Archive of Our Own

Within the metro’s hustle and bustle, the endless stream of activity that is cats coming to and from varying train stations to go home, grab some food, or catch up with their friends on the way, it’s easy for anyone to disappear. All it really takes is one misstep or disconnected thought for somebody to get swept away in the sea of cats all focused on their own lives and whatever they choose to make of them.

The cats of the metro are, like everyone else, simple: they’re simply simple cats living their simply simple lives, all caught up in their own separate worlds and blissfully unaware of anything but their incoming paychecks at the end of the week and recurring interpersonal dramas that refuse to let their lives stay settled for long. They don’t know anything about how every single decision they make today gives way to a dizzying number of futures, infinite in their possibilities; the shimmering gossamer strings of time that hold even the most miniscule aspects of their lives together; or the sullen hissing of a hungering void threatening to devour their timeline whole.

All they knew was that the Pink Paw Station’s train had been delayed by three hours again and that ten pons was an absolute steal when it came to the burgers-and-drink combo at one of the many food trucks scattered between stations.

With the brim of her hat lowered slightly and a magazine held up to expertly hide her face, positioned just so that she could keep Le Félin within her line of sight without being too noticeable about it, Kid finds that she likes feeling like this: lost within the lives of others. There’s simplicity that comes with blending in, falling into that collective we that allows her to abandon the reality of the magic that thrums within her veins and what inevitably waits for them all for a short time. There’s nothing that makes her stand out, save for the fact that she’s not an anthropomorphic cat— last time she checked, anyways— and even that detail about her isn’t as questionable as it would’ve been little over a decade ago.

To give it some credit, the metro’s changed a lot from when she was younger, but the heart of it remains the same: it’s still an impossible to navigate maze of a transit network, serving visually as an underground cityscape composed of colorful lights and bustling crowds, the lack of any natural lighting making it nigh-impossible for Kid to tell the time. The biggest change is that the population has tripled within the past decade, making it nearly impossible for her to get from the Yellow Overpass Station to the Bluefin Tunnels without accidentally stepping on a few paws.

Truth be told, a small part of her can hardly even believe that she’s even here in the metro after so many wasted years spent dreaming of her chance to come back. In fact, she can hardly believe that she’s been on this planet at all for a little over a year. She’d never expected to call this place home, but now, there’s no other way she’d rather refer to it.

“Emit Relevart?” A nasally voice calls out, piercing through the chatter of cats and the unending sound of trains driving by to stop Kid’s thought process. She leans back before pushing out of her seat entirely, the legs of the iron wrought chair scratching unpleasantly against the concrete floor, and drops her magazine on the tabletop in hopes that her spot won’t be stolen in the short period she leaves it behind.

She starts making her way to the food truck, keeping her hat lowered. Most of the planet has welcomed her home with open arms— some reunions being significantly more tear jerking than others— but the metro seems to be an exception to that rule. Years later, it still operates underneath the Empress’s iron grip, and the last thing Kid needs right now is to fall back into the Nyakuza’s hot seat. Not when things are finally going her way, no questions asked, for what’s probably been the first time in her entire life.

“Emit Relevart!” The nasally voice calls out again, irritation turning their words into a sharp snap of fangs, and Kid finally stops in front of the truck’s second window. Upon closer inspection, they aren’t as young as their nasally voice makes them out to be. If anything, they’re the opposite, greying fur and long whiskers making them look about as grizzled as a cat could possibly be. “Four fish tacos?”

“Yeah, that’s mine,”

“Red or purple salsa?” They ask absently as they push out two paper plates to her.

“Red- wait, what? Purple?” Kid blanches briefly, caught off guard by the suggestion. The cat lets out an impatient scoff, yellow eyes flicking up to meet Kid’s for the first time and glinting with momentary recognition. They tilt their head, waiting for an answer. “Tell you what, I’ll just take both.”

The cat simply grunts, their gaze lingering as they reach under the countertop and pull out two small disposable containers of red and purple salsa, but their expression has softened. When they drop it into Kid’s hand, they pause

“You look familiar,” They said finally, squinting as they scan Kid’s face. “Do I know you?”

Kid hesitates. “... No?”

“You do, though,” The cat shakes their head, leaning in slightly to get a better look at her. “You kind of look like-”

“I’ve never been on this planet, so you’re probably mistaken,” Kid says quickly as she tucks the salsa containers between two tacos, picking up the plates and pulling back. “Gotta run, bye!”

She can feel the cat’s eyes boring a hole into the back of her head as she speeds off, making her way back to the table she’d been sitting at only a few minutes prior with her fingers crossed. Whatever luck she’s hoping to have granted to her is nowhere to be found, though: the table has since been taken over by another group of cats who’d shamelessly claimed the magazine she’d left behind as their own, too, gushing over the contents with only the front cover facing her. Scanning her surroundings in search of empty seating, Kid sighs, her gaze briefly landing on the jewelry store before setting back onto the magazine that she hadn’t really been reading in the first place. A familiar face looks back at her from behind a pair of heart-shaped glasses, although Kid knows there isn’t any real looking coming from the model who smiles at her from the cover. Not anymore.

Bow’s the one plastered across an already colorful page, dressed in brilliant hues of blues and greens with her picture-perfect lips curled into a dazzling grin. Her teeth are pearly white and whatever makeup artist she’d had at the time had done an excellent job in covering the jagged scars that stretch across her face, but there’s only two other faces Kid knows as well as she knows Bow’s. She knows exactly where to look to find the varying spots on her face where her skin is raised, slightly off color, or the spaces between her otherwise perfectly manicured eyebrows where hair no longer grows.

Kid’s never been able to stop being surprised at how well Bow’s adjusted to being on an entirely different planet, far from everything she’s ever known— and while relearning how to navigate life after losing one of her senses to boot— but maybe she shouldn’t be. Bow’s always been resilient, the permanent frost of her home planet giving way to thick skin, and maybe the only thing Kid should be surprised about is who she’s gotten involved with.

On one hand, it’s strangely fitting that Bow is all buddy-buddy with the Empress, having been taken under her wing the minute she’d first stepped into the spotlight. On the other hand, no, it absolutely isn’t.

As if on cue, saving Kid from having to stand around suspiciously in the metro, Bow exits Le Félin with a black bag in one hand and her white cane in the other— although the cane isn’t white anymore, bedazzled beyond any sane comprehension from the day first Bow got it. She smiles cheerily as she says something to whoever’s hidden within the boutique’s four walls before she steps out completely, the doors swinging shut behind her. There’s no makeup covering her scars now.

Bow moves with ease, the cats around her giving her a wide berth, but it isn’t until she’s moved away from the building’s windows does Kid step out of her hiding spot to catch up to her.

“Hey, I’m over here,” Kid says before gently nudging her. “So, how’d it go?”

“It’s always nice to see the Empress, but I think she’s starting to come to some, uh… interesting conclusions about my relationships. I really couldn’t convince her that I was picking up someone else’s stuff on their behalf,” Bow says with that same dazzling smile she’d been wearing on the magazine cover, holding out the bag to Kid. “I think she’s the only retailer I’ve ever met on this planet who doesn’t accept pons. That was a lot of cash,”

“It was worth it, I’m sure,”

“Oh, I’m not saying I minded. You’re the one who paid, not me,” Bow shakes the bag, gesturing for Kid to take it. “Are you gonna see how it looks?”

“In a second,” Kid lowers her hand. “I got us lunch. Let’s find somewhere to sit?”

“What happened to where you were sitting earlier?”

“Some of your fangirls took my spot,”

Bow hums as they start walking, Kid keeping an eye out for any empty tables, but it’s hard to miss how she perks up to that idea, a smile lingering at her lips as she speaks. “Don’t inflate my ego too much. I’ve only just started putting my name out there,”

“That’s more than I can say for myself,”

“Liar,”

“Liar?!”

“You’ve saved this planet twice. Don’t act like other people don’t know you. I know the Empress does, at least. Or she knows of some other weird little hatted kid, but, you know… if the shoe fits, it fits,” Bow teases, bumping Kid’s hip with the side of her own as Kid finally locates an empty bench, quickly guiding Bow to it so they can claim the spot as their own.

