to stop thinking about Sophie," she added to herself out loud.

As she returned to her work, her ears stayed perked for the sound of a reply approaching. It was better than thinking about Sophie.

~o~

Asbel's visit, along with Richard, came shortly thereafter, and mercifully, Sophie wasn't with them. They did indeed stop by to say hello, and Pascal got a chance to gush at them about her new idea. Strangely, talking to them wasn't as distracting from thoughts of Sophie as talking to Hubert had been, but that was probably just because she associated Sophie with Asbel and Richard more than Hubert.

"That would be quite useful," Richard agreed when she finished giving a rundown of her idea. "If we could communicate with other countries without sending envoys, that would certainly be ideal. Do you have any idea how you plan on designing such a system?"

"Nah, not really," Pascal admitted. "I think it needs to go beyond giving everyone an individual communicator, though. Maybe like a centralized thing for each country, a public transmitter, and everyone could get like an attachment or something."

"That would take a lot of manpower to build, not to mention a lot of money," Richard commented. "For all three countries to fund such an operation, it would have to provide very reliable service, and everyone would have to agree that it would be worth the cost and effort. I have complete faith in you, Pascal, but the President and the Chancellor don't know you as well as I do."

"Hey, she helped us save the world," Asbel protested. "Doesn't that count for something?"

"It should," Richard mused, "but without at least a solid plan, I doubt we'd be able to make much headway with the negotiations."

"What negotiations?" Asbel asked.

"There would have to be some sort of restriction on who gets to send a message to whom," Richard said. "A commoner in Windor can't rightly be allowed to send a message to the Chancellor of Fendel."

"Why not?" Pascal asked, pouting. "The whole point of this thing is so everyone can talk to everyone. I mean, our whole group is spread across the three countries plus here, and we're all like different stations and stuff, but we should all totally be able to talk to each other, no matter who we are or where we're from!"

"I see your point, but there would be concerns that would prevent the project from being fully funded by all three countries," Richard told her. "There are those in power who will have concerns about the freedom such a system would allow."

"That's lame," Pascal whined. She cocked her head and added, "But Hu would totally fund the Strahta end, and you'd totally be able to make it happen in Windor. I guess Captain Malik doesn't have much say in what happens in Fendel, though…"

"Have you seen Hubert?" Asbel asked. "I know we took a while getting here…"

"Yeah, he was here a while ago," Pascal replied. "He totally gave me the idea."

"How?" Asbel asked, surprised.

"Apparently, Captain Malik gave him my communicator," Pascal answered with a shrug, "and he was all awkward and gwah-wah about having it since I didn't give it to him myself, and that got me thinking how dumb it was that communicators have to be all personal and hush-hush and how everyone should totally be able to just talk to each other whenever."

Bzip bzip bzip.

A light approached Pascal's house, and she lit up. "Oh, I bet that's from Hu!" she exclaimed as she raised her communicator to receive the message.

"Oh, so you guys are talking now?" Asbel said, leaning forward curiously. "What's it say?"

"We should go, Asbel," Richard said meaningfully, putting a hand on his friend's arm. "We'd best be getting back to Windor. I'm sure you have plenty of paperwork to catch up on after the journey."

"Oh, yeah, right!" Asbel agreed, completely missing the implied meaning. "Nice to see you again, Pascal."

"Yeah, you too," Pascal said distractedly, focusing on the brief message Hubert had sent.

Richard only gave a small chuckle, and they walked away, Pascal barely even aware they had left.

~o~

Messages from Hubert didn't come very often. He was probably busy with all his military stuff, Pascal decided, and she tried to focus on her new project without the distraction Hubert provided, though it was difficult. Despite Fourier's claim that she was done taking care of Pascal, she did once or twice insist on coming over and giving her little sister a bath, so it was probably a few more days that passed before Pascal decided she needed to stop spending so much energy on missing Sophie. "I can't change that she's different now," she told herself. "There's no point in letting my every waking thought be consumed by her." She stopped what she was doing and tilted her head, surprised at her own words. "Every waking thought consumed…Where have I heard that…?" A few minutes passed, and then it struck her. "Oh, bananas!" she exclaimed, lunging for her communicator.

Ohmygosh, Hu, I'm so sorry, I totally forgot about your wedding! Did I miss it?

There was no way she could work while she waited for a response. "Some friend I am," she muttered glumly. "Here I am feeling all totally sorry for myself, and one of my best friends is getting married and I totally should have been there!"

Finally, the response came: There was nothing to miss. I refused the proposal.

"Huh?" Pascal blinked, rereading the message to be sure she had it right. But I was totally gonna take a bath! she insisted.

My refusal had nothing to do with your bathing habits, came the reply.

That was even more confusing. But you said you were going to say no because of me, she typed out.

It was a long while before the next message came. When it finally did, it merely said, I had a number of reasons for turning her down.

But… Pascal began to type, but she realized she had nothing to say. If it wasn't her bathing habits, then what had he been trying to say that night on Telos Astue? She struggled with the question for a few minutes, then sighed and gave up. I'm sorry it didn't work out, she finally sent.

