Daichi: Let's just skip ahead a bit, and see what we can find…

Verity: We own nothing. Just messing around for a bit.

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Despite being the oldest of the group, Ib hadn't been given a watch shift.

She didn't want to think it was a big deal. They'd just arrived in this new world, and were still working things out. The boys learning that girls were just as capable of keeping their eyes open at night would just have to be part of it.

But she was also the oldest. And, in the world of unsupervised children, that implied a certain responsibility to ensure the safety of the younger ones. So she still ended up staying awake later than she probably should have, simply walking around the edges of the lake.

Bright moon, brilliant stars… this world seemed a far cry from the hellish nightmare she was trapped in when she was nine, and she was grateful for that.

"Ib? What's wrong?" And, of course, Lalamon had followed her. Because that was how their partnership was meant to work. Side by side, always supporting each other.

"Does anything have to be?" She replied, leaning down and dipping her fingers into the lake. Wherever she made contact with the water, ripples spread out, lapping against the shore.

She knew, theoretically, that if she were to violently plunge her hand in, the force of water would reach a leaf just on the edge of the shore, and drag it under. At that leaf, laying on the lakebed, could be taken as indirect proof of her existence, if she felt like getting philosophical about it.

Not that Ib liked getting philosophical about things. It brought up too many questions that she didn't really want to know the answers to.

"I don't know, it's just… you're not how I imagined you'd be." Another question she didn't want to know the answer to. Just how Lalamon even knew about her.

"How long were you waiting for me?"

"Oh, I dunno. Years and years."

"Well, that's your problem. People change." They developed interests, made friends, grew up… died… and now she'd succeeded in depressing herself again. She needed to stop doing that.

But, well, she'd been forced to accept the reality of human mortality at the age of nine, committed what could either be classified as arson or murder, and had a list of rules for dimensional travel born from clearly-justified paranoia. So, all things considered, she thought she'd made out just fine.

Joe disagreed, but Joe worried about everything. So she didn't think it'd be an issue.

Especially given the fact that Lalamon took her answer without asking any more questions. And that was good, because right then the possibility of a flashback was far too high even without them.

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Just as Ib was the last child to fall asleep, she ended up being the first one awake in the morning. Part of it was the return of the Gallery nightmares, the other part was Lalamon waking up and craving breakfast.

"I can't cook," She tried pointing out, but the little Digimon waved off her concerns.

"If we have to get berries, I'll share with you!" When she was younger, the amount of energy her partner had would have made her a good playmate. As it was, Ib simply found her mildly amusing.

"Don't go too far. I wouldn't want to lose you." She wasn't sure in what sense she was using the term 'lose', nor did she think that she wanted to be. Because if someone asked her that question, she'd have to answer, and it'd probably end with that someone thinking she was crazy. Or broken. Or both.

Personally, her money was on both.

"Don't worry! With Seadramon gone, everything will be just fine!"

"I wish I could believe you." But she'd been hurt far too many times for that.

It was sad. But, sometimes, that was just a fact of life.

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"We are now walking through the Forest of Irrelevant Road Signs. No pictures, please." Ib tried to tune out Matt so she could think, but ended up tripping over her own feet and knocking into Joe.

"Oh, sorry. I'm just… trying to figure something out. Lost focus on everything else."

"What is it? It's probably more interesting than Izzy's conspiracy theories." ...No, she didn't want to know.

"Well… I want to know what kind of world this is," She admitted. "I mean, our world consistently obeys what we consider to be 'normal' physics, and metaphysics aren't even seriously touched upon. The… the Gallery had a sort of art focus, and it was affected by symbolism to some extent." The roses. Representative of life, so everything that harmed them, harmed that life, and vice versa. "This world… from what I can see, it doesn't seem to follow any sort of pattern, even physics… though we've only been here for a day, and it's not an enclosed space, so…"

"...Ib, have you been binge-reading the math and science section at the library again?"

"It's farthest from the art section. And you know my parents want me to be well-read, if I can't bring myself to be an artist." Joe sighed and shook his head, which she took to mean that he was wondering about her sanity again. Not that she could blame him for that.

"I'm not sure that's what that means."

Gomamon lifted his head to look at them. "Hey, Joe, Ib, what's a library?"

"Oh, I want to know that, too!" Lalamon chimed in.

"Really? You don't even know what a library is?"

"Well, we haven't seen a book since we got here," Ib pointed out, before turning to the Digimon. "Libraries are places where large amounts of information are kept, as well as stories that exist as… well, I'd say they're like little portals to other worlds, but for all I know, that's exactly what they are, and nobody's let the facts of how they work be known yet. When you think of it, anything could be a portal. Books, holes in the sky, paintings…"

"Holes in the sky? That can happen?" The little seal asked. Joe blinked.

"...Yeah, that's how we got here. First real evidence of it being a portal, really…" And that was the point that Ib realized Joe had started believing her at some point or another. Likely in the last day or so.

There was nothing better for removing the ability to deny something than experiencing it yourself, after all.

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Verity: So Ib's now… a heavily traumatized nerd?

Daichi: Joe is not good for low-stress situations. Mostly because Joe is not low-stress. But at least she's no longer burning things in a ritualistic bonfire.