It’s in an odd place, tucked away next to one of the mass pass-distributing machines located all throughout the metro, but a free spot is a free spot and Kid’s more than happy to take it. Even with the threat of the Empress’s everlasting grudge lingering in the air, Kid can admit that she likes the metro— maybe even more now than she did as a child. The bright colors and the inability to see the sky make it feel like time moves differently here.

Not still, unchanging, a lingering symptom of the corruption that had brutally torn everything she’d ever loved right out of her trembling, desperate hands. Just… different, in how it moves and flows like water around those who call this part of the planet home. Different in a way that feels like growth, the illusive thread of circadian rhythm giving way to infinite opportunities that Kid can’t picture without reaching out for the strings of time that she makes a point to leave untouched.

Different in a way that, for once, she has absolutely nothing to do with, and that puts her at ease, offering a welcome reprieve from her nerves that leave her jittery with anticipation today. She watches as Bow eats her pair of tacos, unable to muster up her own appetite through her lingering apprehension.

Normally, she’d be fine. There’s always fun to be had in sneaking around where she doesn’t belong. In fact, it’s something that she does with Mu all the time: the metro included. There’s a welcome risk that comes with their stupid adventures, steady in its presence like a pendulum that keeps a clock ticking in motion. It’s the type of risk that isn’t present now.

With what she’s been planning, Kid can’t afford to mess things up. She wants everything to go perfectly, and the last thing she needs is to stop that steady swing of the pendulum and throw everything off center, uprooting all she’s worked for with a single mistake.

“So…” Bow’s voice, light and airy, cuts through the noise in Kid’s head as she places a gentle hand on her arm. Her presence is warm and placating even through Kid’s sleeve, and the smile she offers her this time around is far removed from the ones on the magazine, the bridge of her nose wrinkling with unpracticed sincerity. “How does it look? Do you need me to take it back?”

“It’s…” Kid digs into the black Le Félin bag without looking away from Bow, the tips of her gloved fingers brushing along her purchase receipt before they land on the velvet box inside of it. She pulls it out, gingerly examining the contents of it.

It’s nothing fancy, really, but the reason she chose to order from Le Félin despite her atrocious reputation within the metro is because it’s the only jewelry boutique on the planet that offers custom ring orders for anonymous patrons, giving her the opportunity to commission something that was both simple and one of a kind.

Inside of the velvet box is a delicately engraved golden band too large for Kid’s slender fingers. After spending a moment examining it and making sure that it fits her standards, she passes it to Bow, pressing the ring to her hands. “Careful,”

Bow runs her fingers along the ring, her face lighting up as she makes out the shape of the finely carved gem on top of it. “Is that a star?”

“Yeah,” Kid nods. Bow passes the ring back to Kid, who puts it back into its hopefully temporary spot in the box. “A ruby,”

“Oh, Kid, she’s going to love it!”

“You think so? It’s not too… over the top?”

“I mean, stars, I’m the last person you should be talking to if you’re worried about it being over the top,” Bow says with a tender smile, leaning in and bumping the side of her head to Kid’s. “I really don’t think so, though. This sounds like it’s her thing, and besides…” She pulls back, taking Kid’s hand again and squeezing it. “After everything, I don’t know how she could say no,”

“That’s… kind of what I’m worried about,” Kid admits with a wavering smile.

For a moment, Bow’s silent, her smile fading. “... Seriously?”

“Oh, come on, don’t give me that look! I just-”

“I am not giving you a look,” Bow says, giving her an even more intense rendition of it. “I’m just asking if you’re serious,”

“I’m serious.”

“Okay, Kid,” She offers her another gentle squeeze. “Then let’s go over it together. What exactly is your plan here?”

“Well, there’s the ring, right? And I scored some really good tickets for one of the nice suites on the S.S. Definitely Won’t Sink This Time, so I was thinking that I’d-”

“The what?” Bow interrupts, blinking rapidly. “Sorry, can you repeat that?”

“The… S.S. Definitely Won’t Sink This Time?”

“The S.S. Definitely Won’t Sink This Time?”

“Yeah..?”

“Do I get to guess what happened last time?”

“No,” Kid laughs lightly, a saccharine sweetness lacing her words as she pats Bow’s hand. “Not unless you want your perception of me to do a complete 180,”

“I really don’t think that’s possible anymore. Continue?”

“Well, I was thinking that maybe I could take her to the dining hall that they have for our first night there. I’ve never been on this ship, but I remember that the first one—” Bow raises an eyebrow. “Was beautiful. It’s the perfect atmosphere for proposing. After that, we could just have a nice and easy time on the ship, I guess. It’s been a while since we got to do something that was just the two of us,” Kid pauses, absently turning the velvet box over in her free hands. “I guess a part of me is trying to make up for the fact that we never got a nice honeymoon period during our relationship when we started. We just got…”

Bow bites the inside of her cheek, letting go of Kid’s hand. “I remember,”

“Yeah.” Kid nods, falling silent as the unspoken hangs between the two of them like a defeated flag, tattered and marred. In the back of Kid’s mind, there’s always that lingering thought that she could still go back and find a timeline where nothing bad had ever happened. One where she’d been smart enough to keep an eye on her timepieces and taken the right steps to stop someone from getting their hands on them.

The passing thought’s rarer than it was a year ago, where everything had still been painfully fresh, the scar that carves deep into the side of her waist still an open wound, but it’s still there, begging to be entertained. Leaving and finding someplace better would be easier than anything else she’s ever done. She can feel that otherworldly power thrumming through her, shimmering blue ichor burning bright in her veins.

As badly as Kid might want to, though, she knows that it won’t change anything. It’s not like anyone here would unlive what happened to them if she found another timeline— if anything, they’d just have to deal with the added injury of knowing Kid wasn’t strong enough to face the consequences of her actions anymore. All she’d be doing is inserting herself into another world where she doesn’t belong and into a life that isn’t hers, running from her problems and leaving behind an empty space where she’d once been. She’d fought so hard for her home, and the last thing she wants to do now is give it up and lie to both herself and her loved ones in the process.

A soft hand on Kid’s arm brings her back to reality. Bow’s hands are small and cool, serving as a soothing balm to her shredded nerves, and the gentle expression on her face is enough for Kid to feel seen, her thoughts exposed.

“I think that you’re worrying yourself over nothing.” Bow says. “You know that she wants to marry you, and that’s all that matters, right? Everything else is just… background noise,” She lets go. “But for what it’s worth, I really do think that she’ll like this. I mean, if I remember right, she’s the one that told you she wanted to go on a cruise. You can’t get any more ‘doing what she wants’ than literally doing what she wants,”

Kid nods again as she opens the box, reexamining the ring. It’s hard to argue with Bow’s logic, and she knows that she’s right. She’s just not sure if things are moving too fast, or if Mu had only said that to prove a point or lift her spirits, or if—

“And if you really think she’s not going to be happy over this amazing vacation you have planned, then you might as well suck it up and propose to me instead. Stars, that deathtrap of a boat sounds so-”

“I am not going to propose to you!” Kid gasps, her previous train of thought falling flat before she shoves Bow. “You missed your chance!”

Bow laughs, light and easy. “Maybe I’m starting to have second thoughts,”

“Too late. You’re gonna have to settle for Timmy now,”

“Stars, now that you mention it, I guess that’s not that bad of an idea,” Bow says, rubbing her chin with her fingers with what could only be described as a painfully Timmy-like expression. Kid laughs as she tucks the velvet box away.

“Yeah, you’re go- wait, what?” She blinks and pulls away, turning to face Bow entirely.

“Tell you what, rig the bouquet toss and I’ll marry him for tax benefits. Until then, you and-”

“No, no, no, stop! You can’t just say something like that and act like it’s normal! We have to unpack that!” Kid throws her arms out. “We don’t even have taxes! We live in the sky!”

Underneath Kid’s new boots— of which she’s only just now breaking in for the first time— the brick paths are an unforgiving sensation, the steady clacks underneath the square heels making her wish that she’d decided to wear good ol’ reliable instead. It’s not like anybody but her cares about what’s on her feet, anyways, but she’d traded practicality for style just this once and has spent every waking moment since regretting that decision.

