Jesse began to make her way through the crowd, ducking and moving through.

And blinking a lot. After the darkness of the alley, the light of Endercon was making her eyes water a little. It wasn't that bright or anything, but her eyes were still struggling to adjust.

Yippee.

"There he is!" Jesse was abruptly shoved to one side as people swarmed past her, racing for a man wearing dark blue armor– Gabriel the Warrior– and being stopped by a burly blonde in a blue shirt as he blocked the way. "Gabriel! Gabriel!"

"Step aside, please," the burly blonde drawled.

Jesse took a deep, shaky breath, hands tightening over her heart, which was thudding away faster than usual. If she'd fallen and landed the wrong way...

... well, maybe she shouldn't think about that.

Regaining her composure, Jesse straightened up to her full height– which, honestly, was not that impressive– and continued walking through the crowd, gently weaving her way through the throng currently trying to get past the usher. (Was that what he was?)

"I just have one question!"

"Hold all your questions until after the keynote."

"But the keynote's sold out!"

"Hold all your questions anyway."

Jesse had to restrain a giggle there.

A moment later, she spotted Lukas leaning against a booth with his hands buried deep in his pockets, staring off into the distance with a thoughtful expression on his face. She hesitated only a moment before approaching him. He might've spotted Ivor, right?

Or... someone dressed the way Ivor was, at least. The dimness of the alley really did not help finding the guy any easier; Jesse didn't know anything about the color of his robes.

Lukas glanced over at Jesse when she'd reached him, blinking a bit in what looked like surprise. "'Sup," Jesse said, because she didn't really know what else to say.

"'Sup."

As usual, Jesse got the feeling that something was off with the blonde. It wasn't his expression, it was the same pensive, patient look he usually had on his face, and it wasn't his hair– well, not that Jesse would know if anything was off with his hair, but it looked the same as usual– and it wasn't his clothing, so what was it?

"Nothing," Jesse replied simply, before replying, mostly just to be polite, "'Sup with you?"

"Nothing. 'Sup with you?"

Jesse blinked. "I just said... nothing."

Lukas considered this for a moment, before giving her a smile and lifting his right hand to rub the back of his neck. "Uh, so... congrats on the win." The shy smile he gave was at odds with the usual thoughtful expression he had on his face. "I mean, I still think our beacon was amazing, but... you guys did a good job too. I mean, the whole monster theme was plenty cool, but... fireworks, too?"

Jesse blinked again as Lukas shut his mouth, his cheeks turning faintly pink from the short monologue that he'd just rambled out.

"Thanks," she said, and allowed a warmer smile to creep over her face. "Your rainbow beacon wasn't too shabby."

Lukas's expression grew more serious. "You don't have to do that, okay?" he responded, sincerely. When he saw the blank expression that she knew was on her face, because she didn't understand what he meant by that, she didn't understand what he meant, he amended the statement, "you guys won fair and square. You don't have to..." Lukas paused, before making a vague motion with the hand not in his pocket.

Jesse paused. "Anyway... you didn't happen to spot a guy with long hair and a beard and... um... a weird belt walking around, did you?" she asked, deciding to get back to what she'd come up to him to ask in the first place.

Lukas frowned thoughtfully, considering this for a moment, before giving his head a shake. "I don't think so. Why?"

"He kinda scammed Petra out of a diamond earlier."

Lukas's blue eyes widened in surprise at that. "Whoa. Everyone knows you don't mess with Petra." He paused, a more pensive expression coming back over his face. "Not if you know what's good for you." He thought about this for a few seconds, before lifting his eyes and giving Jesse a determined look. "I'll keep an eye out, okay?"

"Thanks. I appreciate it," Jesse replied, sincerely.

An awkward silence settled over the two. With the history of rivalry between the two teams, the silence wasn't quiet and normal at all– it was just awkward. The hustle and bustle of Endercon around them kept the silence from getting too quiet, but... still. Jesse was pretty sure one of them should break the silence.

Lukas did just that a second later, an almost anxious expression coming over his face. "So, uh... we're cool?" he asked, hesitantly, his left hand digging deeper into his left pocket.

There was still something off about Lukas. But Jesse just couldn't place what.

Jesse considered that for a moment. Sure, Lukas's team bullied her, but Lukas himself seemed nice, even if there was something off about him. And he seemed very willing to get along with her, and maybe even be friends with her. So... why not?

"Yeah." She nodded, giving him a quick smile. "We're cool."

"Cool, cool." Lukas nodded, sagely.

"Cool beans."

"Cool-o-rama."

Jesse couldn't help but giggle at that one, bringing one hand up to her mouth to smother the laugh that threatened to bubble out of her, with limited success. When the moment had passed, she let her hand drop, giving Lukas a friendly grin. "See ya later, Lukas."