Thank you, but no apologies are necessary, was all he said in response.

You must be sad, though, Pascal replied. Whatever the reason, it totally sucks when things don't work out.

This time, the response seemed to take hours. Finally: There's nothing to be sad about. She and I simply aren't suited for each other. But I do appreciate the sentiment, Pascal, thank you.

"'Simply aren't suited for each other,'" Pascal repeated to herself, thinking of Sophie for the first time since remembering Hubert's mention of a wedding. "That doesn't mean it's not sad…"

Deciding that maybe it was just too painful for him to talk about, she let it go. Feeling slightly better that at least she hadn't missed her best friend's wedding, she returned to her work with a smile on her face.

~o~

As time went on, Pascal thought more and more about getting messages from Hubert. At first, she told herself she wasn't finding excuses to send messages of her own, it was just nice to be able to talk to a friend after spending the first twenty-two years of her life basically alone, and besides, it was better than thinking about Sophie. Thoughts of Sophie came less and less, though, replaced more and more by thoughts of Hubert, and she sent more and more messages to him as time went on. From the genuinely interesting, such as "Why does your uniform make you wear boots that go past your knees?" (Answer: "So that they don't get full of sand when we march across the desert."), to the completely inane, such as "When was the last time you saw your mom?" (Answer: "Two weeks ago."), eventually Pascal couldn't deny that her obsession with Hubert's messages was getting in the way of her work; barely three ideas had been conceived and scrapped over the course of several weeks, none of them had been any good to begin with, and any time a message came from someone other than Hubert - like Fermat or Poisson - it was all she could do to not hunt them down and demand they stop messaging her and getting her hopes up that Hubert had sent her another message. The first face she thought of when she woke up from whenever she slept slowly went from Sophie to Hubert, though she hadn't seen him since that one visit, and she found herself thinking again about what he'd said to her that night on Telos Astue: "My every waking thought is consumed by you." Was this what he had meant? What did that mean for her?

One thing was for sure: She missed Hubert. The messages weren't enough; she remembered how they'd talked about stuff before, while they'd been journeying together, how he'd opened up to her about things she had a feeling he wouldn't have told anyone else and how they just got each other. She wanted to go see him in Strahta, but whenever she thought of it, she thought about how busy he always was with all his military stuff, and she didn't want to go all the way to Strahta only to find out he was away on some mission. Besides, she didn't even know if he wanted to see her.

Then, three months after she and Hubert started exchanging messages, she asked him, Can the streaks in Foselos really keep you awake on a clear desert night? She wasn't sure where she'd heard that, but with her most recent idea for the communication system involving Foselos, the question had come to her, and she sent it without a second thought. The response, though, definitely made her think:

Come visit and find out.

Visit? That was an invitation, right? To see him?

"Fourier!" she called, running next door. "Fourier, are you home?"

"What is it now, Pascal?" Fourier sighed as Pascal lunged through the door without even knocking. She was sitting at her desk, which was covered in papers, a few of which she set down as her whirlwind of a little sister approached.

"So like, my friend Hu just sent me a message saying that if I want to know if the streaks in Foselos can keep you awake on a clear desert night, I should visit and find out. That's totally an invitation, right?" Pascal said in one breath.

"Hu? You mean the blue-haired boy I tried to dump you off on?" Fourier asked.

"Yeah, him," Pascal said quickly. "He totally just invited me to visit, right?"

"Since when do you care about invitations, Pascal?" Fourier asked, narrowing her eyes. "Why would anything stop you from just running off on a whim?"

"I dunno," Pascal replied, shrugging. "It's nice to have an invitation, I guess? I mean, he's really big into the military and stuff, he's always all busy-busy serving Strahta and all that, so I don't want to get him in trouble or bother him or anything if he's not inviting me and saying he'll be around. But that's totally what this is, right?"

"Why don't you ask him yourself?" Fourier sighed. "It's not as if I know any of your friends well enough to guess what they're thinking. But I certainly hope it is; you've hardly left your room in months!"

"Aw, c'mon, I'm working on something big!" Pascal half-lied.

"You are always 'working on something big'," Fourier retorted. "That does not mean it's okay to stay in your room all day digging through piles of junk without eating and bathing on a regular basis!"

"It's not junk," Pascal protested. "You never know what's going to be useful! I just keep everything around just in case. It's like Captain Malik said, if you throw out stuff you think you don't need, you might end up throwing out the exact thing you do need!"

"Well, if this Captain's advice is so much more useful than mine, why don't you go hunt him down and stop pestering me?" Fourier sniffed. "I'm working on projects of my own, you know."

"Really?" Pascal asked, walking up to look at her big sister's desk and realizing as she did so that the papers that covered it seemed very familiar. "Whatcha up to this time, sis?"

"I'm trying to expand on our father's research," Fourier replied. "Perhaps I can't compete with your gadgets or your work on cryas, but I can at least contribute to the field of medicine."

"Oh wow, yeah, that's like totally your area of expertise!" Pascal exclaimed excitedly. "I'm not so good with all that micro-cell-squishy stuff, but you could totally make something big out of what Dad left behind!"

