After stopping at a public library to print out makeshift resumes, the two women spent the morning doing something far less glamorous than either of them had anticipated.
Lara dragged Yve all over town, pitching themselves to any business with an open door.
Their first stop was a warehouse on the edge of town, where a steady stream of heavy trucks rolled through the gates while workers hauled crates of seafood from one loading area to another.
The salty maritime scent hung thick in the air, and despite the pragmatic purpose of the visit, Yve found herself thoroughly distracted by the massive volume of fish.
Lara, however, remained entirely focused.
Spotting a clipboard-wielding supervisor walking past, she quickly stepped into his path.
“Excuse me, are you hiring?”
The man glanced at the two of them, his gaze lingering on Yve longer than necessary before a lazy smirk spread across his face.
“Nope.”
Lara’s eyes immediately drifted to the giant HELP WANTED banner hanging beside the corrugated metal entrance.
She looked at the sign, then back at the grinning supervisor.
Without wasting a breath on an argument, she simply grabbed Yve’s hand and pulled her away.
Their next stop was a corporate call center.
While Lara disappeared into a side office for a preliminary interview, Yve found herself seated across from a recruiter who looked pleasant enough.
The conversation began innocently enough.
“Tell me a little bit about yourself.”
Yve nodded with absolute composure.
“I’m Celestia Yve, daughter of the Virellis line.
I am twenty-four years old, and I would like a job so I can make money.”
The interviewer smiled politely, jotting a note on her clipboard.
“So, tell me about your work history.”
That was all the invitation Yve needed.
“I have knowledge and experience in many fields.
One of which is autopsies.”
The woman’s pen froze against the paper.
Yve continued enthusiastically, entirely unbothered.
“You have something like that here?
I’m very good at it.
I can gut that body like a shark and restore it back like nothing ever happened.”
The woman’s pen froze against the paper.
Yve missed the warning signs entirely.
“I’m also particularly skilled with weapons.
Swords, bows, knives, things like that.
A funny story, actually.
The first time I held a sword, I was eight years old.
The thing was so heavy I could barely swim with it.”
She laughed brightly at the fond memory.
Across the desk, the interviewer stared at her in dead silence.
The interviewer cleared her throat, cutting off what was rapidly becoming a catastrophic conversation.
“Whew…
okay.” She forced her facial muscles back into a rigid grin.
“Hypothetical scenario.
Say a customer gets frustrated with you on the phone.
What do you do?”
Yve considered the query with immense gravity.
“Depends on the scale of their frustration.”
The interviewer blinked.
“…The scale?”
“Of course.
If they’re at threat level, you capture and restrain them immediately before they become violent and start a rampage.”
The woman’s pen slipped from her fingers.
Yve pressed on.
“Then you lock them somewhere secure and give them Sleepy Time Tea.
Usually, their anger goes away after they wake up.”
Absolute, suffocating silence filled the cubicle.
For several agonizing seconds, the only sound was the low hum of the ceiling vent.
The interviewer slowly retrieved her pen.
“I…” She paused, swallowing hard.
“…see.”
Yve beamed politely.
The interviewer blinked, looked down at Yve’s completely blank resume sheet, and then back up at her serene face.
“We’ll…
be in touch.”
Yve brightened instantly.
“Oh.
Wonderful.”
She practically skipped out of the building.
“I got the job!
I got the job!
I got the job!”
For the first time all afternoon, a flicker of hope crossed Lara’s face as she emerged from the hallway.
“Oh my God, you did?”
“Yeah,” Yve grinned.
“Wasn’t even hard.
They asked questions, I answered them, and then they said they’d be in touch.”
Lara’s smile died on the spot.
Yve happily hopped along beside her for another few steps before noticing Lara had stopped.
“What?”
Lara rubbed her temples.
“Yve…”
“What about you?” Yve asked, tilting her head.
“Did you get it?
I’m sure you got it.”
“No,” Lara sighed.
“I didn’t get it.”
Yve blinked, thoroughly confused.
“What do you mean?”
“They said ‘we’ll be in touch’ to me too.”
For a moment, Yve stared at her.
Then she stared at the office building, and back at Lara.
“…So you got the job.”
“No.”
“But they said they’d be in touch.”
“Yeah.”
“Then you’ll hear from them.”
Lara looked like a weary traveler trying to explain macroeconomics to a remarkably stubborn bird.