They look nice, though, shiny and new with crisp laces. She has to give herself that.

With one gloved hand, she drags a small luggage behind her. With the other, she coves Mu’s eyes. Admittedly, it’s a hard thing to manage, especially what with Mu’s apparent inability to go longer than two seconds without seeing. Both of her hands are already on Kid’s, subtly trying to pry her fingers apart so that she can make out her surroundings. It’s not really working, but it’s well on the way— Mu’s strong, and the only thing about Kid’s corrupted hand’s twitching that’s actually improved over the past year is her ability to actually manage it. A finger wiggles between her index and her middle.

“Stop,” Kid hisses as she steers Mu to the left, leading her towards a railed off section of the dock rather than the main boarding area.

“I’m cold,” Mu protests in the same hushed voice that she’d been greeted with. “I just want to see why you’re taking me into some open-air meat locker,”

“That doesn’t make any sense, and you’re not that cold,”

“Yes it does, and yes I am. I am literally freezing to death,”

“Oh, give yourself some credit,” Kid rolls her eyes, but she can’t help but smile as they slow to a stop. She lets go of their shared carry on, placing her other hand on top of her first. “If you’ve survived a night on Bow’s snowglobe of a planet, you can survive anything,”

She’s met with a moment of silence. “Are we here yet?”

Kid knows that she’s won when Mu can’t even bother to try and argue without bruising her ego. She doesn’t say anything as she rests on top of Mu’s, her blonde hair tickling the undersides of her chin as she stares out towards the horizon. The arctic cruise is a stark silhouette against the dreamy afternoon sun, pale rays doing absolutely nothing to warm either of them. It doesn’t take long for Mu to ruin this moment of brief respite— of Kid enjoying the weight of her against her arms— scoffing as she rips Kid’s hands away from her eyes.

“Surprise,” Kid croons, unable to let go of Mu entirely as she trails her hands down to her shoulders and presses a gentle kiss to her cheek. Mu’s silent for a moment, staring out towards the ship, and then she turns her head back to look at Kid with a quirked brow.

“I thought you were banned from ‘literally any water vehicle ever’?” A catlike grin stretches her lips as she leans back into Kid, her shoulders relaxing. Mu might be teasing her, but there’s genuinity to be found in her reaction, her tawny eyes a pool of glowing warmth against the sunlight. The cold had caused the blood to recoil from most of her face, exposing  the rosy undertones to her freckled skin and causing a delicious pink tinge to warm her cheekbones and the tip of her rounded nose.

“You know what? I did, too,” Kid says as she squeezes Mu. “But then they let me buy the ticket, so I’m guessing a ‘lifetime’ ban only really lasts a decade,”

“Is that so? Maybe I’ll have to stop by the Mafia HQ and see if I can kick ‘em off Calcite once and for all, then. Did you use your real name?”

Kid makes a face. “Of course I didn’t,”

“Then that explains it,” Mu’s smile only grows, the corners of her eyes crinkling as she turns around to face Kid fully, reaching up to cup her cheeks. Warm hands pull Kid down to face her, where she presses a tender kiss to her lips before letting go. “I can’t believe you set this up. When? Why? How did I not know anything about this?”

“I mean, you’ve been pretty busy lately,” Kid says coyly, offering Mu an innocent shrug. It wasn’t like that was a lie: while Kid had spent the last who-knows-how-long trying to organize this to the best of her ability so that it’d all be perfect— from getting the tickets and the ring to drafting what she was actually going to say— , Mu had also been well at work, putting together her own not-so-secret projects behind Kid’s back. She’d only found out because Timmy had let it slip once in passing and then had promptly refused to elaborate, sworn to secrecy, and she hadn’t been able to put much attention to figure out what Mu’d been cooking since. “And I thought we could both use a vacation. It’s been a while since we got to spend some time together that was really just you and me,”

“In that case, what are we doing out here? I’m really not built for this cold,” Mu hooks her arm through Kid’s, grabbing the luggage she’d been dragging behind earlier with her free hand and leading her back towards the direction of one of the many scattered ticket booths. “Come on,”

“If you’re so acquainted with the place-” Kid stumbles after Mu, squeezing her arm. “Then by all means, lead the way,”

Mu does exactly that, weaving expertly through both familiar and unfamiliar faces as she leads her towards one of the ticket redemption booths. With the boarding time being nearly over, the queue for the line is short— almost nonexistent— but when they make it to the front, there’s nobody on the other side.

Kid folds her hands as she looks around, waiting for somebody to make themselves known, but Mu simply leans in and starts rapidfire tapping the bell sitting on the countertop. In response, a little seal makes herself known, popping her head up from underneath the counter.

“Hi, miss!” The pup says before turning her gaze towards Kid, black eyes bright and brilliant. “And hi, maybe-miss! I’m an intern! Name and ticket, please?”

Kid can hear the snarky response on the tip of Mu’s tongue without her even needing to say it and she elbows her sharply, digging through her coat pockets and producing two tickets. She slides them over to the pup, who takes them.

“Name?” The pup asks again.

“Emit Relevart and Madelyn Fo-”

“Uh oh.”

“Uh oh?” Kid echoes, her brows furrowing.

“I remember you, miss! Well, I don’t, but our captain sure does!” The seal continues, bright and cheerful as she reaches out for a stamp. Kid’s heart drops as she watches her stamp VOID onto her ticket in bright, blocky red letters before flipping the ticket onto the other side to do the exact same thing. “You’re in our training videos!”

“She’s in your training videos?” Mu asks, the passive smile on her face from moments prior shifting from mildly amused to downright entertained as she leans in, elbowing Kid. “Look at you, making a big name for yourself. What’s the video about?”

“It’s aaall about preventing another accident after the great sinking of-”

“Can I at least get a refund or something?” Kid interrupts. “That was a lot of pons,”

“Nope!” The seal beams as she tosses the ticket into a shredder. She scans Mu’s ticket before sliding it over, leaning somewhere outside of the booth’s line of sight. When she leans back in, she’s still wearing that blank, heady-empty no-thoughts expression, cheerfully setting her flippers down onto the counter. “Enjoy your trip, miss! And-” She turns her attention back to Kid. “Security will be here to escort you out shortly!”

“What?! No!” Kid holds up her hands, palms facing the pup. “I mean… no need. I can escort myself out just fine,”

“Are you sure, miss?” The seal cocks her head.

“I’ll make sure she gets out of here,” Mu butts in with saccharine cheeriness, slapping the back of Kid’s shoulder a little too aggressively. She pulls her close, offering the seal a smile. “We don’t want any bad guys hijacking the ship, now do we?”

“We sure don’t, miss!”

“Then I’ll make sure to kick her butt in case she starts acting up. Thanks for your help, though. Stay warm,” She cheeses before pulling Kid away, walking her past the ticket booth and right back to the isolated part of the dock that they’d been standing at earlier.

When she finally lets go of her shoulder, the cold air replacing the warmth of her iron grip within an instant, Kid pulls away and stares out towards the sea. She watches the light of the slow-setting sun glint off of the shifting tides with a strange, misplaced sense of serenity, sighing and digging the tip of her boot into the brick floor beneath her.

When Mu speaks again, it’s without the confident bravado she’d offered to the seal. “You alright?”

“I would’ve been better off just flushing three thousand pons down the toilet,” Kid grumbles, folding her arms. “Stars, I just— it’s been so long and they let me purchase the ticket, so I thought-”

“I could probably get a refund out of them,”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if the money’s already been spent,” Kid shakes her head. “I can’t believe I stopped the end of time and this is the thanks I get,”

“You know you can’t hold that above them. I don’t even think the little guy was alive back then,” Mu says with an attempted lightless to her words, nudging Kid’s shoulder, but she lets the façade fall when she doesn’t get a response out of Kid. “We don’t have to do this, you know,”

“You looked so happy about it,”

“I was- I am happy about it, because I get to spend time with you. I already get to do that pretty much every day,” Mu stares at Kid with gentle eyes, placing a tender hand onto her arm. “We can still have a nice trip, you know. There’s this place just north of the Alpine Skyline that I don’t think I’ve ever gotten to show you, and-”

“No, no,” Kid shakes her head. “I wanted to do this for you.”

