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He ignores the smell of day-old nog filling his nose to continue on with the drawing he’s working on, the sharp pencil lead moving across the page to form a woman knocking on a door. He hums, finishes up, and moves to hang the picture up with a spare tack he found on the table.Aubrey Little, the Lady Flame, is coming over and he has some sort of idea as to why she is. She might be disgusted with the way he’s living currently, and she’s . . . some sort of odd semblance of a friend. Acquaintance? He isn’t sure. But Indrid is sure he’s long over-due for a quick clean-up of his Winnebago. Aubrey would be here in either an hour, thirty minutes, or two and a half hours. That would give him enough time to clean up somewhat.Sure enough, she does show up within two hours, which gives Indrid enough time to squeeze in just a slightly small nap. She knocks in that way that, even without his Sight, he knows it’s her; starting out slightly hesitant, then three fast knocks, and approximately two seconds before another hesitant knock. As if she isn’t sure he’ll answer.Which is ridiculous, but he doesn’t comment on it as he opens the door, finding Mama’s van still running in front of Indrid’s Winnebago. He raises an eyebrow, because he certainly wasn’t expecting this. Sure, she might have taken Mama’s van, to come here, but he didn’t expect it to be running. He quirks an eyebrow up questioningly, his confusion only showing more once she tosses him the keys.“Get in, loser,” she teases, straightening her drug store-bought sunglasses that are poorly made. He tosses the keys back, much to her confusion.“Would you really trust a blind man to be driving Mama’s van?” He asks, and he knows there’s this sort of smug tone to his voice. He quickly grabs his sketchpad and pencil from inside, then goes out and moves past her, adjusting his glasses, and waits by the van. Aubrey follows him, but gets into the driver’s seat.Indrid can feel her staring at her.Then, “Do you need any help?” He parrots her, and then he laughs, a little bit, which sounds like a condescending scoff. “I’m functionally blind, not fragile. This may not be some Daredevil shtick but still.” He pauses, and gets in, then continues talking. “Thanks though.” It’s genuine. Surprisingly so.Aubrey nods a little bit and starts to back out of the RV park, running the heat for Indrid even though it’s close to being the start of summer. He appreciates it, but doesn’t say anything about it to the spellslinger.“So,” he starts up. He can already see the futures, enough that it might give him a headache. “What did you want?” it sounds rude, but he hopes he got his point across. He doesn’t look ꟷ hah ꟷ at The Lady Flame, instead settling for the window.She bites the inside of her cheek, tightens her grip on the leather steering wheel. He can hear it, he doesn’t need his Sight to know.“I . . .” she hesitates. “Wanted to get out. Go somewhere.” Aubrey breathes out a quiet sigh and Indrid turns his head towards her, tucking a piece of stark white hair behind a pierced ear. He doesn’t force her to continue, knowing that the other would continue on anyways.“The lodge has been . . . kinda overcrowded lately, I guess? I just felt a need to go somewhere, and I wanted to talk to you.” She says it with the kind of overbearing sincerity that Indrid almost doubts her.But he tilts his head. When he expresses his doubts, she’ll get upset with him and stay that way. “What about?” He asks, tone a bit softer than usual.She shrugs a little bit. Then, after a few minutes of silence, “What was the weirdest . . . uh . . . vision? Yeah, vision, that you’ve had?” She sounds genuinely curios, and if he asks, he’ll figure out that she just wants a distraction.He hums a little bit, and the sketchbook burns in his hands, so he sets it on his lap, even though it still burns heavily. He hesitates, and it’s quiet for a little bit. They pass the Quiet Zone.He starts up again a little bit after that happens. “I saw seven birds, flying tirelessly. I saw a silver spaceship, flying straight ahead to a black opal hunger than consumed worlds.” His voice is teetering on the edge of being a little bit too tight for him