Jade poked her head into the library. "Has anyone seen Callie lately?"

Kanaya looked up from her book, blank orange except for a yellow sun symbol on the cover. "No, I haven't seen her anywhere. But then again, I haven't been looking…maybe one of the others knows?"

"I already checked with them. I thought she might have come in here because it was quiet." Jade leaned against the doorframe and sighed.

"Oh. In that case, I very much doubt I can help you. Sorry."

"S'fine. She's probably hiding from John and Terezi – he convinced her to go pranking with him, did you hear that?"

Kanaya looked alarmed. "No, I did not. This could end badly."

"Yeah, tell me about it!" Jade laughed. "If they come in here, don't trust a thing they tell you."

"Don't worry. I won't."

Jade closed the library door. She hadn't seen any trace of Calliope for several hours. Being around so many people all talking and interacting at once made Callie feel overwhelmed after living by herself for most of her life, a feeling Jade could certainly relate to. She remembered wandering off to remote corners of LOFAF or the Prospitian battleship when it became too much, and after their arrival in the spacebubble Calliope had taken up doing much the same. Sometimes it had helped Jade to have someone – just one person – to talk to when she did this, and Callie never seemed to mind the company.

She wandered through the maze of gray, indistinguishable corridors, calling Callie's name every once in a while, wondering how the trolls had survived in such dull surroundings for however long their group had. They – her, Kanaya, Callie, and Terezi, who had found out on her own – hadn't told the rest of the players about Callie's true species, letting them believe she was a dead troll from an alternate session. Terezi's reaction after discovering that she was of the same species as Lord English had convinced them that that would be less than a good idea. This meant that Callie stayed in her trollsona at all times, which she was quite happy to do. She said she disliked her true appearance, despite Jade's assurance of its cuteness.

Not that the trollsona wasn't cute, of course – curly white hair and corkscrewy horns looked adorable on her. Most everything looked cute on Calliope, in both of her forms…oh dear.

Jade ducked her head to hide her blush – even though she knew no one could see her – and suppressed the urge to let out a little doggy whine. Yes, she found Calliope cute. As in, really cute. As in, romantically cute.

Flushed crush. She had a flushed crush on Callie. A big one.

She could count on one hand the number of times she'd felt this blushy and butterflyish for anyone, and still have enough fingers left to do the spacey thing. It was back in the spiral that she and Callie had met and become friends, but it hadn't been until much later that these feelings had started to develop.

Stupid feelings. Weren't cherubs only able to form caliginous relationships? Stupid annoying useless feelings. She pushed them off to a corner of her mind and concentrated on not blushing. She didn't want to find Calliope with her face beet red.

After searching for a while Jade realized that she was going in circles. Or, she thought she was – yeah, that was the library, and she'd definitely passed that before. Calliope wasn't anywhere in the complex, so she probably was outside somewhere in the forest. Jade didn't know why she hadn't checked there before – Calliope loved the outside, and spent as much time as she could there without freezing.

Eventually, Jade managed to find the door and slip outside into the dry, cold air. She shivered, watching her breath fluff out of her mouth and dissipate into the blank gray sky. That must have been why she hadn't thought of looking here – her subconscious didn't want her out in the cold. Jade ducked back inside to grab a coat for herself and Callie, who always forgot.

She found the cherub around the back of the complex, curled up against the wall with her sketchbook and pencil. She looked cold, but too engrossed in her doodling to notice.

"Hey, Callie!" Jade called. "Brought you a coat."

"Oh!" Callie jumped and clutched her sketchbook against her chest. "I'm sorry, Jade. I didn't hear you coming up."

"Whatcha drawin'?" Jade leaned over, playfully trying to catch a glimpse of the page. Calliope stood up quickly, almost impaling Jade's face with her horns. "Nothing. Er – I'd rather not share it, this time."

"Okay. Here, put this on! You look cold."

Callie accepted the coat gratefully, flipping her sketchbook closed before setting it down to shrug her arms into the sleeves. "It is rather chilly out here, isn't it?"

Jade gave a giggle that was half shiver. "It's gotta be below freezing, at least!"

Callie nodded and picked up her book. "I really like it out here. It's so quiet…and cold. And there are so many plants!"

Plants had become something of a shared-interest-slash-inside-joke after the spiral. Jade was struck by a sudden idea and equally sudden accompanying surge of butterflies. "Hey – want to go exploring a little bit? In the plants?" In the plants. Nice going, Harley.

"Oh, yes! That sounds great!" Calliope's face lit up, and she grinned in that peculiar too-wide-for-a-troll way. "One can never have too many plants!"

