After dinner, the Party continued discussing the Dungeon around the campfire for a while, but they were exhausted. With the sky awash in the colors of twilight, they scheduled a watch rotation and readied their bedding for the night. It was decided that, apart from Daisy, each member of the Raid Group was assigned a one-hour slot to keep watch, giving the Party a full eight hours to rest up before getting back at it in the morning. Conveniently enough, Alice was able to provide a timer that would alert them when it was time for their watch duty and relieve them when their shift was up. Garath took the first watch, walking a little ways away from the group settling in for the night.
He pulled Bill into existence beside him. Even with Garath’s inhuman sense of smell, Bill’s was still much stronger, and his other senses left Garath’s looking paltry at best. Additionally, Garath’s mind was prone to wander. Bill’s was not. The Cambionic Fel Hound had shown that he had the ability for simple reasoning, and his willingness and competence in following Garath’s directions were impressive. But left without direction or the need for problem solving, Bill existed on pure consciousness. No deeper thought. No internal musings or ponderings, just reaction. He would be a great help in keeping watch and Garath intended to keep him on watch to assist throughout the night. He wasn’t sure if the summoned demon needed to sleep at all, but if keeping him up all night had a negative effect on Bill, Garath would let him rest the next day.
The first watch was quiet. Waves rolled gently up the white sandy beach. Sparse fluffy clouds drifted slowly, almost imperceptibly, across the dimming night sky. A light breeze rustled the leafless branches of the trees on the dead mountain to the northwest. Bill sat on his haunches nearby, tongue hanging out to one side and a steady stream of drool trickling out of the other. The Fel Hound was alert, but did not seem to sense anything that may be a cause for worry. Garath resisted the urge to access the forums and poke around—some lingering obsession with keeping his mind busy by scrolling through the words of others left behind from his cell phone addiction. He was only going to be on watch for an hour. He could do his friends the simple service of being completely present for his entire watch. After a few minutes, Garath’s thoughts drifted to the conversation that was had over dinner, though his senses remained alert.
Garath found it interesting that The Tower hadn’t issued quests to the other groups that Alice had accompanied before allowing them to face the Spirit Guardians. Why would it change its M.O. for them? Perhaps he was thinking about it the wrong way. Perhaps the fact that his group was issued quests to complete before facing the Guardians wasn’t the important difference. The Tower seemed to be asking his Raid Group for help with its own problems and maybe that was what he should be focusing on. Tired as he was though, Garath had a hard time focusing on anything at all and, before he knew it, the timer that Alice had set up on his interface appeared in the forefront of his vision to let him know his shift was up.
Athios had the second shift and she walked up to the little hill where Garath and Bill sat watch with tired eyes. Garath smiled widely as she approached, but his warm greeting was returned with an icy glare before Athios looked away from him, folding her arms.
“Everything alright?” he asked dumbly.
“Fine,” she replied.
Garath’s mind went into red alert. ‘Fine’ was not a good sign, even an idiot like Garath knew that. He didn’t know what to do, but he did know he had to do something. He and Athios may not be in a serious relationship yet, but his feelings for this dark, quiet girl were too strong to do the one thing he wanted to do at that moment, take her ‘fine’ at face value and get some shut-eye. He knew things would only get worse between them if he did that.
“In my, admittedly limited, experience,” Garath said, looking up to catch her eye, “the answer ‘fine’ almost always means ‘not fine’.”
“Oh yeah?” Athios asked, making eye-contact only briefly before looking back toward the ocean, her arms still folded.
“Yeah,” Garath said, getting to his feet. “Athios, I don’t want to do this every time I do something stupid.”
“Excuse me?” she demanded, placing one hand on her hip.
Garath heard Worf in his mind yelling that a warning shot had just been fired off the port bow. He ignored it.
“I’m not some storybook hero that always does the right thing. If you haven’t noticed that about me yet, I don’t think you ever will.” Garath met her eyes. “I really, really like you. I want to explore our relationship and find out where it leads, but I can’t if you’re just going to fold your arms and tell me everything is fine when you’re obviously upset.”
Athios looked a little ashamed. “It really is nothing,” Athios said. “I’ve just been stressing out a lot today. I’m sorry.”
“I’m going to take that at face value then,” Garath told her. “If you’re stressed, why don’t you come sit down? I’ll rub your back while we take your shift together.”
Athios blushed behind her raven hair, but happily agreed. Together, the Necrologist and the Dimensionalist watched the sky darken into night. Waves crashed against the white sand as Garath rubbed her shoulders and neck, the tension of the day melting away from Athios as he
