Preparations for Two

“Have you gotten ready for the rites, Augurys?” Ephemir had asked the candle noodle whilst they were sitting at a cafe together.

On that afternoon, he was seated at a table across from the somewhat diminutive Faian. He was so tall that he had asked them to remove his stool since he couldn’t comfortably sit on it anyway. He ordered his usual — a boring-looking black coffee — while Augurys had an iced cappuccino in front of them topped with whipped cream. At the time when he had asked the question, Augurys was in the middle of slurping up their drink through a straw and yet they still nearly choked. He perked up, concerned for them as they started coughing.

“W-what?” Augurys asked, looking surprised. “The rites? Oh dear, I…”

The sputtered response was all that he needed, and yet Ephemir still fired back with another question; one he already knew the answer to. “You haven’t prepared, have you?”

The candle noodle sheepishly shrugged their shoulders and smiled. “Well… no. I may have forgotten.”

“It’s fine… I’ll prepare a lantern for us in that case,” Ephemir sighed. The ruptour shook his head. He seemed disappointed, though he knew Augurys would not think much of his subdued reaction.

“No, no! I still have time to get something together!” They insisted, holding up their front paws as they tried to ease his concerns. “I’ll make something for all of us — Baba, you, and I.”

At the time, Ephemir thought that agreeing to Augurys’s hurried plans would be for the best. When he left them to go shopping for supplies that day, he watched as they walked away from him with the belief that they would indeed follow through. How sloppy their work would be was up in the air however; not that he would mind. He never minded with them.

In the evening, as Ephemir returned to his home to prepare himself for the impending trip to Lylluna Reef, his frequent candle noodle acquaintance never quite left his mind. Even as he started to pack his belongings, he found himself packing extra supplies. Mindlessly, he had prepared and wrapped up snacks that he knew Augurys enjoyed and that would probably be well-liked by their pet Boosha. Ephemir had not even realized what he had done until he was fully packed, seeing that he had set aside more for Augurys than he did for himself.

“Ugh…” Ephemir audibly groaned, even in the loneliness of his home. He felt embarrassed despite their closeness to one another that he was still thinking of them so often.

Where he could have been thinking about how he would make the journey himself or perhaps how he would deal with the matter of his own missing lantern should Augurys fail to follow through on their promise, he found his thoughts occupied by Augurys. It was not an unfamiliar phenomenon to him at that point, but he was distracted nonetheless. Preparations for the journey and the rite continued apace for him, though it seemed as though everything he was getting ready was for the benefit of another rather than himself.