"Agreed wholeheartedly!" Jade's spacedog tail twitched excitedly under her coat. "There's a path here somewhere, I think…"

The path, once they found it, was wide enough for them to walk comfortably side by side. It seemed wonderfully well maintained for a path that hadn't existed two weeks ago, which could have been because of the unwillingness of the plants to grow at all. Jade didn't know whether they were dead, or dormant, or not completely real, or what.

"Would you believe, I've never actually been this far in the forest before?" Calliope asked. She was nearly skipping along the path, happily inspecting every different plant she came across. "Were all these on your planet, Jade? LOFAF?"

"I'm not really sure. I didn't go down to LOFAF for plant-related purposes much before I met you – normally, I would have, but I guess I was kind of depressed on the ship."

Callie's face fell abruptly. "Oh yeah, you told me about that. How – how have you been doing, lately?"

"Since we got here, I've been having mostly good days. This has been one so far – hey, watch out!"

Callie, who had been walking backwards to talk to Jade, whirled around just in time to avoid colliding with a tree. She jumped backwards in surprise and Jade nearly walked into her. "Careful, Callie!"

"I am careful, there was just a tree." Callie walked back to said tree and ran a hand over its bark. "This is an evergreen. Right?"

"Yep. A Christmas tree! I never had any Christmas trees on my island – too warm for them to grow."

"And where I lived, it was too warm for anything to grow." Callie picked a cluster of needles off the tree and put them in her pocket. "I might be making a scrapbook," she explained. "A plant scrapbook."

"Neat," said Jade. "Hey look, over there – I think that's a pond!"

"Race you!" said Callie, and took off.

With doggy speed and spacey powers, it shouldn't have been hard for Jade to overtake Calliope. The cherub had space powers too, though, and was surprisingly fast. She skidded to a halt just in time to stop from running out on the pond and Jade, who hadn't seen the sudden halt coming, tackled her unceremoniously from behind. Callie let out a sharp peal of shocked laughter and she stumbled under Jade's weight. Jade grinned and hung on to her, growling good-naturedly and helping Callie recover her balance.

"Skating?" asked Callie, untangling herself from Jade to fix her wig. "Did you bring skates?"

"No, but I think we can make them, like back in the spiral. It's our spacebubble." Jade held out her hands and concentrated, and a pair of bright green ice skates slowly materialized before her. She sat down on a log and pulled off her shoes. "Now you try!"

Callie nodded, and soon she was holding skates similar to Jade's. Green, of course, because green was the best color. They had gone skating a few times in the spiral, out of boredom and because Jade had always wanted to, and found that they both enjoyed it.

Jade had the better balance, and was out in the middle of the pond before Callie had made it past the shoreline, but the cherub quickly got on her feet and skated over. "I really hope this ice is thick enough to hold us," she said conversationally.

"We're both god tiers, we can fly if we need to," Jade replied.

"True." Callie slipped suddenly and grabbed Jade's hands for support. "Want to see if we can do a figure eight?"

Once Jade had recovered from the shock of Callie's dry, gray-painted hands snatching hers, she nodded an assent, and Callie pulled her along a little faster than necessary.

The figure eight turned into more of a squiggly figure six before they gave up on it and decided to just skate around the border of the pond. Callie was a little unstable, but Jade seemed to have a natural talent for staying upright.

They skated for over an hour, according to Jade's many computers (she had three on her right now, which was two less than optimal but still a fine number), sometimes together and sometimes making their own aimless paths across the ice. Jade was experimenting with skating with her hands behind her back and one foot in the air, like in the movies, while absentmindedly contemplating her flushed feelings for Callie. She had been trying to work up the courage to tell her about them for a while, and now that they were alone together of course it was as good a time as it would ever be…she knew the cherub well enough to know that Callie wouldn't let it get in the way of their friendship, and it would feel good to have the weight off of her chest...Calliope had probably picked up on her odd behavior around her long ago, despite how Jade tried to hide it. She was smart like that.

Not to say that it didn't send a flurry of butterflies through Jade's stomach any time she considered it. Flushed feelings were weird.

Jade had just managed to get up on one leg while still going at a stable pace when she heard a squeak, a thump and an "ow!" from behind her. She let her foot drop down and did a quick u-turn. Calliope had fallen backwards and was sitting disgruntledly on the ice, making sure her horns were still in the right place.

Jade skated over and slid to a stop in front of her. "You okay?"

"Fine, just took a tumble! Help me up?" Callie held out a hand, and Jade pulled her to her feet.

Or that was how it was supposed to go. What really happened was Jade pulled too hard, or Calliope slipped again, and they ended up holding onto each other with their faces very close. Jade swallowed.

"My bad!" Callie slid backwards a few inches, determinedly looking everywhere that wasn't Jade's (likely blushing) face. "Sorry, Jade. My fault. My bad."

