MP: It worked! I'm writing sooner this time! And yeah, I wondered about the airport thing too, which is why I attempted to solve it. I'll try to do that when I run across weird stuff like that.

Yume Hikari/Shadow Tamer/Kitty: Yes, you do have too many names! Most definitely! Glad you liked the last chapter. I'm trying to pick up the action, but the layout of this story required more introduction stuff than I would've liked, hence the snail's pace.

It really is amazing, I thought, how many immortals you sense in an airport. You rarely see who they are, but your head buzzes nearly every ten minutes.
Every time I felt that creeping sensation, heard the swishing in my head, I looked around uneasily, but only twice did anybody look back. The first was a man in a business suit, who stared at me for a moment, and then gave me a curt nod and went on his way. The second was a small woman with frizzy red-orange hair who was wearing a purple sarong tied sideways into a one-strap dress. She smiled at me and waved, and I couldn't help grinning back - she was one of those infectiously cheerful-looking people.
"Who's that?" asked Monica, and I quickly turned away form the strange woman. I had, unfortunately, ended up as Monica's "traveling buddy" for the day, which meant that we had to follow each other around the airport. I didn't like having her tailing me, watching my every move, whining at me, but I tried to be nice as long as I was stuck with her. Because once the counselors picked our buddies, it was final. No matter how much you didn't like yours.
"Erm-" I said, trying to think fast. I wasn't exactly a world-class speed-thinker, though. "She's an, uh, old friend...of my mom's...she lives near here and she travels a lot. For business."
"Why don't you go say hi?" Monica persisted. "You can introduce me to her. What's her name?"
Why do you care? I thought, but didn't say it.
"It's, um -"
"Julynn," supplied a voice behind me, and I turned around, startled. Amy was standing there, staring thoughtfully at the woman in question, who was now leaning against a pole, eating something and apparently ignoring us. "Her name is Julynn."
"Right," I said, grateful for the save. "Julynn...yeah. And I don't think the counselors want us wandering off to talk to people. We're going to be boarding soon."
"Oh." Monica then wandered away to look at something in a store window.
"Thanks," I told Amy when Monica was out of hearing range. "Where'd you get that name, anyway? I've never heard it before."
"It's her name," Amy told me. "Her real name."
"What - do you know her?" I was surprised that any of us would actually run into someone we knew in the airport.
"No. Just her name."
I raised an eyebrow.
"How do you know that?"
Amy slowly shook her head, and her gaze finally left the red-haired Julynn and came to rest on me. Her eyes were slightly glazed and she looked spaced out.
"I - I don't know," she said quietly, her eyes wide. "It just is, that's all - I know it - but how..." She trailed off.
I frowned.
"Weird. Do you think we should go ask her -"
"No!" Amy broke in sharply, and I blinked in surprise. "Stay away from her! We can't -" just as suddenly as she had started, she stopped. She looked like she'd suddenly come back down to earth. "What's wrong with me?" she asked, sounding nervous. Just then the overhead announcements blared, interrupting my train of thought - what there had been of it, anyway.
"Flight number 1042 now boarding passengers in rows 25-40 at gate D6; passengers in rows 25-40 on flight 1042 now boarding at gate D6."
"That's us," I said. "We can talk about this later," I added as Moncia heaved her way back over to me.
"Come on Beth," she said, "Shara says we're going now! Let's go!"
"I know," I said with a sigh. "I'm coming."
"What's wrong?" she asked picking up on my annoyed tone. "Aren't you happy to be going to Florida?"
"Yeah, I'm fine, yeah, I'm happy to be going." Just not with you, I added silently.