"Yeah, see ya."

Jesse nodded and moved off into the crowd again. Not ten seconds later, she spotted Axel laughing at some sort of chicken machine. She quickly altered her path to walk straight over to Axel.

"Thought you could just wiggle right out of that trap, didn't you?" Axel taunted a chicken that was running around, "well, wiggle as much as you want. You're not going anywhere."

Jesse jumped up and poked Axel in the cheek– with how absorbed he was in this machine, whatever it was, she was going to have to if she wanted to attract his attention. "Axel, hey. Have you spotted a weird... beard-y guy anywhere?" She highly doubted it, since he was watching a chicken machine, but it didn't hurt to ask.

"No. Petra told me what happened, I'm keeping an eye out for him." Axel's attention didn't even budge from the chicken machine.

Jesse poked him. With her being as short as she was– and with Axel being as tall as he was– it was really the only way to get his attention, short of shouting at him.

"Okay, okay, so I got a little distracted. It's just, this machine presses all of my buttons. Unnecessarily complicated and mean to birds for no reason. It's just, when something like this calls? You gotta answer."

"We really need your help, Axel," Jesse responded, putting her hands on her hips, "if we don't find the guy soon, we might never find him."

"I was looking," Axel protested, his eyes still fixated on the chicken machine. "I just got distracted."

Jesse changed tack. "Have you seen Reuben? I was hoping he made it to town while I was distracted." She purposefully put extra emphasis on 'distracted' to try to make her point. Of course, Axel was about as perceptive as a brick, so he didn't notice.

"Haven't seen hide nor hair. But I'm sure he's fine. He's a tough little ham." Axel was still staring at the chicken machine.

The short girl tried one more change of tack, at the speed of light. It was one that was probably going to speed up her heartbeat– actually, scratch that, she could feel her glass heart already starting to pound away faster and harder against her chest, thudding away at a sharp speed. So, she might as well. "I caught on fire earlier," she replied, casually.

Or, as casually as she could. Despite the way she forced a calm tone to enter her voice, the slightest tremor snuck into her voice as she spoke those five words.

"Whoa wait what?!" Axel spun around to stare at Jesse, eyes wide with shock.

Jesse put her hands on her hips, giving him an annoyed look that was softened by a warm feeling in the pit of her stomach, one that appeared at the fact that Axel– even though he was easily distracted, even though he was kind of mean and played pranks on her sometimes, even though he was a huge dork with an attention span the size of a teacup– cared enough that he'd drop everything the moment she mentioned that she was in danger.

"Now that I have your attention, could you please go look for the guy? We really need your help here, Axel."

Axel relaxed when he realized it was a ploy to get her attention, a slightly playful scowl coming over his face. It was tinged with quite a lot of nervous relief. "Don't do that," he muttered, although there wasn't any bite to his voice. "Scared the heck out of me."

Jesse gently head-butted him in response. "Then don't ignore me," she replied chirpily, giving him a pat and moving off into the crowd again. A surreptitious glance over her shoulder showed that Axel was absentmindedly rubbing the area that she'd head-butted while moving away from the chicken machine, and she turned back to the front–

And promptly walked straight into Aiden.

"Hey! Watch where you're–" Aiden's voice abruptly cut off as Jesse backed away two steps to get a better look at him. She really hated being short sometimes. If she was only about a foot or two away from the person, she had to crane her head back to get a good look at people. This made her look even smaller than she actually was.

"Well, if it isn't Coal."

Jesse couldn't help flinching a little at the insulting nickname.

"How's your stupid pig? I hear intense heat causes brain damage."

Jesse felt tears pricking her eyes at that, her breathing quickening, her glass heart– which had been starting to calm back down from what she'd just said to Axel– starting to speed up again.

It wasn't that the insult was directed at both her and Reuben, who was still missing– no, it was just the fact that one little incautious movement around fire, one little accident, and she was going to go up in flames. Heck, she'd gotten very close to it last year.

That little reminder was easily scarier than anything you could whip up or take straight out of a horror movie.

"Does boost the flavor something crazy–" Aiden abruptly cut himself off again, and when he spoke again his voice was more shocked than anything. "Are– are you crying?"

Jesse belatedly realized that, quite against her will, tears were now streaming down her cheeks in tiny twin waterfalls. She hadn't even realized that the tears had made their way out of her eyes. Even being quite damp from her unscheduled swim with Petra earlier, the tears currently making their way down her face had to be unmistakable.

"No."