To those words, Mu falls silent for a short while, carefully scanning Kid’s face. Most days, she’s easy to read, her thoughts always flashing across her expression in rapid succession, but just this one time, Kid can’t make out what’s on her mind.

“You said you wanted to go. I want to give this to you, and I also don’t want my all pons to go to waste,” Kid says, pushing their shared luggage out towards Mu. “Go on,”

A deep, puzzled frown etches itself onto Mu’s face. “Kid, you know that I love you, and like… I really do appreciate that you did this for me. This sort of stuff-” She gestures out towards the S.S. Definitely Won’t Sink This Time with one wide, sweeping gesture. “Was a total pipe dream for me when I was little. But… you know, it’s not that important to me. I know I’ve mentioned it before, but I was just messing with you,” She offers her another fleeting smile. “And I don’t know if you forgot, but people here don’t like me the way they like you. I’m still working on that, and I really don’t want to go on that boat without you,”

“I like you,”

“And that’s not gonna do anything if you’re not on the boat, right? I think I saw Mafia Boss get carried on by his goons. There’s no way me being in an enclosed space with them for a whole week is going to end well for literally anybody involved,”

Kid purses her lips as she looks back out towards the expansive waters, an endless blue sea stretching out as far as her eyes can make out as it reflects glimmering lights from the slow-setting sun. She’d spent so much time planning this out, and it was supposed to be perfect: a lovely suite; a beautifully composed, well-practiced proposal; and a slow week on the waters spent with a newly-engaged Mu. The weight of the velvet box in her coat pockets is impossible to ignore, and so without much thinking, she allows that box to make her final decision.

She shifts, turning away from the waters and back to Mu. “I’ll find my way there, then.”

Bushy eyebrows shoot up, that mischievous expression Kid’s come to adore throughout the past year etching itself onto Mu’s face. If there’s one thing she knows will always be set in stone, it’s that Mu will always enable her in these sorts of things, even when both of them know that they’re far too grown to keep trying to get away with these sorts of things.

“I mean, what’re they going to do if they catch me on the ship once it’s already set sail? Kick me off? That’ll be murder,”

“Oh, trust me, if I find out that you ended up in the water, that whole ship is going down.” Mu grins. “After I make fun of you for never learning how to swim, of course,”

“I am going to choose to be the bigger person and ignore that jab if it means that you’ll avenge me,” Kid says sweetly as she leans down, pressing her lips to the crescent-shaped scar carved deep into Mu’s cheek, pale pink and puffy. “I’ll catch up to you, okay? I promise,”

“If this is a trick to get me to go on a vacation all by myself, I’m going to be pissed,”

“I want to check out the all inclusive dining too, you know. It’s not all about you,” Kid points out with a tender smile, knowing full well that it was: she’d make the entire world revolve around her if she could, waxing endless poetry about how she was like the sun coming up in the morning. “Listen, I’m not sure how this is going to go, so you’re going to have to give me some time, okay? So…” She purses her lips, throwing a brief glance out towards the cruise. “Meet me in their dining hall tonight. And dress nice,”

“Nice?” Mu frowns.

“It’s a fancy place,”

“Every night?”

“Just this one time,” Kid smiles. “We can’t get room service if we don’t know what’s on the menu, right?”

“Yeah, you’ve got me there. I’ll be there,” She says with a nod, stepping back. “If something happens, just… scream really loudly or something,”

“Got it,”

“And make sure that when you do, you ask specifically for my help.”

Kid raises an eyebrow. “Okay,”

“You’ve gotta say something along the lines of ‘Mu, never Madelyn, my big strong burly girlfriend, please be my hero and save me because I’m a damsel in stress that can’t do anything by myself and-”

“Okay, now you’re just kidding yourself,” Kid shoves Mu with a snort as she once again presents the luggage to Mu. This time, she takes it, waving as she follows the directed path for onboarding guests. Kid stays behind, watching as she trails behind a trio of express owls onto the ship, and watching as she gets pulled aside and haphazardly patted down by a seal who clearly has no idea what a security check is actually for, and it isn’t until she’s out of Kid’s line of sight does she finally tear her eyes away from the entrance.

She places her hands onto her hips, putting all of her weight into one leg with her lips settling into a thin line as she scan’s the cruise ship’s imposing structure. The only visible entrance that she can make out is the one that Mu went through: everything else is likely on the other side of the ship, well out of Kid’s reach, or so well hidden that she can’t make them out no matter how hard she tries.

There’s an open air ledge on one of the lower levels of the ship, and it seems like a good idea at first— if she looks onto it with her hookshot, it’ll be an easy entrance and all of her problems will be solved— but then she remembers that for the first time since she’s gotten it, she’d opted to leave her new umbrella at home.

It’s just her luck that the one day she actually needs it is the one day she doesn’t have it.

Kid adjusts her coat and re-ties her shoelaces before making her way around the scattered ticket redemption boots, keeping her head lowered in hopes that the brim of her hat will obscure her identity and offer her a little more anonymity in case she ends up getting caught— although she doubts she’ll actually get in too much trouble if the seals are in charge of security— Kid slowly inches towards the varying loading crates located further down the dock. All of the crates bear labeling tags on their wooden sides, nearly identical in everything but shape and size, but one of them seems darker than the rest.

There’s something off about the air around it in a way that Kid can’t quite describe, as if there’s an invisible shield around it that prevents the light from touching the crate properly. That invisible shield wavers around the crate like the skin of a bubble, delicate and translucent and there all at once.

Normally, that sort of offness would set off types of alarms blaring in the back of Kid’s mind, causing the hair on the back of her neck to rise. But there’s nothing wrong about it per se, no metal lingering in the air or cloying on the back of Kid’s tongue, and something about the color of the crate illuminates a fragment of an old memory, tucked away neatly within the furthest reaches of her mind.

The last time she’d been here, back when she’d gotten a ticket for the S.S. Literally Can’t Sink legitimately— believe it or not— there’d been a familiar face hidden with a crate just like this one. Old tricks hadn’t worked back then, but if she was smart about it, maybe they’d work now.

Strolling about as casually as she could manage, trying her best to stay undetected, Kid makes her way over to the darkened crate. She doesn’t bother actually looking inside as she pulls the top open, fingers tingling through her gloves as she hoists herself up onto the ledge and drops in. The top of the crate falls shut behind her with a resounding slam, encasing the limited world around her in complete and total darkness. She can’t see anything as she presses her back to the wall of the crate, taking in a deep breath.

For a moment, she’s totally fine. And then she isn’t.

Kid’s not one to fall victim to enclosed spaces: she’s never been the type to be made easily claustrophobic, and even if she was, it wasn’t like the crate was small— she could probably lay down and stretch out entirely if she really wanted to. It’s the darkness that starts to put her on edge, bringing her back to darker times as her mind starts to play tricks on her. Without warning, the air feels limited, suffocating; the hair on the back of her neck starts to rise; and her skin starts to tingle right in the center of her spine, all granting her the suspicion that she’s not alone.

She knows that, save for the Empress, who wouldn’t be caught dead around open bodies of water, there’s nobody keeping an eye on her with well-disguised sinister intentions anymore. She knows that there’s no reason to be scared of a full moon or painted eyes on a wall, but that doesn’t make it easier to shake of the initial feeling of fear that floods her veins whenever she’s taken off guard, nor the lingering discomfort that presents itself every time she reminds herself to look that the situation she’s in with logic.

She breathes in deeply, reminding herself to relax as she drops her shoulders. She might be doing something incredibly stupid, but despite it all, she’s safe. She knows who’s in here, and even if she doesn’t, then she knows that whoever's in here might be associated with him.

“Snatcher?” She asks softly. Her words are met with silence and an elongated pause before her suspected crate-buddy groans, golden eyes snapping open and cutting through the darkness that surrounds them.

