It’s got to be Thellamie, doesn’t it? Throw a pebble in any direction, and you’re liable to hit a good reason. It’s the world that filled a dozen notebooks, full of every scrap and morsel he could think to get. And then, yes, Yuki! He's a guest in her world, and how could he ever look her in the eye again if his coming doomed it all? Then there’s the other notebooks, the ones Yuki never saw, of dreams that might die along with this world. There’s the dream he’s in right now, a little adventure of his own, and it’s good for the repressed and forgotten boy to enjoy a little more time asleep. As a treat.

But - [i]put those claws away now, Missy![/i] Now! Back! Shoo! He’s getting to it, alright? Meddlesome fox, don’t ask the question if you won’t let him finish the answer!

…well it’s not worth asking [i]now[/i] if he’d have left it at that without the threat of claws, now is it? We’ll never know for sure, and we’ll all just have to deal with that. So there.

Anyway. None of that’s inaccurate, to be clear. All of those are good reasons to fight, and he’s got all of those reasons in his heart, and he’ll happily tell you any…well, most any of those, if you asked him straight. But. There’s a difference between a good reason, and the heart’s reason, isn’t there? Correct answers are well and good. But nobody ever fell in love by correct answers alone.

Okay! Yes! Continuing! Not stalling! Haven’t been stalling! Nyeh!!!

Don’t put it to him straight, because he wouldn’t tell you, and he’s not ready to tell you either. This is just between us. As the Golden Fawn rides to his grand finale, as the miles stretch on and on, and as the past day looms ever-larger over him, his thoughts do not turn to anything as noble as the fate of Thellamie. 

He wonders how Miss Yaz kept the party civil, after he disappeared. She's uncommonly good at that, you know, keeping everything running in a crisis.

He remembers much too late that he never got a chance to see if they rebuilt Cafe Le Faun. His locker may even still be in the back-ways, if it survived the chaos.

He regrets the hours everyone will have to spend contending with all that tea before it soaks too deep into mats and carpets, all after a long party night. He can only imagine the grief they'll give him, should he ever show his face there again. Might throw him in the teapot until Cutie justice was satisfied.

He wishes - and oh, how he wishes - that he was safe in his bunk, head upon Deo’s lap, feeling clever fingers play with his hair as the buzz of the day’s stories wrapped around him more snugly than any blanket. And to his shame, he curls up tighter against Khan Mikela the Fierce, and she will need sharp ears to hear the soft whimper of longing that escapes his lips.