For those of you who suggested I write more, well, this it. Several months late, yes, but it did make it eventually. Hopefully, I will move my butt a bit faster on the next one, but with school coming up and a schedule that promises to find some way to kill me, that may not happen. At any rate, I have decided to continue this story further; I think I'm going to try to continue it at least up to Gramps' and Fee's deaths and possibly further, maybe even into the game itself.

Speaking of Gramps' and Fee's deaths, Fan Fan Girl pointed out something that I completely forgot when writing the first chapter. That particular detail is that when Melodia approaches Kalas in Nekton, Kalas asks, "who are you?", which indicates he doesn't know her. Obviously, I forgot about this XD.

Kalas stifled a groan and stared at the clock. Hell, could the damn thing go any slower? It was Friday and he was ready to get out of there.

A light tap on the window snatched his attention away from the clock. Turning to look, he nearly yelled when he saw the culprit, then settled for a glare when the turquoise-haired girl smiled and waved cheekily at him.

Damn it all. Melodia liked studying. So why was he the one stuck in school eight hours a day while she danced around outside? He mouthed several curses –no way in hell was he getting another detention for "inappropriate language"- and began quietly slipping the books on his desk into a well-worn bag at his feet. Not for the first time, he wished that Magnus were allowed at the school; a small stack of cards was a hell of a lot easier to carry around then an oversized schoolbag. At least the upperclassmen weren't required to put their bags in the back of the classroom like the little kids were. He'd lost track of the number of times he'd been delayed in his escape from the school because of the crowd of people trying to get their stuff. Of course, that didn't make up for some of the downsides of belonging to the upper class. Like the fact that the teachers were less willing to forgive fights. And the homework load increased and Gramps actually checked to make sure he did all of it. That was a pain in the ass.

Another tap at the window. Kalas restrained the urge to look, knowing that all he would see would be Melodia's grinning face as she flaunted her freedom. He looked at the clock instead. Only a few minutes left and the teacher was showing no signs of shutting up anytime soon. Ugh.

Next to him, Trill was also aimlessly staring around the room. She jumped suddenly, then scribbled a quick note and kicked him in the ankle. Recognizing the signal, he casually reached out to the side and was rewarded with a scrap of paper being stuffed into his hand. He slipped the note under his desk and quietly opened it.

What's Melodia doing outside the window? He glanced over at Trill, who was watching him out of the corner of her eye, and shrugged. All right, so he knew one reason why Melodia was her: to annoy him. But that usually wasn't enough for her to be waiting outside the school, so she probably had another reason. She better have another reason. If she didn't, he would dunk her in the fountain.

The bell finally rang and he leapt up alongside the twenty other students. Grabbing the bag, he slung it over his shoulder and shoved his way through the other students and desks. The teacher shouted something over the din that was ignored as he made his way into the hallway. Outside of the classroom, the school was already beginning to fill with noise as students filtered out of the other classrooms. Kalas spent a moment to gauge the flow and grimaced. At this rate, the halls would be completely clogged by the time he reached the exit, not to mention that he had to go in the opposite direction to get Fee. For some crazy reason, his brother never left the classroom unless someone forced him to, and shoving his way through crowds now was infinitely preferable to waiting for the next half hour for him to come out and then having to go fetch him anyway.

Gritting his teeth, Kalas set off.

The flow of students had nearly completely ceased before Kalas appeared at the school entrance, dragging his younger brother behind him. They descended the stairs quickly, Fee chattering nonsensically about a project he was doing in class while Kalas ignored with the ease of long practice. As they reached the street, Melodia and her mother fell in step with them from where they had been waiting besides the steps.

"What took so long?" Melodia asked, her careful innocence wrecked by not quite hidden laughter in her voice. Kalas groaned and turned to glare at his brother, as Melodia had suspected he would.

"Sorry, Melli," Fee said sheepishly. "I was talking with my teacher about a project."