“I really thought I’d be lucky enough for you to not say something to me,”

“And miss up the chance to say hello to my favorite BFF? Not a chance,” She relaxes with a fanged smile, cocking her head as she prods at the ghost with the tip of her boot. “There’s no way you’re trying to do this twice,”

“Listen, kiddo. I’m made of shadows, not money,” He drawls, what little of his shadowy face that’s illuminated by the golden glow quickly contorting into an irritated scowl. “You’re one to talk, though. They didn’t give you a free ticket after the end of the world?”

“Oh, stars, don’t even start,” Kid’s smile immediately falls as she waves her hand passively. “I paid three thousand pons just for them to turn me down at the ticket booth!”

He chuckles. “Sucker,”

“Take that back!” She kicks him.

The Snatcher folds his arms, ignoring her demands. “Aren’t you banned, anyways?”

“... Maybe,”

“From pretty much anything that has an engine and can go on water if I remember correctly, right?”

“Um.” Kid squints. “Do you have a contract that can help with that?”

“Nope. The Arctic Cruise is out of my jurisdiction and also, I think this is hilarious,” The Snatcher says with sarcastic sweetness before he brushes her off, clearing his throat. A brief silence passes before he speaks again. “I’m going to give it to you straight, Kid. That getting scammed thing is entirely your fault this time around,”

“They let me buy it!” Kid throws out her arms, hitting her knuckles against the roof of the crate. With a hiss, she winces, clutching her fist and bringing it close to her chest. “I thought that if they let me buy it, then surely the ban wasn’t still being upheld! I thought they got over it!”

“You thought that they ‘got over’ you sinking their ship and endangering hundreds of lives?”

“Don’t you steal souls from children to make them do slave labor?” She raised an eyebrow. “I deserve some good karma, okay?”

“Everyone on this planet makes children do unpai-” The Snatcher begins, but he shuts up when the crate jolts suddenly.

There’s muffled chatter from the other side of their wooden prison, and then, it lifts, swaying back and forth. Kid slides from one side of the wall to the other, crushed into a corner by her own wiry limbs, and she holds her hands out to stop herself from falling any further.

Her mouth curls into a fanged smile as she looks back over to where the Snatcher’s sitting, still only able to make out his eyes. “I can’t believe this worked!”

“I can’t, either. Last time they just left me,” The Snatcher grumbles, folding his arms as gravity fails to work on him. “My minions went on a whole vacation without me!”

Kid laughs. “That’s their yearly vacation. Hey, wait, has this ever worked for you?”

“No,” The Snatcher admits after a moment of hesitation. “I usually just give up and go back to my forest,”

“That sounds really sad,”

“You’d be surprised how relaxing it is to be left alone once in a while. Not that you’d know anything about that.” He prods. The crate drops a moment later and Kid falls from her corner back to the bottom of the crate. “These people suck at transporting stuff,”

“You can’t hold that against them,” She echoes Mu’s sentiments from earlier. “It’s not like they know anyone living is in here,”

“Living? Who’s living?” Kid can’t see it, but she can hear the smile in the Snatcher’s voice: distinctive and shit-eating, like he knows something that she doesn’t and he’s more than delighted to drop it onto her. “Not me, last time I checked… and anyways, looks like that’s my cue,”

The top of the box jolts again. Kid furrows her brows. “What?”

“The last thing I need is to get caught hanging out with some ship-sinking terrorist. That’s not going to paint me in a very pretty light, now is it?”

“You-” Kid blinks. “Wait, I’m not a terrorist!”

“You are if you get caught, kiddo!” He laughs, wheezelike laughter rippling through his shadowy form, and then within an instant, those golden eyes disappear. Whatever presence she’d felt in the crate is gone now, leaving Kid entirely alone— and when she tries to kick him again to make sure, she’s met with nothing but dead air.

Eyes widening, Kid presses her hands up against the roof of the crate. She’d thought things through to some extent, but not this far: if she was sneaking in, then getting unpacked by those who worked on the ship wasn’t going to do her any favors.

When she pushes against the roof of the crate, it doesn’t budge. Once, twice— absolutely nothing with every increasingly-desperate shove she attempts, and Kid sinks down again. The world of darkness she’s placed herself in starts to sway, her balance careening off-center as the ship’s foghorn sounds. After a minute, it sets sail.

It was like she’d said earlier, right? It wasn’t like she was going to get kicked off. Even if she could swim, she’d be stranded in the middle of the icy sea. That’d be just as good as killing her.

Several minutes pass before Kid begins to hear any sort of commotion on the outside of the crate. She considers slamming a fist against the walls of it, but when she realizes that whoever’s on the other side is currently unpacking the shipping crates, she opts to sit still and wait, trying to come up with a semi-plausible story as to why she’s in there in the first place. After what feels like a lifetime, the lid to the crate she’s in opens, the lights of the ship nearly blinding Kid with its sudden intensity.

She shades her eyes with a gloved hand, squinting at the seal pup who looks down at her. Like the last one, he’s small, but he seems to be slightly older than she was, his white baby fur dotted grey with the beginnings of an adult pattern.

“Hi! Are you a luggage?”

Kid stares blankly at the seal before lowering her hand. It’s as good of a story as any, she supposes, and she nods slowly. “Yes..?”

“Oh, okay! Come on out, then!” The seal chimes. Kid does exactly what she’s instructed to do, hoisting herself out of the crate. She drops to the floor and lands on two feet, stretching out and cracking her back. She starts to take off, but the pup stops her with an outstretched flipper.

“Hold on!”

She stops, turning back. “Yeah?”

“Where’s your tag?”

“I…” Kid looks down at her coat. “I lost it,”

“So you don’t know who your owner is?”

Dumbfounded, Kid hesitates. “I don’t think I have an owner.”

“Oh no,” The seal says, his face falling. He looks entirely crestfallen at this notion, bright eyes wet and shiny. “That’s not good. Don’t worry, though. Come with me! I’ll help you find your owner,”

“I mean-”

“Don’t be afraid! People lose their luggage all the time here. You’re just lucky you weren’t left on the docks or dropped in the sea!” The pup chimes as he leads her off. “You wouldn’t believe how many times that’s happened. Come on, I’ll take you to the lost and found!”

Kid watches as the pup makes his way through the crates without looking back once, most of them opened and in the middle of being unpacked. She shifts, sighs, and then— against her better judgment— follows along.

The winding halls of the S.S. Definitely Won’t Sink This Time is entirely different from the S.S. Literally Can’t Sink in terms of layout, but like the metro, the heart of it remains entirely the same, suspended in a state of eternal chaos with an incompetent staff clearly trying their best. There’s a lot that Kid sees on her way to the lost and found: a lone egg rolling down the hallway; Mafia Boss— or, what’s left of him in the old jar Mu had put him in, anyways— floating around in the open-air pool; and the trio of Express Owls she saw earlier losing horrendously at a game of high-stakes poker. The only thing she doesn’t see is Mu.

She tries to wander off from the seal more than once, but all of the doors she can slip into that feel like they’d actually lead somewhere are locked for authorized personnel only. She’d be impressed with the upped security if it wasn’t such an inconvenience.

At the lost and found, which is little more than a small crate next to the front desk, the pup takes note of her name, age and her favorite colors. There’s a strange sort of irony to be found in the fact that, like her timepiece years ago, she’s the one in the lost and found, but she can’t hold that against the pup. As soon as she’s left alone, she can just… get up and leave, simple as that.

She only smiles warmly and pets him as he starts to apply a lost tag to her coat. For a baby, he’s doing a great job.

“Don’t worry,” The pup assures her as she smoothes her palm down his velvety head. “You’ll be found! I don’t think anybody would want to lose luggage like you for long,”

“That’s comforting.”

“And if you’re not found by the end of this trip, then I’m sure that the Ca-”

“Hey, I know who that belongs to!” A voice interrupts, calling out from across the room. Kid and the seal both perk up as Kid drops her hand. That voice isn’t Mu’s— clearly— but it is a voice that she recognizes. When she stands up, looking past the counter, the voice belongs exactly to who she thought it’d belong to. “I can return her!”

