Emma sat in the great hall the next morning staring at a bowl of what she hoped was porridge. The thick gloop had been sweetened with honey but still didn't look too appetising.

Millie strode into the hall grabbed a bowl of gloop and sat next to Emma. "Good morning, you look terrible."

"It's not surprising, I got like no sleep last night, I wonder why…"

"Really, I slept like a log." Millie replied whilst debating on whether to actually attempt to eat the gloop. "Do logs actually sleep? I mean they always say, sleep like a log, but to sleep I guess you have to wake up at some point. So does that mean logs sleep in the day then suddenly get up at night and run around shouting?"

"That's really what I want to be thinking about when we're lost in a forest somewhere." Emma replied irritably.

"You really didn't get any sleep did you!"

"Well no as a matter of fact I was up half the night worrying about the mess you got us in yesterday!"

"What mess?" Millie asked sticking a spoon into the gloop and sniffing at it suspiciously. Deciding that it might in fact be edible, she shoved the spoon into her mouth.

"Oh you know, just the fact that we're going on a hopeless mission to battle vampires and we're probably gonna get our selves killed, or worse…"

"Expelled?"

"Well I was gonna go with killed but if you want to joke…"

"I have to joke, if I don't I'll realise that we're going to die and then I'll start panicking, and you do not want to see me panic!"

"D'arvit Millie, calm down." Emma said staring at her friend a look of shock on her face. (D'arvit, that's fairy, basically damn/fuck/whatever, read Artemis fowl soemtime, very funny)

"You're the one who wanted me to stop joking."

"Well you can carry on now, I think I can do enough panicking for the both of us. By the way is this stuff edible?"

"I hope so 'cos I just ate a bowl of it. It's ok once you get over the fact that it looks like a mixture of snot and sick that's had all the colour leached out of it."

"Well that makes me feel so much better. I think I'm going to be sick."

"Speaking of being sick, have you seen Neithan recently?"

"Sick, Neithan, really not seeing the connection."

"Well he is kinda love sick over you."

"Very funny, and no I haven't."

"Really? I would of thought you'd be spending as much time with him as possible if we're going to our deaths as you seem to think."

"Shut up Millie. When are we going?"

"You just told Millie to shut up so I'm afraid she can't answer at the moment, please ask again later…"

"Right lot of good you are." Emma muttered as she stomped out of the hall muttering in an inane mixture of random fictional and real languages.