... that was easily the worst lie Jesse had ever told, especially because tears were currently streaming down her face and she was quite obviously crying. She debated adding a sarcastic remark to the 'no', but she just wasn't in the mood. Getting reminders about how she was going to die a very painful, fiery death if she didn't break her stupid curse– which, joy of joys, currently seemed to have no method to be broken– was not something Jesse enjoyed.

Obviously.

"... well, either you're crying, or you're leaking water from your eyes."

Jesse laughed a little at that, but the laugh got stuck in her throat and ended up sounding like a sob. Which it wasn't. Notch, she shouldn't be this upset about it, she shouldn't be crying, if anything she should be furious at Aiden right now for talking about Reuben like that, and she was. If she wrenched aside the fear currently bubbling up in her chest, there was a hard knot of anger at her core.

But the fear was definitely eclipsing the anger right now.

"I– okay, stop, why are you crying–?" Aiden now sounded slightly panicked. He probably didn't know how to deal with crying girls, from a reaction like that. Jesse vaguely wondered if Maya had ever cried in front of Aiden. Then she wondered why she'd wondered that.

People were starting to look at the two of them oddly, mainly because Jesse was actively crying– maybe not full-out bawling or throwing a tantrum, but anyone who took a second look would definitely see that Aiden looked alarmed and that Jesse was clearly crying. There were currently tears streaming out of her eyes, which was a bit alarming to Jesse because why was she crying–?

"Okay, uh, would you please stop crying–"

"Well, maybe if you'd stop reminding me about the fact that I–"

Oh, Jesse's voice was working again. Be careful. Don't slip. Don't just scream that you're cursed in the middle of a public place, because the volume of Jesse's voice was currently rising to a dangerous level and she wasn't trying to tell everyone at Endercon that she had the Fairytale Curse.

"– nearly died last year because I tripped into a freaking campfire, I might not have started crying in the first place!"

Jesse's ears burned with embarrassment– she'd started at a hiss and slowly graduated to nearly screaming at Aiden.

There were definitely a lot of people staring at the two of them now. Jesse wasn't good with lots of attention on a good day, so right now when she was crying against her will and trying not to get attention was even worse.

Aiden's expression was more shocked than before– he'd never actually seen Jesse lose her temper like this, had he?

With a mumbled, "sorry," Jesse pushed past him and moved off into the crowd, wiping at her eyes and trying to get rid of the tear tracks on her face, probably with very little success. She didn't have a mirror at hand to check. Stupid uncontrollable tears. She hadn't even wanted to cry– besides the initial fearful reaction from Aiden's... more than insensitive comment, that was all she'd really felt. She hadn't even felt sad.

"Are you okay?"

Jesse jumped so badly she almost fell over. Twisting to see the speaker, she whispered back, "Notch darn it, Lukas, please don't do that! Scared the bejabbers out of me."

The blonde Ocelot gave her a weak little smile. "Haha. Sorry." It faded back to a concerned look a moment later. "Are you okay?" He paused a second after saying that, a sheepish expression coming over his face. "Uh, sorry. Dumb question."

Jesse smiled weakly back at him. "Well, physically, yes. Emotionally, not sure."

Lukas regarded her for a moment, a concerned expression making its way across his face as his left hand dug deeper into his pocket. He was about to respond– in fact, his mouth had actually opened– when a terrified squeal rang out across the area.

Jesse's head snapped around. She recognized that squeal. "Reuben?" she called out, eyes scanning the area. She didn't spot the little pig.

But she did see a butcher's booth.

"Get your porkchops here!" the butcher shouted to the crowd, "fresh from the bone."

Jesse felt the blood drain from her face, and she slowly rotated to stare at Lukas, blinking a few times. "You don't think...?"

Lukas's right hand twitched up a bit, as if he wanted to set a reassuring hand on her shoulder or something. He didn't, though, which was fine with Jesse– knowing their history, and what had just happened, she would've just been a little weirded out. "I hope not. But just in case..."

Jesse gave him a nod, turned back around and broke into a jog, hands slowly gravitating up to her chest to guard her pounding heart. She had to commend herself for not doing that while she'd been yelling at Aiden about the fire. Lukas followed, although he was moving at a more normal pace.

"Nothing sticks to your ribs like a juicy pork chop!" The butcher reached under the counter– and put a little pig with a familiar mark on his side on the counter, drawing a stone axe a moment later.

There was only one pig that had that mark.

"REUBEN!" Jesse shrieked, breaking into a full-out sprint for the butcher's booth.

Reuben jumped around with a terrified squeal as the butcher frowned as Jesse skidded to a halt next to the booth. "What's the big idea? I'm trying to run a business here."

"That's my pig!" Jesse exclaimed, breath catching a little in her chest shakily from the crying session. Great. Not even a full minute of against-her-will crying, and her voice was shaky.

