We watched the old man squirm a little under his friends* (*citation needed) grasp for a bit before we stepped through the hole taking us back to the city. It'd probably have been funny if it wasn't so weird looking.

"Right..." S said,  still wearing that quickly growing ever shakier grin and breathing slightly heavily. "That's it, then."

"Seems that way." I said. 

"Huh..." S said. He seemed confused and conflicted. "Sorry, the excitement's still... Uh... Just... Gimmie a sec."

"Sure."

"I could've just strangled him. Still could, really." Sis said, raising her fishing rod once again while we were giving S a sec. 

"Well, yeah, but that wouldn't be... Good, I guess." I explained. "It wouldn't feel right."

"He had it coming. He'd have done the same."

"W-well, yeah, but it's not our place too... There's law, and stuff... Look, I just didn't want that on my conscience." 

"That's dumb. But if he attacks us again, I'll do it when you're not looking." She said with a thumbs up.

"That's... Uh... W-We'll discuss this later." I said. As much as I'd like to say something cool, like 'we don't have time for this right now!' or 'there's a time and place for everything, and it is not here, not now' or even 'you will come to understand in time', I actually just don't have any clue how to go about explaining this. Guess I'll have to talk about it with someone who would know a thing or two about life and death.

"Whew... Alright, I'm good." S said. "Uh, thanks, for all that."

"Oh, uh, yeah. It worked before, I figured it'd work again."  

"Right, right." S said with a slight frown on his face. "Man, who was that guy, anyway? Why'd he wanna murder a little girl so much?"

"Beats me." Sis said. "I have no idea who he is."

"Likely insane old guy who goes by 'Lou The Terrible.' He's the guy from that one time, in the bushes."

"Right, he did shout that at one point. Bit pretentious, isn't it?" S said. This guy gets it.

"Wha?" Sis asked.

"Y'know, on our way to the dog bowls?"

"Oooooooh, right. That guy. Come to think of it, he did seem pretty pissed that one time." She said. "Don't remember why. Probably his fault, though."

"Right, sounds like a real nutjob." S said. "Gotta say, I've fought some real dirty bastards before, but that guy was just the worst. Well, up there, anyway. Top 5."

"Yeah, he's a real piece of work..." I said.

. . . 

"You guys wanna catch a movi- Er, play, or something?" I asked. No sense just chilling in the dirty crime alley.

"Um, before that," S began, "I, uh, I suppose I owe you guys an apology, don't I..."

"Eh." Sis said with a shrug.

"What? N-No, your logic earlier was ethically sound." I said. 

"Nah, it's not that. I was the one that got us into that fight, yet I couldn't really do much of anything. Plus, I severely misread all sorts of things..." He said, solemnly. "Man, I'm losing it..." 

"What? No, you just woke up from what would've been a traumatic injury to anyone else like it was nothing. It's only fair that you'd be a bit off for a while." 

"Gee, what happened to all that confidence from earlier?" Sis asked, rather bluntly.

"Confidence? Hardly. I simply wasn't aware of my- no. I was in denial. I sort of figured this would happen... Really, I was trying not to think about it. But when I got up close to that guy, I... Well, I didn't exactly come out of that scrape with Catface completely unscathed."

"I thought Catface healed you. Did they mess something up?" Did they draw little cartoon cats on his bones, or something? That seems like something they'd do. Maybe. 

"Nah. It's just that, as it turns out, when you overexert yourself to the point where you vomit blood, things get screwy for a while." He said with a weak chuckle. "Basically... I'm half a man right now."

Phrasing. Kind of. Might be reaching a bit- you know what, now's not the time. 

"Wha... What's that mean?" Still, I do think some clarification is in order, at least.

"I'm all outa juice. Will be for a while." He said, which was still pretty unhelpful. "I'm a mage with no magic."

Oh, that's a bit more helpful. "Oh. Dang, that sucks." Magic rocks. You can make robots and balloon animals and light shows with it. That's, like, all most people want in life, I think. Also dragons. Which are basically magic. Probably. Oh, uh, I should probably say something encouraging, shouldn't I? Empathy, and all that. Or is that sympathy? Who cares. "But I still think you're pretty cool regardless. I'm sure all the dudes you've helped would say the same." 

"R-right. Thanks." He said, though he clearly wasn't really into it.

. . .

"Really? That's it?" Sis said rather out of the blue. "Suddenly you're all gloomy just 'cus you can't shoot crap out of your fingers?" 

Well, that's not very nice. 

"It's more than that. Without sand, I can't really do much of anything. If something were to happen, I don't know what I'd do."

"That's stupid. Seems to me you'd just do the same thing you did earlier." Sis said.

"How can you be sure? We've only met, like, an hour ago." S said. Which was fair, but pretty unnecessary, if you ask me. 

"Pattern recognition, I guess. It's a useful skill for fishing." Sis began with a shrug. "Look, you gotta be somewhat aware to be in denial, right? Yet, you still went to stop the guy from attacking me anyways. It wasn't really necessary, but you did. Heck, even after you had accepted it, you were still thinking about the safety of the people in town, and you were the first person to leave relative safety. All of this was consistently weird and stupid, and all evidence points to you continuing to be weird in the future."

That's a bit rude, isn't it? Some of it, anyways. I dunno. 

Sis continued, "At any rate, your magic honestly seems to be the least impressive thing about you thus far. Though, admittedly, I wasn't really paying much attention earlier." 

S kinda sadly opened his mouth to retort.

Then he closed his mouth.

His frown left his face.

He squinted his eyes.

He scratched his chin.

"Huh. Y'know what, you're... You're completely right. I guess I don't really need magic all that much, do I?" He said.

Oh, wow. One of us actually learned something after doing something exciting. That's rare. 

"I mean, I completely forgot, I always carry plenty of sand around on my belt!" S continued, grinning like a kid with ice cream. "So long as I'm careful about it, I've got nothing to worry about!"

Wait, no, that's not- Oh, whatever. Everyone's happy now. This is fine.

"Great." Sis said, with a thumbs up.

. . . 

"Oh, y'know what, we never did the crater from Catface's explosion."

"Right, yeah let's do that." 

To be honest, it feels a lot less impactful at this point, considering all the distractions and unrelated loops we went through, but it should still be fun. I put my hands together, and thought of a bird's eye view of what I'm pretty sure was the area around the explosion. 

Aaaaaaannnndd...

Huh.

How'd they...

It... It was a giant cartoonish cat face. With, like, a squiggly mouth and whiskers and little ears.

Well, it's certainly neat, but I... I don't know what to make of this. 

S seemed pretty taken aback by it, though.