Young Writers Society

Oh, thank Barbatos. Evie had doubted she would be able to win Tiberius over then, but it looked like her argument was enough to convince him. Now everyone in their party could get a decent amount of sleep.

"Sleep well, then," Evie said, grinning. She gave a look over at Viktor. Besides Tiberius, he was the other member of their group that really needed to sleep. Felix would just sleep if he saw Viktor doing it; he didn't really need to himself.

James decided to leave it at that. With a huff, he turned and laid down on the ground, curling his arms up under his head by way of a pillow.

At this point, he didn't think Evie, Viktor, or Felix would try anything during the night.

More than anything he worried about what was going on back in Port Brakken, with Leo and the Donovan he was supposed to meet. He didn't know if Leo tried to find him, or how long he might've searched for him, or if he'd discovered who James really was. He didn't know anything. There was no resolution. No goodbye. Nothing whatsoever.

It wasn't like he hadn't done it before.

He'd done it back in King's Peak. He'd done it every time he drifted through a town, passing through. He'd done it with Cowell. He'd done it with... with Amy.

James closed his eyes, deciding not to think on it anymore.

He wasn't going to sleep, but at least he could rest.

It was always hard, keeping track of time during the night, but Evie made the most of it like she always did. She didn't have any cores on her, so she made due with just tinkering with the few parts that she did have. It always helped having something to do while she waited for day to come. She had almost finished the husk of an automaton at this point. She was thinking of naming it Sweetie. It didn't entirely fit her usual name methods, but Sweet Flower would be a mouthful and a bit too redundant.

There was movement in the distance.

Evie went still.

She strained her ears and senses again. It could have easily been an animal of some kind, just moving about in the darkness.

She heard more noise. It came from something too large to just be a small animal skittering about, and was absolutely more than just the wind blowing. Evie got to her feet and shook the others in the group, starting with Viktor. Felix was curled up next to him like usual. When she was sure the two were starting to wake up, she went over to Tiberius.

The noise had been too far away for regular human ears to hear it originally, but was just close enough now to be within earshot.