"Oh, really?" the butcher replied, raising an unimpressed eyebrow at Jesse, "well, I found him out in the woods, so I think that makes him my pig. Not the fattest pig I've ever seen... but he should cook up real nice anyway."

"Seriously, give her back her pig." Jesse started in surprise at the sound of Lukas's voice coming from behind her, glancing over her shoulder to see him frowning at the butcher. "Just because you found him in the woods doesn't make him your pig. Besides, she's already had a really bad day."

Jesse's expression turned into one of slight confusion. She wouldn't have said that she was having a really bad day... there were just bad parts. Like losing Reuben, having Reuben catch on fire, Aiden reminding her– for the millionth time that day– that even getting in close proximity to a fire might result in a painful, blazing death... but the other parts were good, like winning the building competition and finding out that Petra considered her a friend and other bits too.

Lukas's blue eyes flicked down and met her own green ones, practically screaming a clear message.

Play along for now.

Jesse turned back to the butcher after a moment of hesitation and just tried to look as depressed as possible. Which, in her defense, considering she'd just been crying (against her will)... wasn't that hard.

"Please?" she asked meekly, voice cracking a little bit. "He's my friend."

The butcher's expression softened slightly at the sight of the petite girl looking honest-to-goodness like she was going to cry, and he gave an apologetic shrug. "To me, he's inventory. I... might be amenable to some kind of trade," he suggested, nicely enough considering he'd been about to kill Reuben about a minute ago.

"Well... all I've got is this sword," she said softly, meekly extending the stone sword in the butcher's direction.

The butcher's expression changed to an appraising one, looking the never-used-sword up and down. "Oh... that's very nice. With this, I could cut my butchering time in half." Another moment of hesitation, and he nodded and took the sword, gently nudging Reuben towards Jesse's side of the counter and letting the smaller girl grab the pig in a tight, trembly hug. "Nice doing business with you."

Jesse walked away, hugging Reuben so tightly that you'd had to have knocked Jesse out to take Reuben away. "C'mon, Reuben. Lukas," she added, glancing over her shoulder at the blonde and walking away with the little pink pig.

Once they'd gotten a good distance away, Jesse looked down at the pink pig. "I'm so sorry, Reuben," she said, relief evident in her voice. "I shouldn't have let you run off into the woods."

Reuben just oinked softly and nudged his nose against the girl's face, showing that she was forgiven– whenever Reuben was mad at her, which wasn't often, the pig would just ignore her for a few hours on end. Never for very long, of course– the longest time he'd stayed angry at her so far was three hours. So... not long.

Jesse turned to face the blonde Ocelot next to her, a grateful expression crossing her face as she tilted her head back to make eye contact with him. "Thank you, Lukas," she told him sincerely. "I'm not sure he would've been so light on the trade if you hadn't been there."

Lukas gave her a gentle smile– one that was filled with kindness and relief and that emotion that Jesse hadn't been able to identify earlier. She still couldn't identify it. "No problem, Jesse," he replied.


A/N: Alright, I know I updated this story yesterday, but I got bored. So, a note that I need to let you know:

From now on, if anyone SERIOUSLY (not jokingly) asks me to update Hybrid: Cinematic Mode on a story that is not Hybrid: Cinematic Mode, I am going to DELAY the update on Hybrid: Cinematic Mode and just binge-update the story that I was going to update that day (unless it's Hybrid: Cinematic Mode, in which case I will skip it and move onto the next story). I'm sorry for the people who patiently wait for updates on that story, but I'm getting ticked off by people commenting, on stories that have NOTHING to do with Hybrid: Cinematic Mode, for me to update Hybrid: Cinematic Mode.

That happened yesterday. So expect a slew of updates on this story today.

Anyway! Jesse isn't too happy with Aiden now. (And probably neither is Lukas)

LunarTheMooncake: (laughs)

homeworkoverload: Yeah, I don't. xD / Nope xD

ShiningHopeBeast: D'you think? Hm. / (shrugs) / (laughs) / Hmm, do you think?

TheAmberShadow: (pats) / Indeed. xD / Over twenty people. That's as exact as a number as I'm willing to give. / Ooh, really? I'll have to play it, then. xD / No, Petra's human.

EllieRose27: No.

NovaAurora10: Sort of.

NoItsBecky: 20 characters, of course there's more cursed people than just 20 xD / Latter probably

AquaK13: 1. Maybe? / 2. What, just because she has red eyes? xD / 3. Eh. / (pats)

That's about it for now. I love how everyone's asking me spoiler-y questions and I'm like

"nah i'll answer 'em later"

x.X. A.L. X.x