As we waited in the café for 9:00 to come, I found myself wishing I could watch a time-lapse of the sky. By 6:30 it was completely orange and by 7:00 it was blue— a most unusual phenomenon, which I guessed had something to do with the same physics that caused the rapid changing of the seasons. At around 7:30, my attention was drawn to the first customer (besides our little trio) walking through the door: a rather young but confident-looking girl who sat down at a table by herself on the end of the room opposite us. The muscular worker barely gave her a second glance, so it seemed that she came to the café quite often.

"Isn't she a bit young to be here on her own?" Garmadon whispered to me, looking to see if there were any adults behind her. "Where are her parents?"

Although the question wasn't directed at him, Morro shrugged and answered, "She's probably a waiting orphan."

"Waiting for what?" Garmadon asked. Morro rolled his eyes.

"For her parents to die. 'Waiting orphans' are what we call kids who die before their parents or other relatives," he explained.

"Ah. So does that make you—?" Garmadon started.

"I'm a static orphan. Orphaned in one life, orphaned in the next." He shrugged. "Although I'm not sure I completely counted as an orphan once Wu took me in, but whatever."

"Isn't the definition of an orphan someone just who's parents are dead?" Garmadon asked.

"I thought it was someone without a caretaker," Morro said.

While the two of them debated that point, I pulled out my blueprints and started re-checking the calculations I'd already made. Then I started figuring out how many metal "feathers" would go on each wing. Working on Tiya took so long, in fact, that I didn't notice the time until Morro ribbed me and said,

"Hey, Doc! It's nine, let's get going!"

I packed up my work and we headed out the door, leaving behind the small amount of chatter that had started between customers who had walked in while I was absorbed in my blueprints. Outside, it finally looked like daytime: the sun was up, the sky was clear, and ghosts walked up and down the street, pointing to this shop or that and walking out of stores with purchases in hand. Many held picture frames such as the ones displayed in my house, and others had portraits of loved ones they were waiting on. Such items were always in high demand around DOTD.

"Hey, Geezer-don, watch this!" Morro called, and promptly jumped up onto one of the streetlights on the side of the road. Several heads turned as he did so.

"You little—" Garmadon started, but the teen was already tight-rope-walking away from us on the strings that the lanterns were hung on. He sighed.

"That boy is too fond of making trouble," he muttered. I was thinking carefully about how to respond when Morro called out from several streetlights down,

"I THINK I SEE IT!"

I escalated my pace as the boy took bounding leaps from post to post towards a store with what did have what appeared to be, as we approached it, an enormous open book sitting on the top of it. The pages simply read "CoC," with the little "o" printed in the middle of the pages.

"Well, it looks like we found the right place," I said as I caught up to Morro. As we entered the store, a friendly female voice greeted us with a "welcome to Charms of Chernobyl," confirming my statement.

"Whoa," Morro exclaimed, looking around, "You weren't kidding."

Indeed, the entire store was littered with what looked like street signs, pointing customers in the directions of the "action," "adventure," "biographical," "historical," and "pop culture" books (just to name a few). Several smaller orange signs pointed towards "music," "games," "movies," and "other media".

Suddenly, Morro's attention was caught by a sign reading "ancient scrolls." He tugged at my sleeve and pointed to it.

"Doc, look! I'm gonna go see if my name is in there!"

"All the information in the world at your fingertips… and you look for your own name?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Why does a common bookstore have a section of ancient scrolls?" Garmadon asked, pulling my attention back. "Anyhow… While he does that, shall we start looking for a game?"

"Hmm… I think Morro should be there for that," I said after some thought. "Perhaps we should split up for now and look for our own individual interests."

"Fair enough," he said, nodding. "There's something I was meaning to look for anyway." He went off in the other direction and I started heading toward the science section. I could do with a few refresher courses on electronics.

CoC did not disappoint. The science section was chock-full of titles by some of my favorite authors, including Snapston Blocking, Francis Brick, and Build Gates. It took all my self-control to not grab every book I saw, but I restrained myself. After carefully selecting only the few titles that I thought would help me most with my current project— and narrowing down my pile even more by putting at least seven of those back— I carried my purchases over to one of the checkouts, where several fellow bibliophiles were waiting in line. I reread the backs of my new treasures while I waited.

There really was something about being in a bookstore again— a proper one, not just the stands I had bought from in the marketplace— that filled me with delight and nostalgia. So often had I listened to the quiet white noise of transactions being completed over the audible silence of people becoming absorbed into their own realities. So often had the smell of new books drifted through the air to be breathed in like oxygen by those who fed on their words. So often had the feel of pages under my fingertips been my only sensation of touch, that I was startled when I felt a hand on my shoulder.

"You find a game without me, San-gray?" Morro asked. Several people in line behind me scowled at him, probably assuming he had cut in front of them.

"No, we decided to wait until you came back from your little search. These are just some light reading materials for myself— figured I might need them if you and Garmadon get into a quarrel while looking for a game," I explained teasingly. Then, smiling, I added, "How did that search of yours go, by the way?"

