"Oh, fuck you." Pari rolled her eyes but she smiled as she pushed his face away, moving to sit up in the bed.

"Is that a yes for the day off?" He wondered, sitting up after her.

Pari opened her mouth to answer when a bell chimed overhead. She glanced upwards, then towards Feofil, arching her back in a feline stretch. "Someone's here to see you, Mr. Long Lost Altirian Man."

He heaved a long sigh, running his hand through his hair. "Of course they are."

"Better go get the door," she told him as the haze of the morning light faded, and the cold chill in the air dissipated any lingering comfort.
Although he'd just been teasing earlier, he was right. At the end of the day they'd made themselves a shitty situation that had no other outcome. Suddenly, homesickness struck her in the chest, the pain of it curdling her stomach. She'd give anything just to talk to... just to have someone to talk to about this. But even if she went home, there wasn't anyone waiting for her. And here, Feo... she'd ruined that too, last night. Look at you now, she thought grimly. She'd given him every opening and he still treated her like a primed grenade. But she deserved that.
Pari pursed her lips again, looking down at herself, at her silken dress and bare skin and feeling, for the first time in a long time, shame. Disgust. She'd thrown herself at him like a lovelorn fool despite railing against it for so long. At the end of the day, despite the standards she held herself to, despite her dedication and her principle, she was just as fucked in the head as the rest of them. "I'm going to go get dressed."

He watched her leave, sensing a shift in her demeanor. How quickly the fantasy had ended, and what awaited them now as they hurtled towards the cold, hard reality that they'd probably made a grave mistake? He left the room to get the front door, knowing that the blustery chill that burst in from outdoors would usher with it all the problems of the outside world.

But to his surprise, the door opened to reveal a very pink-nosed and delighted face. "Feo-beo!" his mother trilled, throwing her arms around him. "My baby boy!"

His expression betrayed his shock as he wrapped his arms around his mom. "Mom? You're so cold, come inside."

“This is like home,” she proclaimed but bustled inside all the same, shuddering off the cold as she shed her coat. Then she was back to hugging him. “I missed you, I missed you! You’ve been gone so long!”
Behind her, Roo and Giovanni unobtrusively stepped inside as well. At his surprised glance, Roo explained, “Your mother portaled in this morning. We stopped by too to make sure nothing else happened overnight.”
“Nothing else?” Saskia poked her head over Feo’s shoulder. “What happened?”

Feo tried to hide a grimace as he braced himself for the outburst of motherly concern that was sure to come. Would he lie? Could he lie, given the bloodstains still on the floorboards? "Everything's okay," he was quick to assure her. "We just had a, um... incident."