"SO! WHAT ARE YOU GUYS TALKING ABOUT!?" 

"Why are you still yelling?" I asked. 

"Sorry! Force of habit! Anyways, where's Catface?!" 

That's different from your first question. "Oh, uh, they left after the explosion." 

"Aww, really?" Micahus said disappointedly. "Oh well! I'll be seeing them again soon!"

"How'd you know Catface was here? You didn't see the fight, right? And they should have been in disguise before that." S inquired. That's a fun word. 'Inquired.' 

"We were hanging out earlier! We had a picnic, just the two of us!"

Just the two of them? Wait, Catface, who has been busy all day tricking a bunch of lunatics and orchestrating a small-scale assault on a town has had time for lunch, but I still haven't? I've gotta respect the efficiency, honestly.

"A picnic in the... Ruins?" 

"Yeah! Oh, apparently it's a lot bigger than I thought! The whole time! There was a door there! The whole time! Isn't that cool?!" Michaus's voice was as jovial and enthusiastic as always, but I couldn't help but feel that maybe he felt that was a few things other than just 'cool.'

"Yeah, that's where the fight was."

"I see! The whole time!" 

"Oh, uh, speaking of the ruins, w-what ever came of that whole hair thing you were screaming about?" I asked. He was quite passionate about it earlier, I kinda figured that'd be more impactful. 

"Turns out the dude I met was actually Catface! It's okay if she does it!"

"She?" Sis muttered quietly.

"W-why?" I asked.

"'Cus she's cute!" Michaus said without missing a beat. That's kinda weird.

"H-huh."

"Anyways! How was the fight, what happened!?" 

"Oh, you know," S began. "Swords were swung, things were thrown. Mostly sand. A lot of sand, really." 

He's leaving out the parts where he got his rear handed to him on a silver platter, but yeah, that's the gist of it. Minus the giant mech suit, of course.

"Who won?!" 

"I like to think we came to an understanding."

"That's certainly one way to put it..." I said, quietly.

"Aww, that's boring."

"That's not so bad. A lot of things could stand to be a little more boring." 

I couldn't disagree more. I mean, this is a world with real, tangible magic and all sorts of other fairy tale bull crap, it'd be a shame to settle when the opportunity for dramatic flair arises. 

S continued, "Though, I'm the last person who should be saying that."

Michaus shrugged. "Well, I don't know about any of that. Anyways! Girl! Beye's sister! What's your name?"

Ah! That again! Man this guy's dedicated!

Sis just shrugged in response.

"Wha-"

"Say, Michaus, what ever happened to those other two? And, for that matter, that green guy and the other guy from the stands?" S asked. Is this a distraction? Man, S catches on quickly! Scarily so, actually!

"I don't know what happened to those guys, but Pinkie and Knives are still checking out the crater! Or maybe they're just heading into town now! Or leaving it! I don't know!" 

"Shouldn't someone be keeping an eye on them? I know they seemed peaceful earlier, but they're still criminals, right? Who knows what they might be up to." 

"Are they?"

"Y-yeah." I said. "They were trying to attack the town earlier. Y-you were there when this was discussed."

"Hah, to be honest, I don't really remember much of today in between the time I was in the forest and when I was hanging out with Catface! Mostly just varying shades of red!"

All over hair, huh. That's certainly something. 

"Even if they're not," S continued, "shouldn't someone at least see them off as they go?"

Michaus thought about that. For all of half a second. "That makes sense! Goodbye!"

And then he sprinted off without another word. 

Guess that's that, then. Cool.

What a guy.

"Thanks for that." I said to S.

"Right, don't worry about it. Anyways, I'm hungry, lets get lun-"

"How did you know to do that?" Sis sounding oddly serious, given the situation. 

Oh, come on, we were so close!

"Do what?" S asked.

"My name. Just now, you distracted him when he asked for my name. You shouldn't have known to do that, you only found out I existed a few minutes ago. How?" 

"This guy, obviously."

Eh? But I never told him. Actually, I didn't tell him anything about Sis till he met her.

"You didn't know who I was when you woke up. And I find it hard to believe he told you about my name and nothing else about me. Talk." She said, putting her hand on her fishing rod.

"H-hey, e-easy, he's not-"

"Of course he didn't. I smelled it."

He sure does use that excuse a lot. Still have no clue what the heck he's talking about. 

"Are you messing with me? That's brave."

"He smelled uneasy whenever it was brought up. I figured it was a sensitive issue or something. That's all there is to it."

"That doesn't even make sense."

"Was I wrong?"

Sis didn't have anything to say to that. She briefly looked over at me, and back at S.

"How much do you know?"

S shrugged. "Probably less than you think, if you're asking that question. In fact, while we're asking questions, I've got one for you. Beyes, earlier you said Catface left after the explosion. She was also the one that caused it, right?"

"Yep." I said. 

"Why'd-"

"Don't dodge my question." Sis said.

"I'm not. I just don't have anything else to tell you about it." 

"Is that really true?"

"Do you have any more questions?"

"Yes. One. Who the hell are you?"

"I'm S. Doer of things. Sand enthusiast." S said with a good deal of snark. 

That's certainly one way of putting it.

"S' Isn't a name."

"It stands for 'sand."

"It's still not a name."

"Why not?"

"Because it's stupid."

"That's fine. Whether mom, I, or anyone else came up with it, so long as people say it it's all just as good. If you ask me, it's better." 