“That’s not…
okay, that’s not what it means.”
Yve furrowed her brow.
“Then why say it?”
“Because…” Lara hesitated.
“…Because sometimes people use it to gently reject someone without saying no to their face.”
Yve looked genuinely horrified.
“Wait.”
“Yeah.”
“They lied straight to my face?”
“Well, not technically—”
“They absolutely lied to my face,” Yve protested.
“They could have just said no.”
Lara pinched the bridge of her nose.
“That’s just how polite society works.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, it just is.”
Yve threw her hands into the air, narrowly avoiding a passing pedestrian.
“That’s ridiculous!
If they weren’t going to hire us, why get people’s hopes up?
That’s cruel.”
“Yve, keep your voice down.”
“No.”
“Yve.”
“No.”
Despite her exhaustion, a laugh slipped past Lara’s lips.
Yve scoffed dramatically, crossing her arms.
“Over two hundred years, and I’ve never felt so deeply deceived by the surface world.”
“You’re being overly dramatic.”
“This really sucks.”
That, at least, was something Lara couldn’t argue with.
~~~
As the afternoon wore on, it became abundantly clear that most conventional employers took one look at Yve’s lack of documentation, eccentric references, and complete absence of a resume and ran the other way.
Lara, fortunately, had significantly more success finding places willing to look past her abrupt absence from the workforce.
By four o’clock, Lara had already secured a temporary receptionist position at a small local firm, making the stark contrast between their fortunes painfully clear.
Slumped dejectedly against a bus bench, Yve watched the midday foot traffic flow past and let out a heavy, dramatic sigh.
“Why won’t anyone hire me?
I’m good at a lot of things.”
Lara offered a sympathetic smile, patting her shoulder.
“Sorry, Yve.
You’ll find something eventually.”
“Lucky you.”
“Yeah.” Lara laughed softly, looking down at her new paperwork.
“Lucky me.
I really needed this.” Her gaze drifted toward her companion with quiet fondness.
“It’s nice having my lucky siren around.”
Yve scoffed lightly.
“Please.”
They lapsed into a comfortable, quiet rhythm for a few moments before a sudden thought occurred to Yve.
“Why do we need jobs anyway?”
Lara blinked, turning to look at her in surprise.
“Because I don’t want to keep living off Dylan’s charity.” She glanced down at her lap, her expression turning reflective.
“And I want my own place someday.
I need to renovate my parents’ house.”
That logic finally landed.
Yve nodded thoughtfully.
“Then why don’t you just use my little black card?”
Lara’s reaction was instantaneous.
“No.
Absolutely not.”
The refusal came so fast that Yve flinched back.
“I already owe you guys enough.
It wouldn’t feel right,” Lara said, shaking her head firmly.
“Things are finally starting to look up for me, and I don’t want to take advantage of that.”
Yve considered the words with solemn gravity.
“That’s mature of you.” A pause.
“And wise.”
Then, without warning, she reached into her pocket, pulled out the sleek black card, and stared down at it.
Lara frowned.
“What are you doing?”
Yve gripped the edges of the plastic between both thumbs.
“You’re kind of right.”
“What?”
“As long as I have this…” Yve traced the surface with a critical eye.
“I’ll always have a safety net.”
Before Lara could process what was happening, Yve applied firm pressure.
Snap.
The card broke cleanly in half.
For a solid second, neither of them breathed.
Then Lara let out a sharp, breathless shriek.
“Girl, are you completely insane?!”
Yve looked up, blinking innocently.
“What?”
“What do you mean, what?!” Lara gestured wildly toward the ruined plastic fragments.
“How are we supposed to get home?”
Yve shrugged.
“Dylan gave us cash.”
“It’s gone.”
“What?”
“We’ve been running all over town for hours.” Lara frantically dug through her purse and produced a single, crumpled five-dollar bill.
She held it up like a flag of defeat.
“Cabs.
Printing resumes.
Lunch.
This is literally all we have left.”
Yve stared at the five-dollar bill.
Then down at the broken black card.
Then back at the bill.
“Oops.”
A helpless giggle escaped her.
Lara stared at her in disbelief, but the sheer absurdity of the situation broke through her panic, and she started laughing too.
Minutes later, the two of them were sitting on the bus bench howling with laughter like a pair of kids who had just blown their allowance on something ridiculous.