"Really?" Melodia's mother interrupted. Her eyes glinted mischievously. "What kind of project?"

Kalas muttered something under his breath as Fee's eyes lit up and he launched into an elaborate description of the garden his class would be working on over the course of the school year. Melodia and her mother, taking one look at Kalas's discomfort, quickly stifled laughs as they walked towards one of Balancoire's major plazas.

As they began to approach the plaza, the sound of burbling water reached Melodia's ears. With a start, she realized that Kalas would soon be able to carry out his usual threat without first having to locate a body of water. And he wouldn't hesitate to do it. She'd been the victim of enough buckets of cold water over the years of their friendship to know that.

"Hey, Kalas," she said, drifting back to place herself next to the sulking almost-teenager. He grunted. Melodia rolled her eyes.

"Kalas," she said again. No response. "Kalas!"

"What?"

Well. At least he was speaking. That was a start. "What's wrong? You're annoyed because of Fee, aren't you?"

Kalas groaned. "He's been talking about that project nonstop for days. First the teacher said, 'we're doing a class project, so your homework is to think of ideas!' so he has to bounce ideas off of someone-"

"You?"

"Well, who else? Gramps? He's always tinkering with something and for some reason, he banned both me and Fee from his workshop a few weeks ago."

Melodia frowned. "Why?"

"Do I look like I know? Anyway, that rules him out. So of course the duty falls to me. I've been listening to, 'hey, Kalas what do you think about this idea?' and 'hey, Kalas, what about that idea?' for a week. A week. And now that they've decided on an idea, he can go on about it in detail!"

"Ouch," Melodia murmured sympathetically. Half of her felt very sorry for Kalas, as anyone who had to put up with Fee's enthusiasm for an entire week, nonstop, was bound to go crazy. On the other hand, half of her wanted to burst into laughter at his rant, which seemed to be very long in coming. Sadly, laughing at Kalas would no doubt be counterproductive to her goal of not getting dumped in the fountain, so she kept it in. "A week of that?" She waved her hand towards her mother and Fee, who were engaged in an in-depth discussion of whether it would be possible to plant a Cebalrai apple tree in the middle of Balancoire.

Kalas sighed, his energy spent. "Yes. A week. Of that."

"And you haven't told him to shut up yet? Or started to ignore him? If it had been me, you would have zoned out the first day." Kalas stopped abruptly in the middle of the street and gave her a look.

"Are you crazy? He's my little brother. I can't do that," he said, his tone clearly suggesting he was starting to doubt her intelligence. He began walking again, leaving his slightly dumbfounded friend a few steps behind.

"Wait!" Melodia latched onto his bag, forcing him to stop as she caught up to him. He looked down at her and had a moment to feel worried at her large grin before she spoke again.

"You do care about him!" she said, gushing. "You don't want to hurt his feelings!"

Kalas turned red and stopped for the second time in less then a minute. "Wait-what the heck?" he said, speech momentarily abandoning him.

"No, no," she said lightly, dancing around him. She waved a finger in his face. "You can't pretend. You care about him and that's why you won't tell him to shut up." She turned around with a small squeal and began to march off.

Kalas stared at her for a few seconds, then decided to resort to his favorite way of regaining face: threatening. "All right, you…" He let the last word trail off as Melodia looked over her shoulder in question before letting out a squeak and sprinting off as he gave chase.

The first hint for Fee and Milly that the remaining two members of their group were having a separate conversation was when a small greenish-blue blur shot past them. The second hint was when a larger, blue blur followed soon after, yelling something unintelligible. They paused, then traded glances.

Milly was the first to break the stunned silence. "Can't they go ten minutes without squabbling?" she growled.

"No," Fee said with absolute conviction. He tipped his head to the side, blonde hair falling across his eyes. "And there's a fountain. He can dunk Melli in it instead of just saying he will." Milly froze as the words sunk in.

"Oh, for the love of-" she snarled before abandoning her precious dignity and chasing after the wayward children.

