Early morning was still, quiet, and peaceful. Darkness surrounded the entirety of the room, and despite the gloom somehow soothed the tired Jami into a much needed night's rest. Consistency within the songs of crickets and the sweeping of the wind pulled her back to unconsciousness whenever she was led astray by a thought or worry.

Sleep had always been few and far between for this veteran magical girl. She would often jolt awake as a result of nightmares, flashbulb memories, or simple anxiety about her situation and possible choices for continued existence. The ability to forget was a jewel in Jami's treasure chest of tools. She had used it many times- almost too many times to be considered healthy. Although, when faced with trauma, what other option do you have?

The incubator fed off of this trauma, using it to get Jami to fight even more witches and get involved with other magical girls. She had seen it time and again. When she would close herself off, she would suffer, then forget, then make the same mistake again. The incubator would remind her each time, and yet the mistake continued to be made. Although she hated the incubator being around, she needed it around. She needed that reminder to help her through her mistakes. And she needed a reminder that even she can make mistakes.

Elders make mistakes just as often as children.

Buzz

[Text. 8:05 AM: Jami, This is Autumn, your residential assistant. I would like to have a meeting with you sometime today. Please respond as soon as you can. Thanks. -Autumn]

Buzz Buzz

[Text. 9:00 AM: I would prefer to meet sometime this morning, if your schedule allows. Thanks. -Autumn]

Buzz Buzz Buzz

[Text. 11:45 AM: I will be coming to your room. My apologies for the intrusion. -Autumn]

When Autumn used her all-access key to open the door, she was quite surprised with how dark the room actually was. The blackout curtains were drawn, no lights were on, and it seemed as though the light from the outside hallway was barely being let in. The incubator stood inside of the dorm room, watching as Autumn turned on the light inside the room. To her surprise, nothing happened.

"Jami? Is your electricity out? You could have told m-"

She was interrupted by a sudden flash of light from the lamp and ceiling lights, the hallway's lighting suddenly filling in the room. Autumn let out an audible surprised yelp, but Jami just stared unblinking at her unwelcome visitor.

"Why are you in my room? Aren't you supposed to knock or whatever?" Jami asked.

"I texted you three times, and there are rules that I can come into your room when necessary."

"Is this an emergency?"

"No, but it is an urgent situation. Please get dressed and meet me at the train station."

"Why? What's this about?" Jami was scrolling through the texts.

"It is about your record here at school. So please, just meet me at the station."

With the door closed, Jami let out an annoyed groan loud enough for Autumn to hear from outside. She looked at the incubator and gestured to the door.

"I understand that you are upset, Jami, but I think it is best that you meet with her."

"I can't believe I finally figured out I can use my magic to get a better night's sleep, and this is what I get to wake up to. Fine. Fantastic. Perfect."

Jami started throwing on her clothes in a small fit and eventually was ready to leave. The incubator stayed near the door and waited for her, leaving with her when she was finally ready. The whole walk to the train station Jami was grumbling to herself, arms crossed in her fit. She was so comfortable in her sleep, so warm and finally at peace in her dorm room, and some wannabe authority figure forced her out of it and ordered her to get even further from her peaceful space.

How rude.

"Jami, thank you." Autumn smiled and walked over to her. "I'm sorry for barging into your room. Thank you for meeting me here."

"Whatever. What do you want?"

"I want to take a small trip with you, if you don't mind."

Jami looked dumbfounded, absolutely bewildered by this statement. This was the "urgent situation" that Autumn was talking about? Just taking some dumb bonding trip?

"Don't you have things to do?" Jami asked, crossing her arms.

"Yes, like this. This is one of the things I have to do."

"I mean like work. Or schoolwork."

"I can ask the same of you."

Autumn handed her a train ticket. It was a two-way ticket to the edge of the city before it left into another. Kitre Station: one of the more sketchier stops on the way out of Rosepath. At the very least there were some good places to grab street food and a couple bars that would look the other way if an underage drinker came in- according to numerous internet searches before attending Rosepath College- but neither of those possibilities seemed to fit Autumn's motives.

"Kitre Station. I've heard of it."

"I don't doubt that you have."

The two got onto the train and sat in silence as the locomotive traveled towards their destination. Jami couldn't help but notice the outfit that Autumn was wearing. Her light pink skirt was shorter in the front than in the back, and her white button up blouse was covered in embroidered flowers, mostly pink roses. She was even wearing pink kitten-heels, as if she was going on some kind of date.

"You're dressed really nice. What's up?"

"Oh! I don't get to take many trips like this. I thought I would dress for the occasion."

"So this is for leisure, then?"

"Sort of. Diplomacy rather than anything else."