If there’s one thing Kid knows for sure, it’s that Timmy can’t teleport anymore. When time had stuttered to a stop and she’d destroyed her timepieces in a last ditch attempt to win in whatever pathetically miniscule way she could, even if it meant staying stranded in the gaping maw of time— when shards of glass had been suspended in midair, unmoving, and every part of what made her her had been suspended with it— magic had all but ceased to exist entirely. The intangible world that only dwellers could make out had been rendered entirely inaccessible; the fire that had kept part of the Subcon Forest alit had been put out within an instant, never to burn again; and Timmy’s otherworldly magic, unable to be linked to anybody but him, had simply disappeared. The radiant markings on his skin and his pointed ears were the last remnants of powers that would forever remain out of his reach.

Like Bow, he’d struggled to adjust to living without something he’d spent his whole life with on an unfamiliar planet, but he, too, had settled with time. It hadn’t stopped him from being the way he normally was, always appearing whenever it suited him and somehow still managing to have whatever he wanted on hand or within reach. The only difference was that now, he just had to get a little more creative with it.

Just like he’d gotten now, apparently, since he’d found himself on the ship. Timmy waves as he approaches them. He’s dressed nicely in a way that doesn’t quite feel like him, lacking any personality save for the red bow tie that compliments a white button-up and uncharacteristically well-pressed trousers. His hair’s gotten longer within the past year, but somebody’s tied it back with a red ribbon that forms a perfect bow.

“A guest asked me about her lost luggage earlier,” Timmy explains as he sets his hands down on the countertop, leaning forward and keeping his attention solely on the pup. “The way she described her looks exactly like Kid over here, so I’m willing to bet they’re the same. She seemed really sad over the fact that she didn’t have her luggage,”

“She did?” Kid speaks up, brows furrowing.

“Yes,” He shakes his head no. “She seemed devastated.”

“That’s no good,” The seal pup says softly, looking from Timmy to Kid before turning his attention back to Timmy. He buys it without a second thought. “Can you take her to her, then?”

“Can do, boss! Come on,” Timmy opens the counter’s flap door for Kid, who brushes herself off before stepping through. “Right this way,”

His steps are fast, light on his feet and nearly silent amongst the ship’s subtle commotion, and Kid throws a brief glance back towards the pup they left behind before she rips off the tag and shoves it into her coat pocket. Before she can interrogate him, he grabs her sleeve and yanks her into a storage closet, slamming the door shut behind himself.

“Did you know you’re in the staff training videos?” He whispers as he flicks a switch, fluorescent lights flooding the small space. Maybe she is claustrophobic. “You’re going to get kicked off so fast,”

“What? Into the water? Seriously?” She blinks, then shakes her head. “Wait, no. What’re you doing here?”

“Put this on,” He shoves a stack of neatly folded clothes into her arms. “Mu told me what happened. You’re totally going to get booted off of this ship. They have a ‘no terrorist’ policy now,”

“I am not a terrorist!” Kid hisses, staring down at the clothes she’s been given. It’s the exact same thing Timmy’s been wearing, only she gets an apron. Her eyes flick up to meet his. “What do you mean, Mu told you? What is going on? Why are you here?”

“I got a job?” Timmy says, incredulous, without missing a beat. He leans against the closed door, folding his arms. “I got bored,”

“That… sounds about right, actually,”

“Anyways, you work here now. Just for now, though, okay?”

“What? I can’t,” She pushes the clothes back out to him, but he doesn’t take it. “Is all of this some elaborate plan to mess with me? You do know why I’m here today, right?”

Timmy hesitates. “... No?”

“I planned this entire thing out for Mu because I was going to propose to her tonight!” She digs the velvet box out from her pocket with her free hand, shoving it out to Timmy. 

“You…” His lighthearted expression falters as he takes the velvet box, opening it. He takes the ring out, gently turning it over and sliding it onto his finger before setting it back to where it belonged. “That’s a really nice ring.”

“I know,” She groans, pinching the bridge of her nose with an exasperated sigh. She squeezes her eyes shut. “Bow didn’t tell you about this?”

“Are you sure you’re going to propose? Like… tonight?”

Kid opens an eye. “What?”

“Oh, you’re sure.” He turns around, opening the door just a crack so that he could peer outside. After a moment, he turns back to Kid. “Listen, dude, you’re gonna have to work with me for a little. Once the Captain’s knocked out for the night, you can go around freely, but right now, he’s on high alert. You know this is this ship’s maiden voyage, right? The last thing he wants is a repeat of what happened last time,”

“How do you know about that?”

“Training videos.” He places his hands on his hips. “Trust me, after this first night, he’s not going to care. But right now, you’ve gotta roll with the punches, okay?”

“Stars, nothing is going right today,”

“Hey,” He softens his voice, stepping forward and offering her a gentle smile. “You’re on a luxury ship with the girl of your dreams for an entire week. How bad can it get?”

“I think every single person I’ve spoken to today has mentioned me getting thrown into the water and drowning, so… bad, honestly.” Kid drawls. “I think it could get really bad.”

To those words, Timmy’s smile only grows in that goofy, earnest way that it always does, revealing a small gap between his two front teeth. He places the velvet box on top of the pile of clothes that Kid holds before placing his hand on the closet’s doorknob, turning it. “I don’t know, dude. I’ve got a feeling fate has other things in store for you tonight,”

There’s that lingering feeling of knowing that laces his words, betraying the innocent act that he’d been putting up moments prior, but before Kid can question exactly what he means by that, he slips out of the room and disappears down the hall, leaving Kid alone in the storage closet to suck it up and accept the awful hand of cards she’s been dealt.

For the first time in her life, Kid does what she’s told without questioning the authority behind it: she works. She does her undeserved part in keeping the ship going off without a hitch— even with how much it irritates her— and she sees Timmy only once during the rest of the night. Somehow, with absolutely no experience, he’s managed to land himself a leader position over the rest of the seals.

It’s legitimate, too. She saw his work ID and everything.

The kitchen is where she finds herself in during the later parts of the evening once the dining hall officially opens. She does her part in keeping things clean and preventing catastrophic stove fires, but when a pup asks her to bring out a glass of champagne to a guest, she takes the opportunity to escape without thinking twice.

She weaves her way around tables and seals, ignoring hungry guests who try to complain at her as she makes her way to a table positioned right next to where the walls of the indoor aquarium begin. The guest who’s sitting there has a white cane resting next to her and a distinctive bow Kid knows full well only belongs to one person.

“Bow,” She hisses as she sets down the glass of champagne with a clink, willing her voice to stay even. She’s quiet for a moment as she stares at her: Bow’s all dolled up, her lipstick matching her nails and her glasses perfectly paired with her top. Her presence is purposeful. “What is going on?”

“Stars, you’re finally here. Do you know how many drinks and appetizers I ordered trying to get them to send you specifically out here? If another piece of calamari touches my lips, I’m going to throw up.” Bow leans over, pulling out a small bag. “This is for you,”

“I’m serious,” Kid leans in, lowering her voice. “Not that I’m not happy to see you, but… why are you here?”

Bow flutters her dark eyelashes, a coy smile creeping across her lips as she props her head up with her free hand. “Backup, in case things go wrong. Kind of like how they are right now,”

“You didn’t think to tell me you were going to be pulling this? Bow-”

“It wasn’t my idea,” She pats the bag again, subtly gesturing for Kid to take it. “It was Timmy’s. He told me to get you your clothes.”

Kid sighs as she takes the bag. “Thanks for thinking of me,”

“Anytime. Mu’s on her way. Did you want us here?”

“Us?”

“I have a guest,” Bow smiles sweetly. Kid furrows her brows as she looks around, her gaze settling on the free chair across the table. She hadn’t noticed him before, but sure enough, Minuit is there, the bow around his throat matching Bow’s. He narrows his eyes at Kid.

“Do you want us here? So that we can clap and get you guys free dessert and everything?”

“Oh, that’d be pretty nice, actually,” Kid pauses. “Hey, wait a second. Did you say that this was Timmy’s idea?”

Bow quirks an eyebrow. “Yeah, why?”

“He didn’t know I was going to propose to Mu. I didn’t tell him,”

Bow takes a long sip of her champagne, her lips leaving a petallike smear on the ridge of the glass. “You know he has his ways,” She says ominously, lowering the glass and offering Kid a gentle smile. “And anyways, Mu’s on her way. You should get ready,”

“She is?”