Watching the irate woman capture and shake his brother and friend into submission, Fee felt a momentary pity for the two of them. When she dragged the two over, though, he carefully schooled his face into neutrality. As much as he loved his older brother, he wouldn't risk a scolding from Melodia's mother for him. She was scary when she felt like it.

After being thoroughly chastised for "causing a public scene", Kalas and Melodia were both heartily wishing they would somehow run into Melodia's father, who might be able to defuse his wife. Kalas was also rubbing one ear, which looked a bit red, and grumbling.

"Jeez, does she have to pull that hard?" he said quietly, in fear of being overheard and having the crazy lady descend upon him again.

"You shouldn't have said that part about her causing public scenes," Melodia pointed out.

"It's true!"

"Yes, but that doesn't mean you should say it!" The girl sighed. Her mother was often guilty of the same crimes she charged her daughter and friends with, but it was generally safer not to say so. How Kalas hadn't managed to learn that lesson after they'd been friends for years, Melodia had no idea. She sighed again.

"I hope Dad's there when we get there," she said finally, a wistful note in her voice. Kalas's head snapped up.

"'There'?" he repeated, suspicious. "Where's 'there'?"

"Oh, I forgot to tell you, didn't I?" Melodia smiled. He was going to love this. "The library's finished. Mom thought Fee would want to see it, so we decided to meet you two at the school."

"What?" he said, too loudly for comfort.

"Shh! I've already been scolded once today!" She waited until he calmed down enough to just glare at her. "I've already seen it, so Mom will stay with Fee. Dad will meet us at the library so we can do something else." Kalas let out a relieved breath that had her struggling not to laugh again. It also had her mentally sighing at his lack of enthusiasm, but trying to get her friend to change was a long-lost cause.

"Kalas! Melli! Come on, we're almost there!" The two turned around to find Fee waving at them. They rushed to catch up.

"Sorry for falling behind," Melodia said once they were close to the other two. "Kalas just realized we were going to the library."

Milly burst into laughter and the children let out a collective breath. She wasn't annoyed anymore. That was good. Of course, what wasn't good was that there was a lack of "serious" adults, which meant she would fall straight to teasing.

"You know, Kalas," the woman began, "if you don't build up some tolerance for books now, one day you'll find yourself falling in love with a girl who loves academics."

"W-what?" The two younger children nearly collapsed laughing as Kalas turned bright red and started spluttering.

"No, mark my words," Milly said, nodding sagely. "It's happened before, it can happen again. Not to mention that you are getting to the age when such things start occurring…" Kalas glared at her smiling face in disgust and stomped off, leaving behind three people laughing uproariously at his expense.

"He's never going to forgive you for that, you know," Fee finally said after he'd calmed down.

"I suppose you're right," she said airily, not sorry at all. "Unless…" She paused, thinking. "Fee? When's our dear Kalas's birthday?"

"Um…in eight days, I think," the boy answered, confused.

"Is it? That's a bit sooner than I thought." She shrugged. "Ah well. It's long enough."

"Long enough for what?" her daughter asked.

"Oh, nothing." Milly smiled in a near-exact replica of her daughter's "innocent" face. "I was just thinking about what kind of present I should get for him," she said, turning to walk away. The two children ran after her, hurrying to stay in front.

"Really? Tell us! Please?"

"No, no," she said, shaking her head. "If I told you, it wouldn't be a surprise anymore."

"But it's supposed to be a surprise for him, Mom! It doesn't have to be surprise for us!"

"Please? We promise we won't tell!"

"Just a hint?"

"A small hint?"

Each plea was met with a shake of the head until both children ran out of breath to continue begging. By the time the strange group had caught up to its last member, all Kalas needed was one look at Milly's amused face and the disgruntled ones of his brother and friend to decide that, for once, maybe it would be safer to not say anything.

Yep, coming up next is Kalas's birthday. Or at least flashbacks of Kalas's birthday. Something. Anyway, please review! -TJdork