"Diplomacy? What, are you negotiating some deal in those heels?"

"Never underestimate the power of two inches of added height," Autumn smiled. "Especially when you're already tall."

Once the train had reached their station, Autumn helped Jami out and held her arm out. Her arm gestured to two girls waiting outside of the station whom Jami recognized immediately: Mira and the magical girl that had tried to hurt Mira and herself a few nights before.

"Um, okay what the hell is happening?" Jami asked.

"Jam! Look, look, I got her to agree to work with us! Her name is Ray and she's really super cool, she's even in a video game!" Mira grabbed onto Jami's arm and began rattling nonstop about the other magical girl, however Jami shook her arm to get away.

"Hold up, hold up. I'm not working with some chick who tried to shoot through my skull!" Jami looked at the ticket, then at Autumn. "Do you know these two? What the hell is going on?"

"Please calm down, Jami. I only just found out recently what had been going on between Miss Rachel and yourself. She agreed that she was behaving out of line and has apologized."

"So you're a magical girl, too?" Jami shoved the ticket into the pocket of her jeans.

Autumn flashed the ring on her left hand that contained her soul gem. It was between pink and red, a brighter version of her eyes. How could she have not seen this before? Was it because of all the other jewelry Autumn was prone to wearing?

"Great. There's four of us. This is just the best!" Jami started walking away, but Mira caught her arm again.

"Wait, Jam! This is good, right? More of us means that we can take care of the witches that are here."

"No, this is horrible! Do you have any idea how much less these kills are going to be worth now? Do you have any idea how heated fights get between magical girls? How do you know Pinkie isn't going to turn on us-"

"I have a name!"

"-Or how do you know any of us aren't going to turn against each other? We can't know, and that's why-"

"And that's why we're here," Autumn interrupted, glaring slightly at Jami and her small tantrum. "I got everyone together so that we can work out a deal peacefully. We are all entitled to the benefits of our work. If we need to compromise, we can, but we need to root out all problems now and reach a solution before any conflict arises."

Jami stood speechless as she stared at Autumn. She was right in a way, but she hated that she had to be so optimistic. Diplomacy really only worked between magical girls when they operated in different territory. Rosepath wasn't large enough to divide into four pieces without some overlapping territory during witch hunts. She'd seen this before.

"How about we go to my apartment and talk?" Mira suggested, smiling like her usual self. "I'm sure it's not that great just standing here."

"You have a place in this shitty part of town?" Ray asked. "Jeez. You'd think a magical girl would do better for herself."

"This place isn't so bad! Don't worry about it."

Mira started leading the group of magical girls to her apartment. It was right by the train station, almost on the tracks itself. It was almost completely empty, save for the mattress, blanket, and pillow being used as a bed. There was only one, very small, tea table in the middle of the room with a packet of coupons resting on it. Jami looked appalled.

"Welcome to my place! I even got enough cups for all of us," Mira announced, grabbing four paper cups from a cupboard by the electric kettle.

"This is really sad," Ray muttered, switching her posture to rest on one leg.

"Tell me about it," Jami agreed.

"Girls, don't be rude. Mira was nice enough to have us over, so be good guests, okay?"

Autumn didn't look too happy with them, but she ended up sitting between Jami and Ray at the tea table. Mira eventually joined them and gave everyone a cup of hot water and a box of tea bags to choose from. She chose chamomile, Ray chose lemon ginger, Autumn chose jasmine and Jami chose breakfast tea. They all sat together in silence waiting for their tea to steep before finally Autumn set a folder on the table. Upon opening it, she revealed a map and four differently colored pens: blue, yellow, pink, and red.

"So, I've printed out a map of Rosepath including the Kitre area all the way to the river. This is the extension of Rosepath territory. Across the river is the Livale City territory, so we need to be especially careful crossing that border. Magical girls there won't take our kills if we don't take theirs," Autumn explained. "Since it's not realistic to divide without a witch moving to overlapping territory, I was thinking we can have free range and free assistance throughout the city."

"So, it's a free-for-all?" Jami asked, sounding skeptical.

"No, not necessarily. See, I was thinking when one person kills, she will alert the rest of the team. Then, the team will all share the grief seeds right then and there. No hoarding grief seeds, either. We all need to be on equal footing here."

"Hoarding? I wouldn't call it hoarding if it's a limited resource," Ray rolled her eyes.

"Still, we want everyone on equal footing. I doubt we will have excess grief seeds given the spawning rate of witches in this city, but if we end up with a few then we can keep them in a shared location and only use them with everyone's knowledge. How does that sound?"

The three other magical girls looked at Autumn's face from their focus on the map. Autumn seemed to already have her mind made up, so was this even up for debate?