"No it isn't. It's all arbitrary but in this reality at least, a name has a certain elegance to it. A certain... Taste. It's... It's proof that someone was thinking about you... At least for a moment... It's... better that way..."

Sis quickly went from looking angry and threatening to... I don't know the word for it... Her eyes were hopeless, but it seemed her mouth was still searching for just one more word as it hung open just slightly. Somehow, she looked... So far away, almost. I dunno.

S's face changed too. I guess at this point he realized he was being quite smug for someone who was arguing with an 8 year old girl. Also the fact that he was, in the first place, arguing with an 8 year old girl. He looked remorseful, though it seemed he didn't quite have the proper words of apology ready.

And I stood there, looking at their faces.

"A letter's just..." Sis said as she lost grip of her fishing rod. 

"Right..."

And then we all fell silent.

And I remained silent.

I... Haven't done much about the name thing, have I?

And I...

And I didn't say a word. 

. . .

This... This isn't a great situation, is it?

I felt kinda bad about a lot of stuff. Also wildly confused. I had no idea what to do about this situation.

Can I just wait this out? Is this a leave it alone kind of situation? Or am I expected to comfort someone somehow? Can I magic my way out of this? No, of course not... Y'know, for how much I fantasize about using my cool powers, I never really get the chance to use them. Or maybe I'm just not being creative enough. I could totally use the tentacles to make balloon animals!

I should probably take this more seriously... Though, just saying that doesn't really help much.

Maybe I don't gotta? S is here now, and he's pretty good with words and situations and stuff I think, he can probably handle this!

. . .

Yeah... I should have expected that. S is currently shooting me a look that says 'you should probably do something about this, dude.' 

He's really good at communicating with his eyes, isn't he?

Guess he thinks this is my responsibility... And... Yeah, yeah, he's right... Of course he's right, I knew that from the start...

Haaaaah...

Y'know, even long before this, while I may have been talking and all that, I haven't really said much. Rather, I said a lot of nothing. I'm good at saying nothing. Most of what I say is nothing, after all. Filler, empty words meant only to move things along.

And that's fine. There's nothing wrong with that, I think. Hopefully. 

I guess this time, though, I should probably say something. Even if that something isn't much at all. 

I'll just try to channel the power of suave TV playboys, or something.

. . .

Maybe not that, actually. That won't end well for anyone. 

Anyway, I don't think I'll be able to solve the major issue at hand here. I can't pretend I fully understand, in the first place. What I can do, however, is apologize for what happened earlier. Again. Thing kinda happened twice... I'm getting off track. Point is, I need to prove to her that, at the very least, someone has been thinking about her, at least for these moments.

Even if I...

. . .

Well, words go a long way. Hopefully. And after this, hopefully I'll have eased her at least a little bit, I'll feel like a bit less of a massive jerk, and we can all go and eat lunch. And we can finally check out that crater, too. Can't forget about that, that's for sure. 

Thus, I steeled my resolve, and I spoke something. Here's hoping, anyway.

"Sis, I... I'm sorry." I said. 

Sis chuckled weakly. "All that build up for that?" She said, quietly.

Using humor to deflect, or is she just being weird? 

"I'm, uh, sorry I... Ditched you... Again... I-" Probably shouldn't try to justify this. Not now at least. "That was... really stupid of me."

Sis sighed a little irritatedly, but spoke rather calmly. "Just don't do it again. I'm not gonna repeat myself." 

Man, she's really hard to apologize to. What's she want me to do? Am I supposed to hug her, or something? No, that's probably too much right now.

What's S doing right now?

Picking sand out from his fingernails. With his teeth. 

I guess if it works it works.

Back to Sis. 

"I-I see. I... I'm sorry." I said.

"You already said that."

"I know, it's just... It's been killing me." That's mostly true, kind of.

"That's dumb. Think about other things." 

"Uh..." I probably should have been hurt by that, but instead it just made me a bit sad. It seemed wrong, I guess. Once again, I didn't like that answer. 

"Like, for example, your face." Sis continued. "And the rest of you, I guess. H-how are you in that regard, anyway? Does it still hurt anywhere, or..."

"Wha?"

"Y'know, when that cat dude was around earlier, and... I... You... He..." Sis looked down at the ground and clenched her fists. "It was his fault. He-"

"Oh, uh, yeah, I'm fine. I wasn't hurt that bad. You probably healed me too much, actually." I said, trying to smile to accompany my joke-that-wasn't-actually-a-joke-but-I-said-it-jokingly-so-it-was-one. I neglected to mention the fact that the healing itself was far more painful than anything else at that point. Aside from the tackle, but I've been trying to forget about that. 

"Good." Sis said. "That's... That's good."

. . .

Where do I go from this?

What's S doing?

I'm pretty sure he just swallowed a bunch of sand. He doesn't look particularly bothered by it.

Back to-

Aaaaand then my stomach gurgled. 

Always at the worst times, isn't it?

"Let's go get food." Sis commanded. "It's well past noon at this point, and you haven't eaten yet." 

"Oh, uh, y-yeah." I said. I guess that works. I don't know if things are really much better, but I feel a little less bad, at least. 2/3 objectives ain't bad. "What do you think, S?"

S shrugged. "Right, I'm game. Been a while since I've eaten, too."

Aside from that bit of sand, of course.

"Alrighty." I said, putting my hands together. Finally, lunch time.

. . .

I know that I thought earlier that 2/3 was fine, but, while I fully intend to leave well enough alone for now...

I'll be having a word with DYN2 next time I see him.