Morro blinked and his face contorted into relief. Had it not done so, I wouldn't have even caught that he was upset in the first place. I found myself very glad and very proud that I had decided to wait on buying a game.

"O-oh, I didn't find much. I mean, a bit about my evil reign of terror and all, but yea." He coughed. "Their descriptions of my powers didn't really do me justice, so I left."

"Ah," I replied. We moved forward in the line and I glanced around what I could see of the store. "Say, did Garmadon pass your way? We split up a while ago and he said he was looking for something, but I don't know which section of the store he headed towards." We reached the register and the cashier scanned my books as we talked.

"No idea," said Morro. "Did he tell you what he was looking for?"

I shook my head. "No… perhaps we should head over to the games section and meet him there."

"Sounds good to me," Morro said with a smile. I gave a small, apologetic nod to the folks behind me as we left to get to the games section.

The area was almost as impressive as the science section, which was a bit surprising considering the main trade of the store was supposed to be books. Nevertheless, board games, card games, dice games, and many games I'd never even heard of were in plentiful abundance. Morro lit up like a lantern and dove right into snatching up the ones that looked the "coolest."

"We're only going to buy one, you know that, right?" I asked as the boy hoarded the merchandise into a pile. He looked up and hesitated, his arms still wrapped around the games protectively like a dragon protecting its treasure.

"Aw… but…" His voice sounded comically young.

"Something the matter?"

We turned around to see the man we'd been searching for approaching us slowly, giving Morro's treasure hoard a disapproving glance.

"Ah, Garmadon," I said, "we were wondering where you were. Morro's found a wide selection of games for us to choose from."

"I see that," he said gruffly, then handed me a bag I hadn't noticed he was carrying. "Here."

"I… what?" I asked, taking the bag but not sure why he was handing it to me. He motioned towards it.

"Inside the bag. It's for you."

I blinked in surprise as Morro made some comment about wanting something, too, and pulled the unexpected gift out. In my hands I now held a long, knitted teal scarf.

"Since you don't do well with the cold…" Garmadon started.

"I… th-thank you so much," I managed to stammer. I stared at the gift like it was an exotic creature. "How did you know…?"

"That you were cold?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. Morro joined in with a cocky smirk.

"You didn't exactly try to hide it," the ghost boy said. I shook my head.

"No, not that." I looked up at Garmadon and started to laugh, realizing that his choice of scarf had been nothing more than a fortunate coincidence. "This is my favorite color."

"Oh, that… well, I guess it was a lucky guess," Garmadon said, a smile forming on his face. He seemed glad that I liked the present so much. I was still a bit overwhelmed at the sudden gesture of kindness.

"Hey, if you two are done," Morro said, evidently getting bored, "I have a ton of games here. And if we're only gonna buy one, I'm going to choose it if you don't hurry up and give your opinion."

"Ah, you'll choose it anyway," Garmadon said, but started looking through what Morro had taken off of the shelves. "So many games about fighting…" he grumbled.

"Isn't competition the purpose of a game?" I pointed out.

"Not this one, apparently," Morro commented, wrinkling his nose. He was looking at the back of an intricately painted tin box. "It says all the players work together."

"Now that's more like it," Garmadon said, sounding pleased.

"How exactly does that game work?" I inquired. Morro looked disgusted, but read the back of the box aloud.

"Escape From Dark Island: A family-friendly game of wits." He glanced up at me as if to ask if he could stop reading, but I motioned for him to continue. "When a research helicopter crash-lands onto the fabled Dark Island, the brave researchers inside must trek to each corner of the land to obtain the mythical chalices of Fire, Ice, Lightning, and Earth."

"Okay, that's not how the elements work. This is a rip-off," Garmadon said, but I hushed him and nodded for Morro to continue.

"See how well you and your teammates can work together to get the chalices and get off the island before it's flooded with pure darkness. Two or more players, ages eight and up."

"Eight and up is a good sign," I said. Morro stuck out his tongue.

"Well, it clearly isn't scientifically accurate," Garmadon grumbled. "Mythical chalices? What is this, a children's TV show? Everybody knows that elemental powers are hereditary; you can't just pick up a magic cup and suddenly control the ocean."

"Hmmm," I said, looking at the art on the box. Whoever was the artist for the game company really put their all into it. "I think we should give it a try. A team-building game might be interesting."

Garmadon and Morro looked at each other, then at me. I put on my best "I'm not giving up this point" face and waited until finally Morro said,

"Fine. But if it's totally lame, I'm blaming you."

I nodded. "Fair enough. Let's take this to the checkout." I then wrapped my new scarf around my neck and we headed outside to browse the rest of Cash Street before going home.

(A/N: Wow, I think I exceeded my limit on puns, lampshading, AND references to the real world all in one chapter! XD Anyway, I wanted to post this chapter a while ago, but there was an error message for like 2 or 3 days /=/ But s'all good now!)