"I have a question," Mira interjected, raising her hand a little. "If we're going to share the city then why do you have four pens to mark things?"

"Oh, thank you! This is to mark where we live, and then a meeting place outside of our residences."

Autumn gave Jami the blue pen, Mira the yellow pen, Ray the pink pen, and held onto the red pen. Jami and Autumn marked their residence hall with a circle in their color, Mira marked the apartment complex next to the train station, and Ray circled the shopping district by the river.

"Perfect. Now, should we have a meeting spot in the center of town, or maybe somewhere out from everyone's places?" Autumn asked.

"How about just the college train station? It's in the middle of town," Jami suggested.

"Does that work for everyone else?" Autumn looked to the other two girls.

"Works for me," Ray shrugged.

"It's a little far, but I can make it!" Ray smiled, not seeming to care at all that it was out of her way.

Autumn marked with a normal black pen the college stop of the train station with a star, looking at the map with a small bit of a frown. After a minute of silence, she started talking again.

"Now, I doubt that the grief seeds will split evenly unless each soul gem is exactly the same proximity away…"

"Or whichever one is placed in front of it first," Jami added.

"Yes, that's true…" Autumn sighed. "Does anyone have any ideas for how we decide the order of grief seeds?"

Everyone was silent as each girl tried to come up with her own idea. Whoever took part in the battle first was the first idea, but then was talked down since this could create a chance of hostility. The second idea was the first person to see the grief seed to decide, but that was shot down for the same reason.

"How about seniority?" Jami suggested. "Oldest first, then youngest last. We use less of our magic anyway since we know how to use it."

Mira frowned a little at this idea, but Ray didn't seem to care.

"Sure, so long as there's enough for us," Ray shrugged and drank her tea. "If you guys use less magic then I guess it makes sense."

"Sure," Mira reluctantly agreed.

"Is that okay with everyone? In terms of age it will be myself first, Jami, Ray, then Mira," Autumn counted the names on her fingers.

Everyone nodded, and Autumn seemed relieved that everyone agreed on both the territorial disputes as well as the distribution of grief seeds. She let out a relaxed sigh.

"Perfect! Now we can relax since today isn't a school day."

"Yay! I even have chips, should I get out the chips?" Mira asked.

The four of them continued to hang out at Mira's apartment until dusk. Using Ray's phone, they streamed a couple movies and got to know each other through basic civilized conversation. Mira revealed that she worked at the coffee shop down the street, Ray explained how she got herself into the making of a video game starring her own persona, and Autumn had fun explaining how she got herself into assisting the elderly over the summer in an assisted living facility. She even had basic first aid training, so she showed the other magical girls how to treat common injuries from witch battles. The demonstration was mostly for the younger girls, but Jami did learn how to make a basic sling.

"Oh, goodness!" Autumn looked at the clock which read 10:45 PM. "I didn't realize it was so late! You two girls need to go to bed."

"We're not seven, you know," Ray rolled her eyes.

"And you're not adults, either. You need to sleep at least eight hours, if not more if you can manage." Autumn grabbed Ray's hand and helped her to stand up. "I'll take you home. Jami, we should leave Mira to get ready for bed. Can you help clean up a little?"

"Yeah, sure."

As Autumn and Ray left, Jami cleaned up the paper plates and cups that they used for snacks and tea. Mira used the time to wash her current clothes and eyepatch. When she took the eyepatch off, she moved her hair to cover the spot where her other eye would be. Jami thought about asking, but then realized that she didn't care. Mira's optimistically evasive explanation last time got her nowhere, and she didn't want to manipulate the answer out of her. She guessed it would just be something she would have to ignore, or rather another thing she would have to ignore in order to work with Mira.

"Alright, everything's clean. I'm going to go back now," Jami put on her shoes by the front door.

"Oh, you're leaving already?" Mira seemed sad, but then smiled. "It was fun having you all over! We should do this again sometime. Maybe someone can bring a computer and we can watch movies on a bigger screen-"

With a simple nod and a "mhm," Jami was out the door. The incubator was soon walking alongside her back to the train station.

"I wonder, why is it that she annoys you so much? You seem much more averse to her than any other magical girl."

"There are some things I don't know. Now stop talking to me in public, I don't want to be another crazy who talks to herself."

Back in her room, Jami spent most of the night and early morning on her phone. When the sun started to rise, she groaned and attempted to use her magic to block out all of the light coming into the room. When successful, she rested her head on the pillow when a small buzz came in from her phone charging next to her. She rolled her eyes at the message and ignored it, though the incubator looked at it with intrigue.

[Text. 6:05 AM: This is your first warning about your attitude towards Mira. If you continue, we will have a problem. Good night. -Autumn]