Heavy gray clouds gathered overhead, and the first sharp raindrops began to fall.
“Oh, come on…”
Yve tilted her head toward the darkening horizon.
“Should we go home?”
“Think we should.”
Yve immediately whipped out her new phone, tapping the screen with intense concentration.
The call rang twice before a gruff voice answered.
“What.”
“Hello…
can you come get us?”
A brief pause crackled over the speaker.
“Fine.”
Before Yve could offer any details, or even tell him what street they were stranded on, the line went dead.
She stared down at the blank screen in mild bewilderment.
“He hung up.”
Lara laughed, shaking her head.
“At least he said yes.”
The rain intensified, forcing them to huddle closer beneath the narrow overhang of the bus shelter.
Barely a minute passed before a familiar sedan rounded the corner, pulling smoothly up to the curb.
A sharp tap of the horn cut through the hiss of the rain.
Yve brightened instantly.
“He’s here.”
Dylan killed the engine, retrieved an umbrella from the back seat, and stepped out into the storm.
Lara watched him approach through the sheets of rain, looking genuinely impressed.
“Wow.
That was fast.
Thought you’re at work.”
Dylan merely offered a noncommittal shrug, sheltering them both as he guided them toward the car.
Lara pulled open the rear door to climb in, only to freeze halfway.
“Oh.”
The back seat was already completely stacked with grocery bags.
She glanced from the provisions to Yve.
“Looks like you’ll have to sit in front.”
Yve pouted, eyeing the crowded back seat with lingering disappointment.
Ignoring her theatrics, Dylan opened the passenger door, holding the umbrella steady over her head while she climbed in.
His hand instinctively hovered near the top of the doorframe, a quiet, protective reflex to keep her from bumping her head.
Once she was settled, he shut the door, circled the vehicle, and slid into the driver’s seat.
The heater hummed to life, pushing back the chill as Dylan pulled away from the curb.
~~~
By the time they returned to the apartment, Yve’s brief, fiery ambition for the surface workforce had entirely evaporated.
She collapsed face-up onto the living room couch, staring blankly at the popcorn ceiling as a deeply offensive thought replayed in her mind.
Over two hundred and forty years of lived experience, master-level combat training, and vast multidisciplinary knowledge from realms these mortals couldn’t even fathom.
And yet, she had spent the entire morning getting rejected by human recruiters.
It felt profoundly insulting.
Nearby in the kitchen, Dylan and Lara were quietly unpacking the grocery haul.
“What’s wrong with her?” Dylan asked, tossing a bag of chips onto the counter.
Lara glanced over her shoulder toward the living room.
“No one hired her.”
Dylan offered a single, solemn nod.
That apparently explained everything.
A moment later, he popped open a cold beer from the refrigerator and wandered into the living room.
Without a word, he extended the bottle toward the couch.
Yve blinked, looking from the condensation-beaded glass up to his impassive face.
“What?”
“Drink.”
It certainly wasn’t much of an explanation, but she accepted it anyway, sitting up to take a hesitant sip.
The rest of the afternoon drifted by in a lazy blur.
The television murmured softly in the background, keeping up a steady stream of noise while rain tapped a gentle, rhythmic beat against the glass.
Somewhere between mindless commercials and random afternoon programs neither of them were actually watching, the sting of the morning’s rejections quietly faded away.
By six o’clock, Lara had fully taken over the kitchen.
The rich aroma of home-cooked dinner began to chase away the sterile scent of grocery bags, and Dylan found his gaze wandering around the apartment.
Not long ago, the place had been a fortress of absolute, unbroken silence.
Now, there was always something.
A quiet conversation from the hall.
A burst of laughter.
The scuff of footsteps.
Yve asking baffling, impossible questions about surface culture.
Lara humming while she chopped vegetables.
For a man who valued his peace and quiet above almost everything else, he should have found it grating.
Strangely enough, he didn’t.
Maybe this wasn’t actually so bad after all.
The thought lingered in the back of his mind far longer than expected, quickly followed by another, heavier consideration.
Darnell’s open-ended offer.
Dylan took a slow, deliberate sip of his beer, his eyes drifting over to where Yve sat curled up on the opposite end of the couch, completely captivated by whatever talking head was currently flashing across the screen.
By seven-thirty, dinner was served.
