12. Sink Ships
Bluebird figured he had some time to kill—he was in no rush to get Girard his tea. He had instead ambled aimlessly around the surrounding corridors for the past few minutes. Not out of lack of sympathy for the griffon, of course, or out of frustration with his mentor, but instead for what Bluebird saw as the benefit of them both: Pesco could take the opportunity to learn some sensitivity, and Girard in turn could commiserate with someone of a similar caliber of social ineptitude. Truly a win-win.
Then again, Bluebird thought, perhaps he just enjoyed foiling his mentor’s deadly serious agenda every once in a while. Given how rarely his mentor ever reprimanded him for his hijinks, Bluebird wondered if Pesco himself didn’t relish the adversity.
“Good morning Grid!” a sweet-sounding griffon called out from around the corner.
Bluebird stopped. He swore he wasn’t doing it on purpose, dropping in on so many of these kids' private conversations. Alas, something about gifts and ponies’ mouths… and after all, he had time to kill! He simply took one step forward, and craned his neck around the corner to see what all he might’ve walked in on.
As expected, it was none other than Gloria standing in front of Grid’s open bedroom door. Her face was as cheery as his was simply sleepy.
“Heya Glory,” Grid said drowsily. “Hm, whatsup?”
“Nothing much,” she responded. She caught herself: “Oh, sorry, that’s a lie. Truly, I wouldn’t have woken you if I didn’t have a good reason. So… will you hear me out, Grid?”
Grid lifted an eyebrow. “Yeah? ‘Course I would!”
“Right. I knew you would. You’re very understanding, after all. Willing to forgive. You would make a great diplomat, I feel.”
Grid was a great guy, Bluebird thought, but that was not the career for him.
“Uh-huh, uh, thanks,” Grid said. “So what am I forgiving here, exactly?”
“You needn’t be so gracious, Grid—forgive, but don’t forget, after all.”
Gloria’s choice of words further confused the stallion. And the cadet, for that matter.
She rested a claw in her pocket as she explained, “I would like to apologize for last night, for having so insensitively called you out about your business in the kitchen.”
She drooped into a thoroughly submissive posture, leaning her full weight against the doorframe.
“I should’ve listened to my conscience, and not my paranoia. I’m sorry.”
“Sorry? You have nothing to apologize for! You’re good!” Grid reassured. “‘Sides, Big Guns was the one who put you on blast. You were just telling everyone what you saw! Not that I blame him for it, either, FYI.”
She took the one claw out of her pocket, and framed her chin inquisitively with the other. “‘Big Guns’?”
“Eh, the detective.”
“I see.” Gloria righted herself. “Anywho, glum apologies aside, I’ve a more lighthearted matter to bring up. An invitation, of sorts. I assume we’re all on edge and in need of an entertaining distraction, these past twenty-four hours.”
“I’d say so, yeah. What do you have in mind?”
“Griffonstone draughts. … Oh no, don’t worry, I didn’t mean with you! I know you’re somepony who can appreciate the game from afar, even if it’s not quite your cup of tea to play. No, I was just going to ask Bon to a game in the foyer—I supposed you might like to watch?”
“Bon, huh… Oh, I mean, yeah, sure! I’m sure he won’t be—I mean, yeah, he should be fine with it. I’m fine with it.” Grid twitched his tail to and fro in the ensuing pause. “Anyway! I thought you usually gamed with Zorn?”
Gloria shook her head. “Mhm, no, I already asked him, but it’s like I told you: He just lost all interest in playing with me.” She shrugged.
“Oh right, you two have had some sort of… friction, huh?” Grid said. “I guess we all have our misunderstandings about each other, yeah? And smart as he is, Zorn’s no exception. I’ll put in a good word for you, if I get the chance to chat with him.”
“Thank you,” she said. “So, you’re coming, right?”
“Oh, yeah. Gimme a minute to clean up and I’ll catch up with you.”
“Very well. Bon’s a tough opponent, and you won’t want to miss the opening moves I’ve prepared—”
Gloria turned around right as Bluebird’s attention was distracted by his own yawn. Her body froze, and her eyes narrowed in alert as she stared right at the ostensible (well, more than ostensible) spy of a pegasus.
Her posture loosened back up as she greeted him. “Oh, Cadet. Good morning!”
Bluebird stepped out from behind the corner to reveal the rest of his body. He blinked twice and flashed a smile before returning the greeting: “Ahah, hey there, Gloria, Grid. We’re all up bright and early, eh?”
“Yeah, what has you up so early, Little Guns?” Grid asked. “Nothing about the changeling, I hope?”
“Nah, I was just—”
“You hope they haven’t figured anything out about the changeling, Grid?”
“Oh. That’s pretty stupid of me to say, huh?” He laughed while rubbing a bleary eye with a hoof. “I just meant the stress of it all, like I hope there’s not been another attack!”
“You’re fine, Grid, I get it!” Bluebird reassured. “But no, there’s nothing particular that brings me around.” Bluebird thought back to how he’d just been caught snooping, and quickly added, “Well actually, one thing: Uh, where in the kitchen do you guys keep your tea? And, any idea which kind Girard likes? Pesco is interviewing him right now.”