“Any minute now,” She makes a show of checking a watch that she both can’t see and isn’t there. “I’d get ready if I were you,”

“Thanks for letting me know,”

“Of course,” Bow’s smile grows, giddy with anticipation. “Knock ‘em dead, tiger!”

Kid smiles softly to herself as she places the bag of clothes onto her tray, weaving through the same guests she’d made a point to ignore last time. It isn’t until she’s back in the kitchen does she realize those words sounded like something that would come straight out of Timmy’s mouth. She hardly gives it much thought as she sets the tray aside, slipping into the nearest employee bathroom and locking the door behind her.

The bathroom isn’t built for anybody who isn’t a seal, but it works. All Kid needs is a place to change, anyways. She’s nearly positive that the Captain’s out cold by now, but even if he isn’t, screw it. She’s not doing anything wrong, and she’s not going to let this get any more messed up than it already has. 

Kid breathes in slowly, taking a moment to relax before she steps forward and turns on the sinks. Waiting for the water to warm, she peels her gloves off, carefully folding them before she sets them aside and lathers her hands with soap. The metallic scent that her twitchy fingers emanates bursts and comes at her all at once, frayed at the edges like a worn photograph, but the black fragments that drift away from her corrupted hands in plumes don’t bother her the way that they used to long ago.

Corruption takes its toll on the body, and judging from the last time she’d seen the Badge Seller— she’d kept their mask in a safe space ever since, but she’d never once tried it on— she knows that it won’t be limited to just her hands forever. But as long as she takes care of it, it’ll be fine. Every passing day spent with twitching fingers that turn and bend at impossible angles is worth everything she’s gained, and she’d let her entire body get corrupted if it would ensure her a lifetime of love spent with the people she cares about.

It’s nice not to be afraid anymore.

She dries her hands, biting the inside of her cheek as the towel she uses flickers away as if it had never existed in the first place, before she pulls her gloves back on. She takes off her hat and changes her clothes, rolling up her sleeves and buttoning up her cardigan. She smoothes out her bangs before she pulls her hat on. She offers herself a small smile, exposing sharp fangs.

She looks good. She feels good, even if she’s jittery with nervous anticipation, unable to keep still for long. It’s only when she moves to put the velvet box away does she realize that it won’t fit in her pockets— not in the back ones, and not in front ones either. She could carry it out, but she’ll have nowhere to hide it without Mu being suspicious. She could tuck it under her hat, but she’ll look stupid taking it off.

She’ll have to hide it, she supposes. She slips out of the bathroom, taking a pit stop to drop off the waiter’s uniform in a hamper full of reusable napkins and tablecloths, trying to find her way. She’s lucky that Timmy’s still in the kitchen, even if he’s in the process of leaving.

“Timmy! Wait, hold on!” She catches up to him.

“Hey!” Timmy turns around, smiling brightly. “You look great!”

“Thank you. Look, are you going to be in the kitchen?”

“I can be,” He raises his eyebrows. “What do you need?”

She presses the ring box into his right hand, placing his left over it. “You know how people do those cute little proposals where they hide the ring in the food?”

Timmy’s face lights up with recognition in no more than three seconds. “I can definitely make sure it ends up in Mu’s food,” 

“Thank you!” She’s already taking off by the time she’s speaking again, opening the door to the dining room. She flashes him a thumbs up. “You’re the best!”

“I know!” He beams. “Knock ‘em dead, tiger!”

“Bow already told me that!” She calls back, pulling the door shut behind her.

This time, nobody in the dining hall pays any attention to her— thankfully— and she finds the perfect seat right at the heart of the aquarium. She adjusts her hat as she sinks into her seat, turning her attention towards the aquarium.

A singular red herring swims by, and she watches as he drifts by absently, breathing in deeply and willing her heart to settle. There’s something relaxing about the rhythmic patterns behind their motion, and when she taps on the glass, they pause to look at her before swimming away.

She turns her attention to the front entrance of the dining hall, and when Mu comes in, Kid waves her over. She looks great from afar and even better up close: her blonde hair has been neatly tied back, long enough to form a small bun but nothing more and the star-accented button up she wore was actually tucked in for once. Even her beard is nicely combed, and Kid can’t help but smile at the sight of her, her heart fluttering as Mu marches up the stairs and drops into the chair across from her.

She brushes her bangs out of her face, where they immediately fall back to where they’d been sitting prior. “Do I even want to know how you got in?”

“I feel like I just went through all seven layers of hell and then some,” Kid says with a grin. “You look good.”

“Thanks,”

“If I knew you cleaned up this nicely, I’d be taking you to fancy places every week,”

Mu snorts. “Well, enjoy it because it’s only happening once a year,”

“So that means I’ll get to see you again?” Kid beams, sliding her hand over the table. Mu reaches her halfway, taking it and immediately settling into the old habit of rubbing comforting circles on the back of her palm. “Lucky me,”

“Lucky you, indeed,” Mu echoes with her slow-growing, cocky grin, and Kid wants nothing more than to lean over and kiss that obnoxious smile off of her face. Looking at her makes her feel like the entire ship has stilled, and like ice in the summer sun, Kid’s worries from earlier immediately melts away. The chaos from earlier is nothing more than a miniscule blip in an unending timeline, and it’s not one that matters. Not now.

Another seal pup comes up to them with two cups of water. “Hi! Do you two know what you want to eat?”

Mu opens her mouth to speak, blanking. She clears her throat. “Nobody gave me a menu,”

“Can I just get a steak?” Kid asks, watching Mu out of the corner of her eye. “Blue?”

“What’s wrong with you?” Disgusts contorts Mu’s face and she lets go of Kid’s hand, looking back over to the seal. “I’ll take that too. But, like, a normal steak,”

“I don’t know what a normal steak is!” The pup chimes.

“Medium-rare,”

“Okay! Anything else?”

Kid shakes her head. “No, that’s all. But thanks,”

“I’ll be right back with your dinner!” The seal says, excusing themselves, and Kid looks back to Mu.

“There is nothing wrong with me,”

“There is so much wrong with you,”

“You’re one to talk,”

“I never said there was nothing wrong with me.” Mu points out as she takes a sip of her water. “So, I didn’t know Bow and Timmy were also on the ship,”

Kid shoots a brief glance to where Bow’s sitting. Despite her earlier claims, she has a fresh plate of calamari in front of her, but she pays Kid and Mu no mind as she trails her fingers over a book before flipping to the next page. Minuit, on the other hand, shoots daggers at Kid, his steely gaze unwavering.

“Honestly? I didn’t either,”

“Timmy came up and pretty much scared my soul out of my body!” Mu exclaims before leaning in, reaching back out for Kid’s hand. “But what happened? How’d you get in?”

“I climbed into a crate,”

“Seriously? I would’ve thought you would’ve used your hookshot or something,”

“I wanted to, but I left it at home. So I climbed into the crate and— you’ll never guess who was in there,”

“Who?”

“I’m serious. Guess,”

Mu furrows her brows. “Timmy?”

“Try again,”

“Snatcher?”

Kid snaps her fingers. “Right on the money! He started talking about me being a terrorist, like that’s the same thing as being wanted on thirty-seven planets even though it’s not, and then he was all like-” She lowers the tone of her voice. “You’re gonna get caught, kiddo.”

“And he’s not?”

“Apparently not, because he’s a ghost!” Kid exclaims. “So he just disappears, and then I’m left with a seal who thinks I’m sentient luggage,”

Mu snorts. “They’re so cute, though,”

“I really couldn’t be mad at them. And then Timmy swoops in and gets me a job. Like I went through all of that just to be employed!”

“Is that why I saw you mopping earlier?”

“You saw me working and you didn’t even say hi?”

“You looked really into it. You were talking to the mop,”

“What? No I wasn’t,”

“You looked like you were serenading it,” Mu leans forward, raising her eyebrows. “If anything I would’ve thought you were imagining me as that mop. I mean, it was red and yellow so I can’t blame you, but the real thing is so much better,”

“Careful,” Kid teases. “Your ego’s getting big,”

“Not as big as your hat,”

“And yet, somehow, it’s bigger than your beard,”

“You love my beard.”