The three of them gathered around the low coffee table, sitting cross-legged on the floor while Lara doled out generous portions.
For the first time all day, Yve looked genuinely radiant, the sting of the morning’s employment rejections completely washed away by the simple comfort of shared food and company.
She wasn’t alone anymore.
Lara and Yve’s conversation carried on long after the plates were cleared, drifting effortlessly from surface customs to shared grievances while Dylan contributed little more than the occasional grunt or monosyllabic answer.
Mostly, he just sat back and listened.
Or pretended to.
Empty bottles steadily accumulated on the table as the night wore on.
Lara proved to be the first casualty of the evening; somewhere between complaining about corporate recruiters and celebrating her new job, her eyes fluttered shut and she slumped completely against the couch cushions, fast asleep.
Fortunately, she hadn’t let slip anything about Yve’s true origins.
That left just Dylan and Yve.
The alcohol had caught up to Dylan, leaving the room slightly unsteady around him.
Across from him, Yve looked entirely unaffected, casually polishing off beer after beer as if she were simply drinking mineral water.
It was irritatingly unfair.
“You sure that’s beer?” he muttered, eyeing her stack of empties.
Yve glanced down at the glass bottle in her hand.
“I think so.”
That wasn’t remotely reassuring.
The television droned softly in the background, a formless hum neither of them was paying attention to.
The apartment had grown quiet, the city outside reduced to distant traffic and occasional horns.
Dylan leaned his head back against the sofa and dragged a hand across his face.
The room swayed a fraction.
Yve noticed instantly.
“Are you tired?”
“No.”
“You just rubbed your eyes.”
“‘Cause I’m tired.”
Yve let out a melodic laugh.
For some reason, the simple exchange coaxed a reluctant chuckle out of him too.
A comfortable, easy silence settled between them.
Dylan stared down at the half-empty bottle in his hand before lifting his gaze to meet hers.
“Y’know…”
Yve turned her head, tilting it with mild curiosity.
Dylan considered the question far longer than necessary, taking another slow drink before answering.
“Everything about ya’s weird.”
Yve looked genuinely offended.
He ignored the expression, pressing on.
“Everythin’.
You keep gettin’ into trouble.” His gaze drifted past her toward the living room, taking in the quiet apartment and the staggering cascade of changes that had upended his orderly life over the last few weeks.
“‘Fore you, my life was quiet.”
Yve listened in absolute silence, her chin resting against her knees as she hugged her legs to her chest.
Dylan stared back down at his drink.
“You don’t know nothin’…
except breakin’ people’s jaws.” A faint, fond smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
“And sometimes ya act like a kid.”
Yve bit her lower lip, caught somewhere between a protest and a smile.
Dylan studied her for a moment, his gaze lingering much longer than normal.
He dragged a hand through his hair and took one final swallow before letting out a slow, bone-deep sigh.
“Don’t know why I made that U-turn.” A small, self-deprecating laugh escaped him.
“Had no reason to.”
For a moment, Dylan simply sat there, blinking heavily as his eyelids grew leaden.
Yve watched him closely, noting the slackening of his posture.
“You should sleep.”
“M’fine.”
He clearly wasn’t.
The bottle sagged in his loosening grip.
A few seconds passed, and then his balance gave out entirely, his upper body pitching sideways.
Yve moved with lightning speed, catching him by his head before he could slide hard onto the floor.
The beer bottle slipped from his fingers, clattering across the rug as foam spilled onto the fibers.
For a fraction of a second, his eyes fluttered open, trying to focus on her through the thick fog of exhaustion.
“Don’t regret it, though,” he murmured, a tired, ragged smile touching his lips.
Then the last of his strength vanished, and he slipped completely into unconsciousness against her shoulder.
Yve remained where she was, unmoving, her thoughts tangled around words she could not seem to shake.
Don’t regret it though.
The sentence echoed through her mind long after the room had fallen still.
For a long stretch, she simply watched him, taking in the sharp lines of his face softened by sleep, the exhaustion etched beneath his eyes, and the countless little details she had somehow missed despite weeks under the same roof.
Without thinking, she reached out and brushed a few stray strands of hair away from his forehead.
The gesture should have felt strange.
Instead, it felt entirely natural.
Her fingertips lingered for a moment before she pulled her hand back, sitting in the quiet shadows while the city churned outside.
Distant traffic and blaring horns filtered through the glass, yet the noise seemed miles away.