"You think so?" Fourier asked, her eyes widening.

"Totally!" Pascal said brightly. "It's like what you're meant to do and stuff! I know you'll make Dad proud - and me too!"

"I…" Fourier's breath seemed to catch, and were her eyes glistening a little? "Pascal, I…"

"I'll leave you to it," Pascal told her. "Zavhert, here I come!" And she left without any more of a goodbye. It took a few moments for Fourier to turn back to her work, and she had to swipe at her eyes to make sure no tears would fall and smudge the ink. No matter how exasperating it was to be Pascal's guardian, every now and then she was reminded of how much she loved her little sister and why.

~o~

Captain Malik wasn't too hard to find once Pascal had asked the right people. When she asked him about Hubert's message, he gave an odd chuckle but said it sounded like an invitation to him. He wouldn't explain that odd laugh he gave, though, so Pascal decided Hubert's brother would know him best.

Her next stop, then, was Lhant, and she was halfway to Lhant Manor when she realized that visiting Asbel would also mean visiting Sophie.
New Sophie. Not her Sophie.
And that was when she realized she hadn't even missed Sophie in ages.

When had she stopped missing Sophie? Pascal sat down right in the middle of the street as she thought about it. It hadn't been all at once, no, there had definitely been an in-between stage somewhere. At some point, thoughts of Sophie had been replaced…by thoughts of Hubert. And then thoughts of her research had also been replaced by thoughts of Hubert. Again, Hubert's words returned to her: "My every waking thought is consumed by you." She had thought she'd felt that way about Sophie, but even when Sophie had still been Sophie, that hadn't quite been true - technology and ancient ruins had still been able to hold a steady place in her mind.

But she definitely felt that way about Hubert.
What did that mean?

"Pascal?"

The sound of her name managed to get Pascal's attention, and she looked up, surprised to see Cheria bending over her, an angelic smile on her face.

"What are you doing here?" the redheaded woman asked delightedly.

"Oh, uh…" Pascal stood up, scrambling a little. "I, uh, I kinda came here to ask Asbel about something. Is he around?"

"Oh, yes, he's at home," Cheria said. "I was just heading back myself."

"Do you live at Lhant Manor now?" Pascal asked curiously as they started walking.

"Well…" Cheria giggled. "A few months ago, when we all said our goodbyes, Asbel asked me to live with him whenever I came home. And Richard told me not to spend so much time on my relief work and neglect my personal life, so after a couple of months, I decided to come back."

"Live with you?" Pascal asked. "Like how? You guys finally getting married?"

Cheria sighed. "I'm sure that's what he meant," she said, "but it's like he just can't make himself say it. And that's not really something you can just imply by asking a girl to live with you, you know? I think Lady Kerri's trying to bring him around to actually asking, but…"

"Hey, maybe it's just not what he wants," Pascal said with a shrug.

"He does, though, I'm sure he does!" Cheria protested as they rounded the corner and the flower beds full of Sopherias came into view. "He just doesn't know how to ask, is all. I mean, Sophie said-" She cut off abruptly.

"What'd Sophie say?" Pascal asked, stopping and turning to her friend.

"Nothing," Cheria replied evasively, her face getting all red but sad. Pascal knew that look; Cheria made it around Asbel way too often. Not for the first time, it occurred to Pascal how Cheria was basically the opposite of how Sophie used to be: full of emotions and expressions, but rarely able to use words. "I just know that's what Asbel meant."

"Well then, he should get around to saying it already," Pascal said. "Hey, how is Sophie, by the way?"

"Oh, she's great!" Cheria exclaimed, smiling again. "Ever since she merged with the Little Queen, it's been a lot easier to talk to her about stuff, she's learning so much faster about being a person!" She giggled. "It really is like seeing my daughter grow up."

Strangely, this confirmation of what Pascal had suspected didn't hurt nearly as much as she had expected it to. Maybe she'd already hurt enough over her lost love. She and I simply aren't suited for each other. Hubert's words applied to her situation too. But that didn't mean there was no one who was…

"What did you want to ask Asbel about?" Cheria asked as they approached the front doors.

"Well," Pascal began slowly, "Hu and I have been messaging each other since we got back, and he kinda sent me this one message a few days ago that I think means he wants me to visit, but I totally don't want to show up only for him to like not be there because he's out on some military thing - but like, he said 'come visit and find out' when I asked him about the view of Foselos on a clear desert night, so I'm assuming that's what he means, but I figured Asbel would totally know his Little Bro better than me."

In response to this, Cheria gave an odd giggle that sounded remarkably like the one Captain Malik had made. "Why don't you just ask him yourself, if you've been exchanging messages for three months?" she asked.

"'Cuz…I dunno, I don't want to pester him or something, I guess," Pascal replied. Why didn't she just ask, anyway? When did she ever worry about how she might come across when she said something?

With another laugh, Cheria opened the door to Lhant manor. "Come on in," she said. "I'll make you a banana pie and we can talk about it. I can probably help you better than Asbel could."