An annoyed piano melody hit John’s ears over the phone. It was disharmonious, perfectly representing the mood of the person on the other end of the line. “You are aware that causing your lover, who sits and governs on the other side of the globe, worry because reports indicate that you are getting effortlessly crushed by a coalition of anarcho-capitalists and then not answering the phone for that whole duration is not the fine way to treat a lady, particularly a noble one?”

“I am very sorry,” John assured her. “Incredibly, deeply sorry, I just had… have some things going on, many of which are quite private in nature.” Now that Scarlett had made him aware that he could be wiretapped anytime, he was a lot more careful about talking about things that mattered on the phone. Even if the very same Technomancer was looking after his lines.

“Great thing I will be coming over soon then,” Lydia told him. “I will be hearing all about it.”

“What, really?” John asked. “Don’t get me wrong, I am ecstatic to see you again…” he hastily added when the piano in the background stopped in its entirety after every single note was pressed at the same time. There was a neutral and simple melody that played after those words. “…but I wonder why you are suddenly coming over.”

“You remember what our last conversation was about?”

John thought back, he had cut communications about two weeks ago, following Thorne’s declaration of war. What had been important in the talk he had with Lydia in the days prior? He seemed to remember that they had only talked about unimportant stuff. “I do remember the conversation,” he told her, “but I still have no idea what you are referring to.”

“Your mother, John, you were going to visit your mother,” Lydia told him. “That’s why I want to come over.”

“But why?” the Gamer still was confounded.

“Because proper manners demand that I shall do so,” she sounded slightly upset at that point. “Do you not want me to meet her? Am I something to hide, John?”

Well, there was only one answer to that, “Of course not, just befuddled, is all.” He started walking up and down the living room, following the path between the wall and the large couch, from bathroom to bedroom door and back.

The eyes of Eliza, Copernicus and a cat-eared Rave followed as all three of them were peeking over the back of the couch. Aclysia put down some fresh cookies on the table; Sylph and Stirwin soon descended on the unsuspecting plate. Nia was sitting in one of the armchairs nearby. The TV was muted, a news report scrolling over the screen. Beatrice and Metra were playing pool in one of the many hobby rooms of the upper deck.

The two of them had an awkward relationship where one was annoyingly calm while the other was pissed all the time. The berserker babe had taken it upon herself to banter as long with Beatrice as it took to feel like she had won. For some reason, they usually did that dance while playing pool.

“Wouldn’t it have been smarter to wait until I could give you a date on when I was going to drive down to Washington though?” he asked.

“My intention was to schedule it indeed as such,” she told him. “However, my plans were overthrown by someone going silent and making me worried something would have happened to them, causing me to announce that I plan to take a vacation in the near future.” A heavy sigh exited the speaker. “I know I am sounding overly harsh, but I am just happy you are fine. Do not do this to me again.”

“I won’t unless I really have to… you know, faking my death might be something I need to do one day,” he had no intention of being dishonest.

“Expect to be slapped for that trickery at such a time,” she scolded him for suggesting something like that. “I have had enough graves in my youth, so don’t make me erect one for you – not even in vain – in the foreseeable future.”

“I will deserve it, just saying it might happen, you never know,” John assured her. “Anyway, wouldn’t it be smarter to delay your vacation until I know for sure I am going?” He stopped for a moment. “Let me guess, you already arranged everything and now a change of schedule would be more work.”

“Indeed,” Lydia affirmed. “You will have to adjust your schedule to fit mine if you want to introduce me to your mother.” Somehow that ‘if’ didn’t sound like a choice at all. “To preempt the question of when I arrive, barring any flight delays, I should land in New York City in two days, three with. I will send you an exact timeframe per text later.”

“Two to three days, huh,” John went through the plan as it was supposed to play out. “I am almost certain I will be late at two. Life is busy at the moment. I will do my best to make time – for you.” He made sure to put extra weight behind those last words.

“I sincerely look forward to it,” the queen sounded pleased and the melody in the background adjusted itself to be a bit more uplifting. “Now that I have you on the phone already, it would be a waste to put it down with only the reasoning of the important topic being concluded. War aside, how have you been?”

“Ah, you know, the usual bullshit,” he relaxed, leaning against the wall and taking a cookie Aclysia presented to him. The little pieces of chocolate were half-liquid from the fresh oven heat still lingering inside the piece of bakeware. “Gaining levels, fucking around, fucking up.”

“What did you fail at?” Lydia, refusing to swear, asked in an intrigued tone. “Do I have to prepare another rant?”

“Maybe,” John went on to explain to her how the Beatrice situation had panned out, with him creating her without a set of guiding principles.

“That’s actually not an unusual practice,” she informed him by the end.

“It’s not?” he was genuinely surprised to hear that, but he figured it out a few moments later. “Right, a lot of people would rather have an emotionally stunted puppet.”

“Richtig,” Lydia cleared her throat, “precisely, rather. It sounds to me like you created a sort of clone of Aclysia by the end?”

“A very passive clone,” John agreed, glancing over to Beatrice just slouching in her seat on the couch. “She does what I tell her to and otherwise sits around waiting for someone else to do something while watching TV. I recently got her a laptop and now she is unlocking everything in Stardew Valley.”