“I love all of you.” Kid says warmly as she squeezes Mu’s hand, and there’s nothing better than seeing how Mu’s cheeks turn just a shade darker than usual. When the pup returns with their food, Kid makes sure that hers is blue and not just semi-rare before she picks up from where she left off, looking back up to Mu. “I really do, you know.”

“I love you too,” Mu smiles bashfully.

“Seriously. I don’t think you know how much I love you. I don’t think you know how long I’ve loved you,” Kid begins. “Whenever I think back to when I was younger, there was always this little part of me that just… admired you, even if I didn’t really know what that meant or what that said about me yet. Even back then, there was just so much of you to admire. You’re someone that’s always been worth looking up to, even at your worst,”

“Even when I tried taking over the world and acted like an idiot trying to take out all the ‘bad guys’?” Mu quirks an eyebrow, but despite her attempt at remaining nonchalant, her cheeks give her away: her freckles are stark against the warmth that floods her face. She reminds Kid of a strawberry. 

“You came back from it, didn’t you? You did better, time and time again. Not everybody is so eager to grow and be better, but you always are. I always wanted to see you, and when I finally did, you were better than anything I could’ve ever imagined.”

Mu’s silent this time, watching Kid with warm, loving eyes. She breaks eye contact only momentarily as she takes another bite of her dinner.

“I just…” Kid looks down, poking her steak with her fork. As delicious as it looks, she can’t bring herself to eat it— not with how her stomach tingles, her limbs jittery with nervous energy. “I just really want you to know how happy I am that you’re here. I don’t know what the future holds, and that’s something that’s still really hard for me to accept sometimes, but knowing that you’re in it always makes me feel good about it. I know that my future’s bright as long as you’re in it, and I want to know if you’ll-”

Without warning, Mu’s fork drops onto the table, causing Kid to flinch. Spluttering, she turns away, and Kid hesitantly reaches out.

“Are you okay? You’re-” Her words die in her throat as she watches Mu coughs, a dark dread uncoiling inside of her as she watches Mu’s face slowly shift from strawberry red to purple.

She’s not just coughing. No, she’s choking, and Kid knows full well it’s because of that ring.

Kid’s mind tumbles in on itself, falling flat as her hands fly up to her face, wide-eyed. It isn’t until Mu coughs again that she finally regains control of her limbs, jumping up and hitting Mu on the back once— cough— twice— hack— and a third time, where Mu finally hacks up the ring. It lands on the plate.

“Are you okay?!” Kid asks, her voice tinged with hysteria. Mu coughs again, clearing her throat and nodding hard enough for her bun to come undone.

“I’m fine, I just… ugh, gross,” She reaches out for her cup of water, taking big gulps and her throat again. “Somebody left their ugly ring in my food. How does that happen? I don’t even think seals have fingers,”

In the solid minute it took for Mu to say that, Kid’s mind has managed to twist itself into about a thousand knots, her gut wrenching deep inside of her. All at once, there’s so many things on her mind, all of them buried behind a layer of panic, and there’s only one thing that she can manage to put into words: “You think the ring is ugly?” She’s embarrassed with how her words waver, her voice small in her throat. 

Mu clears her throat again, sitting upright. “I mean… no?” She picks it up, carefully wiping it down with a napkin. “It’s fine, it just almost killed me. Who’s is this, anyways?”

“It’s… it’s supposed to be yours.”

Silence stretches over them as Mu sets down the napkin, stealing a brief glance at the ring before she looks at Kid. “What?”

“I… I got it for you, Mu. I-” She squeezes her eyes shut, her cheeks burning with shame. It takes her a moment to muster up the courage to open them, and with it, to speak again. “Will you marry me?”

Mu’s bewilderment transforms into shock as her smile grows. “Uh- yes! You did all of this to ask?!”

“Don’t make me feel like an idiot,”

“If I would’ve known, I- come here, you!” Mu scoops her into a big hug, pressing a kiss to her cheek. “Are you okay?”

“I’m more than okay,” Kid smiles weakly. Mu lets go of her, moving to cup her cheeks instead.

“Are you sure? You look like you’re near tears,”

“I do?”

Mu pushes her thumbs against Kid’s cheekbones. “Yeah. Come on, let’s get you some fresh air.”

Outside, the nighttime air is cold, biting at the tip of Kid’s nose. Gentle ripples in the water flow throughout the ocean as the moon illuminates both sky and sea, but it’s hard to make out anything past that: the ocean that surrounds them is murky and dark without the sun, making it near impossible for Kid to tell where the water ends and the sky begins.

Mu leans with her back pressed against the railing, and Kid slides the ring onto her finger. They’d slipped out of the room without anyone noticing— thankfully, though she knows she’s going to have to explain all of this to Timmy and Bow later— and Kid presses a tender kiss to the top of Mu’s hand.

“Do you really think the ring is ugly?”

“I am not the person to ask about fashion or jewelry,” Mu scoffs. “But I do think it’s really cute,” She holds up her hand, admiring the ring. “It’s something I’d wear,”

“I’d hope so,” Kid gets up. “It looks nice on you,”

Mu breaks into a crooked grin, holding her arms out. Kid doesn’t hesitate to lean into her embrace, breathing in the smell that could only be described as Mu as she rests her head on top of hers, keeping her eyes on the moon.

There’s always a part of her that remains permanently unsettled by the moon. It’s another one of those things that she can’t quite shake no matter how hard she tries, and when she’s too aware of it, it makes her wrists feel tight and her throat feel just a little too vulnerable.

Just this once, though, with Mu’s arms wrapped around her— their heartbeats so in tune that she can’t make out which belongs to who— she feels safe.

Still, that doesn’t mean she wants to see it. Instead, she buries her head into Mu’s hair until that's all that makes up her entire world: soft, golden blonde, all hers.

“This sucks,” Kid mumbles into her hair. “I don’t think a single thing went right today,”

“I mean, I said yes. That was a pretty big thing that went right… unless you were hoping for a no?”

Kid snorts, pulling back ever so slightly so that she can look down at Mu. “I think my world would’ve ended if you said no.”

“There’s no chance I would’ve said no. I, uh…” She lets go entirely, and Kid does too, stepping back. She pats herself down before locating something in her pockets, pulling out a velvet box. “If it wasn’t you who would’ve asked, it would’ve been me,”

“You- you said you wouldn’t propose!”

“What can I say! You took too long!” Mu teases, her smile growing. “And anyways, I got a really good idea for a ring. I couldn’t just not act on it,”

“You made it?”

“What else do you think I’ve been working on for the past month? It’s not my fault you didn’t pay attention,” She holds the box out to Kid. “Go on, open it.”

Kid takes the velvet box and does just that. In it, she’s met with a silver band that has similar engravings to what Kid had opted for Mu’s ring, but it’s the centerpiece that remains the most distinct: there’s no jewel on the center of it, but there is an hourglass, carefully made of carved silver and glass with blue sand inside. When she turns it over, the sand tumbles into the second half of the hourglass.

“I was planning on proposing in the Alpine Skyline, but… I saw the tickets you got a few days ago and I thought this was a great opportunity,”

“So you knew from the beginning?” Kid asks softly, sliding the ring onto her finger. She looks back up to Mu, who shakes her head.

“Not about the proposal, but everything else? Yeah,” She admits. “Timmy was supposed to help me out with Alpine, so we just moved things over,”

“Stars, that explains a lot. Did he-”

“Yeah, he got Bow involved,”

“She was helping me plan out mine!”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if this was actually some plot between them to get us to propose at the same time,” Mu grins. “Speaking of, though… they’re in there, aren’t they?”

“Yeah,”

“Wanna head back? I didn’t get to finish my food after the whole, you know, choking and dying thing.”

“Almost dying,” Kid warns, and Mu snorts.

“Fine, excuse me. Almost dying. Come on,” Mu says. Her fingers, reaching out to clasp at Kid’s, slide into hers like they’re a puzzle that needs to be snapped back together. “We should probably catch them up.”

When Mu leads her back inside, this time, Kid follows. She’d follow her to the ends of the Earth if she had to, time and time again.