For once, there was no immediate threat hanging over them.
Just this room, the steady rhythm of breathing, and the rare comfort of having nowhere else she needed to be.
Her gaze drifted toward Lara, fast asleep against the cushions, and then to the rain-streaked window overlooking the glowing metropolis.
Finally, she felt at rest.
Carefully, she slid an arm beneath Dylan’s shoulders and another beneath his knees, hoisting his weight with an ease that defied her slender frame.
He barely stirred as she carried him and settled him beneath the blankets of his bed.
Standing over him, she leaned down, her lips brushing close to his ear.
“Thank you…” she whispered, her voice barely carrying past her breath.
“…for making that U-turn.”
A faint, tender smile touched her lips before she slipped out, pulling the bedroom door shut behind her.
Lara was next.
Still dead to the world and completely oblivious, she was scooped up from the couch and tucked securely into the spare room.
Only when both of them were safely in bed did the apartment truly fall silent.
~~~
Returning to the living room, Yve spent the next hour quietly setting the space to rights.
The dishes disappeared into the sink.
She gathered the empty bottles, wiped away the spilled beer from the rug, straightened the cushions, and cleared the counters until every trace of the evening’s chaos vanished into the dark.
Her thoughts remained hopelessly tangled around everything Dylan had said.
The words circled endlessly through her mind, leaving her distracted enough that she moved through the chores almost entirely on instinct.
By the time the apartment was spotless, the night had grown deep and quiet.
Eventually, she retreated to the bathroom.
The moment she slipped beneath the water, her legs dissolved, unfolding into the familiar emerald scales that came far more naturally to her than human form ever would.
The cool water embraced her instantly.
Submerging her head, she breathed deeply, drawing oxygen straight from the current as the lingering tension drained from her muscles.
For a while, she simply floated in silence.
Then exhaustion finally claimed her.
The beer, the chaotic job hunt, the long day, and the countless thoughts she couldn’t untangle all caught up with her.
One by one, they dragged her toward sleep, and before she realized it, she drifted off entirely beneath the surface of the water.
~~~
The next morning began painfully for everyone involved.
Lara woke first.
Or rather, the floor woke her.
One moment she was asleep, the next she was staring up at the ceiling with a pounding headache and a mounting regret for every single beer she had consumed the night before.
The room tilted unpleasantly when she tried to stand.
After gathering herself, she blinked toward the bed.
Empty.
“Yve…?”
No answer.
Across the apartment, Dylan was not having a much better morning.
Fragments of the previous night came back in disconnected pieces, each one accompanied by a fresh throb behind his temples.
He rubbed his face and sat quietly for a moment, trying to retrace how he had wound up in his own bed feeling like he had lost a street fight.
With a low groan, he pushed himself upright.
At nearly the same moment, Lara shuffled for the door knob as the two bedroom doors opened.
For a brief second, neither paid much attention to the other.
Then Lara’s gaze drifted down the corridor toward the bathroom.
The door stood wide open.
And inside the porcelain tub—
Her entire body seized.
“Oh my God!”
Dylan frowned, rubbing the back of his neck.
“What?”
He turned, ready to head for the bathroom, but Lara’s eyes went wide with panic.
“NO!”
The shout exploded from her before she could even think.
She bolted across the living room and threw herself bodily into Dylan’s path, blocking the hallway entirely.
“What the hell?”
Lara ignored him, spinning around and diving past the threshold.
A second later, the bathroom door slammed shut.
The lock clicked loudly into place.
Silence descended on the hallway.
Dylan stared blankly at the closed wood panel.
Inside the bathroom, Lara was already panicking.
“Yve.
Yve.”
Her voice stayed low as she knelt beside the porcelain tub, shaking Yve gently by the shoulder.
For a second, Yve looked completely motionless beneath the water, floating in a quiet, undisturbed stupor.
Then a stream of bubbles drifted toward the surface, and Lara nearly collapsed with sheer relief.
“Yve.”
At last, Yve stirred.
Groggily, she blinked open her eyes and sat up, water cascading in thick sheets from her hair.
“What?”
“You almost got caught.”
Sleep vanished from Yve’s face.
“What?”
“The door was wide open,” Lara whispered, her voice tight with panic.
“Dylan’s right outside.
You’ve got to be more careful.”