"You've never been on a plane before?" I asked, disbelieving. My first time on an airplane had been at six weeks old, and there hadn't been a year since then that I hadn't been on one. It was hard to believe that the girl sitting next to me had never even set foot in one. Ashy, short for Ashly, shook her head.
"Never. I can't wait to fly!"
I tried to hide my grin - she was so cute, a 13-year-old girl saying "I'm going to FLY!" like a 2-year-old. A few minutes later she was leaning over me to peer excitedly out the window. "Wow, look at all the guys running around down there! Hey, what're they doing there? What's he doing? The trucks look so small! Is that our luggage?"
I couldn't help it - I had to laugh. I wasn't tired of flying like a lot of business people were, but I'd seen the little people on the ground so many times that it just didn't strike me as so fascinating anymore. At that moment, the gangway was rolled away from the side of the plane and we taxied backwards toward the travel roads, then forward towards the runway.
"We're going fast!" commented the breathless voice next to me. "Is this as fast as it goes?"
I gave her an incredulous look.
"You've got to be kidding. We're not even on the runway yet - this is like cruising through a parking lot in a car!"
"Really? Does it go a lot faster?"
I grinned.
"Oh yeah. Heck, we have to get this whole rig off the ground! Planes go at about 500 miles per hour, you know."
"Are you serious?!"
"M hm. If you don't get motion sick, look out the window when we take off. That'll give you some idea."
"I don't get sick! I'm not scared! This is fun!"
"Ok then."
The girl in the seat in front of me, Tasha, turned around and winked at me through the crack between the seatbacks, and I grinned back. Ashy was nearly the only entertainment I needed on the flight - she was fascinated by watching the cities on the ground, the clouds, the flight attendants serving drinks, the whole deal - even the flight magazine, which I couldn't understand.
"I've got a book," I offered at one point.
"No, this is cool," she said. "Look at this, they sell stuff in here!"
At that point I just shook my head and dug out my CD player. Entertaining as it was, I could only take so much.
Julynn, I noticed, was on the flight with us - the only other immortal I could sense aside from my friends, for which I was grateful. I wondered if she, too, was going for a vacation in the Keys. She was certainly dressed for it.
I found out a few minutes later, when I passed by her on the way back from the bathroom and she invited me to sit down in the empty seat next to her. Glancing around, I made sure the counselors weren't watching me. Lona glanced at me momentarily, then went back to her book, her short blonde hair swinging in her face. I sat down.
"Hello," the small woman greeted me. "I'm Julynn. What's your name?"
"Kat," I answered. From this distance, I could now see that her eyes were a brilliant emerald green.
"Are you vacationing in Florida?" she asked, seeming genuinely curious.
"Sort of," I replied. "It's a camp trip, which is a bit busy to call a vacation..."
She grinned.
"I used to camp a lot. Are you actually camping out, or are you staying indoors somewhere?"
I thought about that for a minute, and then was forced to say, "I don't really know. I don't think we're camping out, but I'm not sure about that."
"Where are you going?"
"Down to the Keys."
She looked surprised.
"Really? That's where I live!"
"Huh, funny coincidence," I agreed. I was beginning to wonder why she had wanted to talk to me, and she must have seen it in my face.
"You look confused," she told me.
"Do I?"
She nodded. "Are you wondering why I'm being so nice?"
I paused. Well, I figured, Why not be honest?
"Er, yeah. Now that you mention it."
"Well, basically -" she paused, glanced around, and leaned closer to me before continuing "- I'm tired of the way we live, and I'm doing my part to teach our kind to be friendly." She leaned back again, smiling at me. "Think of me as a really old flower child."
I nodded. That wouldn't be too hard.
"Sounds reasonable."
She looked at me appraisingly for a moment before a moment before asking, "How old are you?"
"Thirteen," I answered, and she looked surprised.
"Really?" she asked. "Is that your real age, or -" she lowered her voice "- is that what you're telling people?"
I shook my head.
"For real, I'm thirteen. I'm new to this whole...business."
"I'll say." She sighed. "I guess you can't fully understand what I'm after, then."
I thought about that for a minute. I certainly understood what it meant to kill someone now, but if she meant that I couldn't understand what it was to have lived a lifetime of killing, she had a point there. Finally I sighed, too.
"I guess not, but I will say that I'm all for less bloodshed, given a chance."
The bright smile came back to her face.
"Oh, good!" she said, sounding pleased. She turned to stare out the window for a moment, her gaze distant. I was about to get up and return to my seat so that Ashly wouldn't wonder where I'd gotten to, when Julynn turned back to me. "And what about your friend?" she asked.
"Oh, Amy?"
"If that's her name, yes. The one with the beautiful long hair."
"Yeah, that's Amy. Um, what about her?"
"Does she share your wish for peace?" Julynn's cheerful smile was gone, replaced by a penetrating stare that quickly made me uncomfortable. I felt like she could see everything I was thinking, and was just waiting for me to try to tell her a lie.
"Erm, I think so," I said. "I mean, she's not a violent person...she did kill a man, but she was trying to save me. I wouldn't say she enjoyed it..." I trailed off, suddenly unsure of what point I was trying to make.
The woman nodded, seemingly satisfied, and I took the opportunity to say, "Listen, I have to get back before my seat partner sends out a search party. It was nice talking to you...good luck with -" I paused, searching for the right word, and finally settled on "- your goal."
"Thank you," she said. "Maybe I'll see you again someday."
"Maybe," I echoed.
Her smile returned as I left, and once again, I couldn't help smiling back. She just looked so happy.