"No, it was me, sorry about that, uh – " Now, Jade! Come on, you can do it! "Hey, Ca – "

"Hey Jade?" Callie's interruption was shy and hesitant.

"Yeah?"

"Oh, no, you were about to say something. Go ahead."

"No, that's okay! You go. It's fine."

"Erm. Okay." Callie cleared her throat. "Lately, or, since the spiral, really, I have been experiencing some odd…feelings. I don't know what they are. Or why I am feeling them. Or if they're because I've been around other species a lot and cherubs aren't meant to do that, or because Caliborn and I are separate without me predominating, but, I think the things I've been feeling are…red? Maybe?" She hunched her shoulders as she said this, as if she was trying to shrink into herself.

To say Jade's heart skipped a beat would be an understatement. "Red feelings?"

Calliope seemed to wilt even more. "Like I said, I don't know if that's what they are for sure. But, it feels like…the warmth of friendship, except I think about the person more, and I get nervous and rambly when I'm around them...and I want to kiss them." If Callie was a human she would have been bright, vibrant beet red.

"That sounds like red feelings, all right. Maybe Rose and Kanaya will know? We can ask them when we get back."

"Okay. But – Rose doesn't know, does she? That I'm not a troll."

"Good point." Jade pondered this for a moment. "Maybe we'll just ask Kanaya…then tell Rose if you think that's necessary? I don't think she'd freak out. She's pretty cool that way."

Calliope shrugged and wobbled a bit, trying to keep her balance. "I suppose."

Jade coughed. She knew she really shouldn't ask, it would be awkward for both of them and most likely lead to some heartbreak, but she couldn't help herself. "Also, just out of curiosity, you understand, if you don't mind me asking…who, um…"

"N-no one!" Callie almost shouted, panicked. There was silence for a moment, then she started laughing. "That was ridiculous."

Jade joined her, noticing how Callie's laugh was higher than she was used to hearing it.

Eventually they had to stop so they didn't fall. Callie sighed, grinning at her skates. "Of course it's not no one, I don't believe that's how red feelings work…but, er, I would much rather not tell you this time."

Jade didn't miss how the cherub's hand tensed in her grip, though, or how quickly she pulled away. This was certainly an unanticipated turn of events.

"So – Jade, I interrupted you earlier. What were you going to say?"

Now or never. The butterflies in her stomach were getting more frantic – it was now or never, there wouldn't be a better time, and now Jade was at least 70% sure it was reciprocated…She opened her mouth, ready to give some sort of articulate speech about her feelings, but what actually came out was:

"Can I kiss you?"

Callie's mouth dropped open. Jade backtracked quickly. "I mean, I'm sorry, that was dumb. It's just I've had this flushed crush on you for ages and then you said – "

She barely registered Callie's hands coming up to frame her face before she was pulled into a kiss.

It was a good kiss. It was a really good kiss. Not that Jade had any experiences with kisses, or Calliope for that matter. But it was a very good kiss. Jade could see why people liked kissing. Callie's hands and mouth were freezing points of contact that radiated ice through Jade's skin wherever they touched, the tip of her nose brushing against Jade's cheek like a small hesitant icicle. Jade shifted and brought a hand up to the back of Calliope's neck, angling her head gently so their mouths slotted together better. Calliope hummed happily, the sound vibrating against Jade's lips. She tasted of mint and sweets and something bitter Jade tentatively identified as gray paint.

Without warning, Callie deepened the kiss into what she would call a snog, and Jade shifted again – only for her foot to slip out from under her and send her falling straight backwards. She grabbed Callie instinctively for support, but Callie's balance was nowhere near good enough to save them, and they ended up crashing to the ice with Callie landing right on top of Jade.

They were silent for a moment, then burst simultaneously into uncontrollable giggles.

"Well, that was certainly – that was a turn of events!" gasped Callie.

Grinning wordlessly, Jade reached up and brushed a curl out of Callie's face. The cherub froze at the touch but relaxed quickly. Jade opened her mouth to say something and closed it again, her dog ear twitching suddenly. She cocked her head, distracted. "Did you hear something?"

Calliope looked confused. "No…"

"Really? I could have sworn I heard the ice – " Jade was cut off by an ominous, hollow groaning emanating from underneath the two of them.

"That's not good," Callie observed.

"Run!" shouted Jade, and pushed the cherub off of her. They scrambled back to the edge of the pond, followed by many worrying cracking noises.

"Think that's enough skating for one day, don't you?" asked Jade, once they were both back to safety. "I'm cold. Want to head back?"

"Yes, absolutely," replied Callie, sitting down on the log and pulling off her skates. She coughed nervously. "Maybe…maybe when we get back we could, er, we could kiss more? I think we should kiss more."

Jade plopped down on the log beside her, scooting over until their sides were pressed close together. "That sounds like a wonderful idea."