For a beat, Yve simply stared at her, and then the reality of the situation crashed down.
“Oh heavens.” Her eyes widened in alarm.
“Oh heavens, I fell asleep.
Did he see me?”
“I…
don’t think so.”
The uncertain answer did little to soothe her.
Yve pressed a hand against her chest.
“Oh, thank heavens.
Thank you.”
Lara reached out, offering a steady hand to help her climb from the basin.
The moment Yve rose from the water, her emerald scales dissolved, flowing seamlessly into smooth skin as her tail split into human legs.
Lara watched the process unfold, still struggling to reconcile the magic of it with reality.
“Good Lord…”
Meanwhile, the water in the tub sat stubbornly stagnant.
Lara reached down, grabbing the plug and yanking it free from the drain.
Outside in the hall, Dylan stood waiting like a man whose morning routine had been violently derailed.
The bathroom door clicked, swinging open to reveal Yve and Lara standing right there.
Yve was still damp, fresh from the bath, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Lara in the narrow corridor.
Dylan’s brow furrowed.
For a long, tense second, nobody spoke.
Then Dylan slowly looked away, offering a tight nod.
Without a word, he stepped aside, and the two women hurried past him toward their bedroom.
Dylan lingered in the hall, staring at the empty doorway for a beat before stepping into the bathroom to take care of business.
Once he finished, his attention drifted back to the porcelain tub.
The damn thing was clogged again.
Frowning, he shook his head, assuming they had missed a clump of hair or debris.
But when he reached down, he found the drain plug was already pulled.
The water should have been rushing out, not sitting there.
He slid his fingers into the opening, his knuckles brushing against something tightly packed inside.
Pulling his hand back, several small green objects spilled across his palm.
Dylan’s brow knitted together.
The exact same weird stuff he’d found before.
He dug his fingers back into the drain, hauling out more.
“The fuck is this?”
With the blockage finally cleared, the water swirled down the drain with a loud, gurgling gasp.
Dylan lingered, checking the faucet and the sink for any sign of similar debris, but found nothing.
That only made the mystery worse.
Carrying the handful of strange green fragments, he left the bathroom and headed straight for his bedroom.
Pulling out his phone, he punched in his landlord’s number.
The line connected after a few rings.
“Hello?”
“Yeah.
This is Dylan Pierce from Apartment 402,” he said, his voice rough with morning fatigue.
“Need somebody to clean out the pipes in this place.
Tub keeps gettin’ clogged.”
“I’ll come by later and take a look.”
“Alright.”
Dylan ended the call and tossed the phone onto the mattress.
The small green shards sat in his palm.
Grabbing a tissue from the nightstand, he wrapped them securely with the batch he had collected before, tucking the bundle neatly onto his dresser out of sight.
~~~
By that afternoon, Lara and Yve were back out pounding the pavement, Lara accompanying her from one interview to the next in the relentless, ongoing search for employment.
Back at the apartment, the landlord finally arrived accompanied by a local plumber.
After checking the plumber’s credentials, Dylan let them inside and led them straight to the bathroom.
He retrieved the folded tissue from where he had left it on his dresser, unfolding it to reveal the small, peculiar green fragments.
“Keep findin’ these every damn time,” Dylan said, tossing one onto the counter.
“Cloggin’ the tub.”
The landlord picked up a piece, turning it over between his calloused fingers, while the plumber leaned in to examine the rest.
“What is this?” the landlord muttered.
The plumber frowned, rubbing his chin.
“First time I’ve seen anything like it.”
He went straight to work, pulling off the tub fixtures, snaking the lines, and inspecting the exposed piping piece by piece.
The meticulous search dragged on, yielding nothing but clean metal.
“Maybe it’s the tank,” Dylan suggested, leaning against the doorframe.
“That’s possible.”
Ten minutes later, they stood together on the building’s flat rooftop.
The plumber popped the hatch to the municipal water tank, shining a heavy-duty flashlight deep into the dark interior before looking back down at them and shaking his head.
“Nothing here.
It’s clean.”
The landlord let out a heavy sigh, turning to face Dylan with a practiced, weary expression.
“Son, I know you’re a good man, but don’t waste my time with this.
My pipes are clean.
Whatever that stuff is, it ain’t coming from the building.”
Dylan crossed his arms over his chest.
“Rarely even use the tub.”
“Well, it’s not from here,” the landlord replied flatly.