It was quite astonishing to look at really, simply because of the consistency (easily mistaken for patience) with which she approached such repetitive tasks. Getting every single achievement in every video game she touched seemed to be the closest thing to a goal she had. As someone who had been like that before, John knew that she was just wasting time in what at least felt productive. As she did enough work when asked to and exclusively played games that could be paused at any second, though, there was no reason to complain.

“She is interesting,” he continued on, “a bit of an oxymoron between a procrastinator and a relentless production machine, like an online author that should be studying but cranks out chapters like a madman instead.” That didn’t quite do it justice, because it sounded like she got side-tracked when she usually just had one-track. “Actually, forget that metaphor,” he corrected himself. “I just can’t find a fitting one.”

“She is a young adult sitting in her parent’s basement, doing what is needed when wanted but otherwise just lazing around, uncaring for a proper career or search for a family?” Lydia suggested.

“Kinda?” John didn’t feel that really described it either. “The problem there is that she does have a career and a family in me. Maybe we are looking at her in too high resolution when I can describe her with three words: Passive perfectionist servant.”

“That makes it sound like she and I would get along,” Lydia commented.

“Without a doubt you would,” John chuckled, “you know how you always order everything?”

“I keep my documents, utensils and house in order whenever possible, yes, why?”

“Place Beatrice in front of a table that’s a mess and she will arrange everything on it in patterns just because she can,” he told her. “Or she will adjust every single picture frame in a hallway to run perfectly parallel to the floor.”

“That sounds like she has a compulsive disorder,” Lydia pointed out.

“Absolutely, I once caught her readjusting the position of a flowerpot for over five minutes,” which also meant that he watched her do that for the same duration, but he kept that part unmentioned. “She is actually worse than Aclysia in that regard. However, then she is weird again because she will actually only do that when she sees it. She isn’t getting up to look for anything to fix, it’s like an idle gesture.”

“You have a lot to correspond about her,” the queen noticed.

“Its because she is weird to interact with, like Nia,” he waved at the pariah, who slowly turned her head at the mention of her name. “I am worried she won’t fit in because of the way I made her, but she fits in nicely but also not at all.”

“I like her!” Rave chimed in.

“Tell Rave…” Lydia started.

“Ya can call me Jane, Lylytina,” the techno-lover interrupted, loud enough for the phone to catch it.

“…How did she…?”

“Don’t question it, when you love her the slightest bit she gets into your head,” John laughed, and Rave smirked as that line of dialogue just confirmed that she was great at what she did. “She puts up camp and never leaves.”

“…I have to admit I don’t feel particularly infatuated with her,” Lydia said; her feelings for the Lightbearer were more than friends but less than lovers.

“Yet,” Rave added.

“Are you sure you don’t have me on speaker?”

“No, but she might be able to hear you because of her cat ears,” John gave her the actual explanation as to why this was happening. “She is training to hear exclusively with them, not that there is a lot to train.”

“I see,” he could practically see Lydia nodding in her room, a room that doubtlessly looked like all of her rooms, with the wooden floor and the Prussian blue walls. Maybe her red lips were slightly raised in a smile despite her iron tone, maybe she had the phone tucked between her ear and shoulder to play the piano with her hands, like she preferred to, or maybe she was playing it with her powers alone and…

“Do you still dance?” he asked out of the blue.

“…When I get the time for it,” Lydia carefully answered. “Why do you ask?”

“I would like to see you dance again.”

“…You do recall that is one of the very few activities in this world that actually make me embarrassed, right?” she told him.

“I will dance with you, please,” he pleaded. “Doesn’t have to be anywhere public. Just you, me, the other girls, on top of my yacht if the weather is nice, to a nice and slow romantic song.”

“…I will think about it,” she promised and the piano music stopped. “I need to head out soon,” a bit of regret swung in her voice. John did the slightly scumbaggy thing and basked in that; it was good to hear that he was missed, especially with how mutual that feeling was.

“This was awfully short for how long it has been,” John told her; he had so many more things he wanted to talk about. “Can I ask one last thing before you go?”

“Asking if you can is going to waste more of my time, thus giving me less time to answer,” she berated him. “To make it simple: Yes.”

“How is Momo?”

“I don’t know, shortly after you went silent, she had a falling out with Ria and headed to Anatolia. Since then I have lost sight of her. Not that I actively tried tracking her,” the queen of steel answered. “You will have to inform yourself about this subject matter. I do however doubt she is in trouble. With her mana and ability to fly freely, it would take a proper monster to catch her.”

“Right,” John was still a bit worried, but only a reasonable amount. “Well then, see you soon and hopefully hear you again sooner.”

“Whenever I can make the time,” she promised and hung up.

He lowered the phone, looked at it and sighed longingly like only a man in love could.

“How the fuck,” Eliza said from the side lines, “does it even feel to be in love with over a dozen of these ass-shaved monkeys that walk this shitty dirtball?”

“Like I am the luckiest guy in the world,” John answered earnestly, putting his phone away. “Anyway, I have a quest we can do now.”