to handle. “It was . . .” Indrid pauses, then laughs a little bit. It sounds almost forced. “Overwhelming, a bit.”He taps his fingers against his sketchbook likely. His nail polish is starting to peel, and Aubrey suggests that in a future. If she doesn’t do it now, he’ll keep it in mind to mention it as casually as he can to her. “I drew it, and then hung onto it. I’m not. . . sure who those seven birds are, but the planet they were on didn’t look like this one, or Sylvain.” He doesn’t hope it’s this one.Foolishly, he fell in love with Earth, despite the scolding from Barclay when he had told him one night, when they were looking at the stars and with Barclay just shifting slightly closer to him as he pointed out the stars that he knew of. Which wasn’t much, but it was still something.Barclay looked at him in confusion, and had sat up with a raised eyebrow, the warmth leaving Indrid’s side. “This planet is a mess,” he had pointed it out.Indrid had shrugged, just slightly. “Sylvain is also a mess, but Earth is . . . precious,” at that, he snorted a little bit at his wording. He had laced his fingers with Barclay’s, which flustered the other, but didn’t say anything about it, and softly mumbled, “but I know something bad is going to happen to it, and I . . . don’t know if I would be ready for that, yet.”Indrid’s brought back to the present by the van stopping at a gas station, Aubrey nudging him slightly.“You okay?” she asks, her eyebrow raised just slightly.Indrid shrugs and gets out of the van at the same time as her, leaving his sketchbook and pencil on the seat. “Yes, I’m fine.” He says, pushing up his glasses just slightly. He closes the door and Aubrey opens the glass door to the gas station for him.“Thanks,” he mumbles. Then, as he steps in, “Are you okay though?” he knows the answer already.“I don’t know.” Aubrey admits, rubbing the back of her head with an awkward laugh as she adjusts her shades.“Do you want to talk about it?” He knows this answer too.Aubrey pauses, and they start to wander around the isles. “Yeah,” she sighs and runs a hand through her red hair.“It’s justꟷ” she makes a vague gesture, and puts her hand down, grabbing a chocolate bar from one of the isles and holding it in her hand. “I’ve been thinkin’ a bit about the night my mom died.” The last two words are said in a softer tone, voice kind of breaking up a bit.Indrid scans the futures, making sure he’s making the right decision as he puts a hand on her shoulder to comfort her.She continues on, shakily. “I may . . . have been the cause for the house fire. There was a robbery, and I passed out.” She sighs and lifts up her sunglasses, wiping at her eyes with the back of her hand. She clears her throat and then nudges Indrid just slightly. “Grab what you want,”He nodded, just slightly, not grabbing anything other than a bag of chips.He let Aubrey pay, because she would argue if he didn’t, and they sat in the car and snacked.Indrid spoke up, just slightly, and started up.“When I was the Royal Seer in Sylvain, I was . . . never really Exiled. I was here on a mission, as their ambassador, and decided to stay.” He laughs, softly. “I fell in love with Earth, even though this world is, ah, a bit of a mess, but Sylvain was, too, and still is today. I met someone else from Sylvain, who was Exiled, and I . . .” he rubbed the back of his neck, feeling his face grow a bit hot. “Fell in love.” He ignores Aubrey’s little squeal. “Then, Silver Bridge came, before that I stole a dude’s dog, then I killed forty-sx people.”Aubrey grins and nudges him with her eyebrows wiggling just slightly, and Indrid covers his mouth and snorts a little bit.“What about you?” Indrid’s changing the topic because he doesn’t want to talk about Barclay right now. He doesn’t want to think about how his chest tightens just slightly when he does think about his old . . . friend? That seems like the right word right now.Aubrey chokes on the chips she stole from Indrid and coughs, face bright with embarrassment. ‘That’s not important!” She squeaks, and Indrid can’t help but laugh.As they drive home, Rose-Colored Boy playing on the radio because Aubrey plugged her phone into the stereo, Indrid is . . .Fairly certain he’s happy.