“Nobody else in the building’s complained about it.
Just you.”
Dylan held up one of the green shards, catching the afternoon sun.
“You sure you’ve never seen this before?”
The plumber squinted at it, then shook his head.
” “Seen a lot of things clog pipes over the years.
Human remains, once.”
Dylan looked at him.
“Human remains?”
“Long story.” The plumber glanced back down at the fragment in his palm.
“But this?
First time I’ve seen it.”
Lifting it closer to his nose, he wrinkled his brow.
“Smells salty.
Kinda fishy, too.” After another moment of inspection, he shrugged.
“Looks like very thin glass.
Or skin.
Hell if I know.”
Dylan scoffed, dropping his arms.
“Yeah.
Alright.”
With nothing else to add, he offered a brief nod of thanks, and a few minutes later, the landlord and plumber cleared out.
Several miles away, at a local McDonald’s, Yve and Lara sat across from each other in a cracked red vinyl booth.
Yve was halfway through her second burger while Lara slowly twirled a straw through the ice in her Coke.
Yve let out a frustrated groan, dropping her chin into her hand.
“This is so frustrating.”
“The job thing?” Lara asked, taking a sip.
“No.” Yve sighed, rubbing her forehead.
“This morning.
I almost got caught.
Thank heavens you were there.”
Lara laughed weakly.
“Yeah, that would’ve been a total disaster.”
Yve buried her face in her hands.
“An absolute disaster.”
“Seriously, though.” Lara pointed her straw across the table.
“Why did you even sleep in the tub?”
“Didn’t even know I fell asleep until you woke me up.”
That earned a loud snort.
The conversation drifted for a few quiet moments before Lara cleared her throat, her expression turning uncharacteristically hesitant.
“Can I tell you something?”
“Sure.”
Lara smiled despite herself, tracing the rim of her cup.
“Seeing your tail this morning was…
weird.”
Yve’s fingers tightened slightly around her burger wrapper.
“Do I still gross you out?”
“What?
No.” Lara’s answer came so fast it nearly overlapped the question.
“Okay, maybe a little at first, but not because it’s you.” She shook her head, searching for the right words.
“It’s just…
yesterday sirens were fairy tales.
Then suddenly there’s one sleeping in the same apartment with me.”
Yve couldn’t help laughing.
Lara stared at her across the laminate table.
“Are there more like you?”
“Of course.” Yve took another casual bite of her burger.
“And it’s not just sirens.
Throughout the Milky Way, there are countless civilizations.”
Lara forgot about her drink entirely, her jaw slackening.
“Wait.
You’re serious?”
“Very.”
“Like…
actual aliens?”
Yve offered a nonchalant shrug.
“Sure.
Aliens.”
Lara leaned back against the vinyl seat, looking genuinely overwhelmed.
“You know, a month ago my biggest concern was figuring out how to get my parents’ house back.”
“And now?”
“Now I’m sitting in a fast-food joint talking to a siren about galactic craziness.”
Yve laughed into her cup.
Lara shook her head, a dazed smile breaking through.
“It makes everything else feel kind of ridiculous.”
“What does?”
“People stressing over bills, taxes, work…” She glanced around the bustling dining room.
“Meanwhile there is more to the universe than 9-5 never-ending bills.”
Yve’s smile softened, her gaze dropping to the table.
“Want my advice?”
“Sure.”
“Cherish the ordinary, mundane stuff.”
Lara raised an eyebrow.
“That’s your grand cosmic wisdom?”
“I’m serious.” Yve’s voice carried an unusual certainty.
“Once the Non-Interference Accord is eventually dissolved, humanity’s going to see a very different version of the universe.
It might blow your mind.”
Lara stared at her blankly.
“The Non…
Accord what?”
“Just take my word for it.” Yve tapped her fingers against the wrapper.
“I suspect things are going to change soon.
Give or take a few more decades.”
Lara studied her for a long beat before shaking her head with a disbelieving laugh.
“You’re incredible, you know that?”
Yve groaned softly, rolling her eyes.
“Please don’t start.”
“I mean it.” Lara smiled.
“I still can’t believe I’m sitting here having this conversation.
Honestly, part of me thought I was losing my mind right up until I saw your tail.”
Yve just shook her head and finished her meal, the sheer absurdity of their reality having long since crossed the line into feeling entirely normal.