“Why, white tea is my cousin’s favorite! How considerate of you to brew him some. You can find a box of it in the pantry above the sink.”
“Huh,” Grid grunted. “You sure?”
“Yes?” she asked. “What do you mean?”
“White’s his favorite overall, yeah,” Grid said, “but doesn’t he prefer black in the morning? Y’know, for the caffeine?”
“Oh. Yeah, sure,” Gloria conceded. “Same deal. Pantry above the sink.”
The cadet thanked the pair for their time, and began in the direction of the kitchen. With a see-you-soon, Gloria herself turned to leave in the direction of the foyer. Grid closed the door to return to his room to get cleaned up before the game.
Bluebird whistled as he trotted to the kitchen, trying to remember the last time he’d brewed a cup of tea. He’d never heard of white-colored tea before, but it sounded appetizing. Or was it black he was fetching? To tell the truth, all tea just looked brown to him. In any case, he could only hope the box came with instructions.
He soon arrived in the kitchen, and glided over to the sink. A pantry above the sink, as promised. Bluebird opened it, and behind some cans of protein powder discovered a cache of tea packets in assorted flavors. Just to be sure, Bluebird went ahead and followed the instructions to brew two cups, one black and one white.
He returned to his whistling to idle the time away as the leaves steeped in the boiling water…
…
If he mixed the two teas, he wondered, would he get Earl Grey?
…
Ahah, just kidding…
…
He did have to wonder why so many were named like that, though…
…
Green tea, brown tea, yellow tea…
…
Protein powder?!
The cadet raced back to the pantry to check—no, he had not hallucinated them.
“I like to get my protein from natural sources and all, but I definitely fixed one up!”
Feeling off-kilter, Bluebird went to check the cabinets under the counter, and then every other nook and cranny in the kitchen.
“And dude, wouldn’t you know it: We keep the protein powder in the cabinets under the counter!”
Grid’s words echoed in Bluebird’s head. Mistaken words—nowhere else but in the pantry above the sink could the cadet find protein powder. With this mistake (was it simply…?), the young athlete’s reason for ducking behind the counter had evaporated—and along with it, the only plausible excuse for why he wasn’t seen in the kitchen after the ambush when he was allegedly busy cooking.
Bluebird remembered the tea leaves. They were terribly oversteeped by this point. This was the least of his worries on his mind as he cleaned up the kitchen and transported the two saucers of tea up to Girard’s room.
He really hadn’t thought it was Grid. Or maybe, he just hadn’t wanted to?
Grid had probably just misremembered.
In any other context, after all, that would have been perfectly believable.
…
Bluebird strove to put on a happy face as he re-entered the griffon’s bedroom.
“Hey, I, uh… I gotcha your tea, Girard!” he declared as he rounded the doorless divider. “There were some conflicting opinions about which flavor you like, so I—”
The griffon was in tears. Come on, Pesco…
“Thank you, Bluebird,” Girard said, unexpectedly tranquil. Pesco currently sat next to Girard on the bed, looking a bit embarrassed. “I’ll drink whichever flavor, but does one of those happen to be black?”
Bluebird soon realized these were tears of joy the griffon was wiping from his eyes. His mentor had a heart after all!
“Ah, yes indeedy!” Bluebird said. “I’ll have myself the white, then. I may have brewed it wrong, anyway, ‘cause it still just looks brown to me.”
Girard chuckled, and sipped from the cup on the saucer Bluebird handed over to him. “Oh, it’s quite strong… but that’s fine. I quite appreciate it, Bluebird.” Girard looked up at the ceiling with a healthy glow about him. “I’m feeling much better now.”
Bluebird lifted his own saucer with a hoof, and delicately threaded the primaries of his right wing through the handle of the teacup to lift it and take a sip. He had only taken a taste as a polite gesture to mirror the griffon, but the cadet had to admit, the tea’s sweet, herbal flavor was worth going back for.
“Oh my, Bluebird, your wing!” Girard cried. “The changeling, he… sure bit you something terrible, didn’t he?”
“Hm? Oh, yeah.” Bluebird set the tea down and reversed his wing to inspect the damage. There had been no pain since last night, and nothing was left of the injury but an unsightly scab and a mishandled tuft of secondary feathers. “Ahah, I’ve been treated worse by perps in the past. I’d even say this one was downright gentle by comparison, eh Pesco?”
His mentor turned his head and mumbled something about minimum sentencing for this-or-that form of assault.
“And this has gotta be a first: The changeling even apologized before he did what he did!” the cadet continued. “What do you make of that?”
If either of them knew what to make of it, they chose not to say.
“I’m just glad it’s not as bad as it looks,” Girard said, rolling his shoulder in its socket. “Pesco’s right; there’s no excuse for violence.”
And then, apropos of nothing, Girard closed his eyes and began to lean toward the cadet.
Bluebird recoiled as the griffon nuzzled his face in the cadet’s wing, but relaxed once he understood the gesture—he felt a tender tugging on individual feathers as Girard took it upon himself to preen the cadet's ruffled secondaries. It was, to say the least, a very unexpected moment, but… not a completely disagreeable one. And in the end, he preferred not to sweat the awkward stuff, and just take kindness at face value.
Nonetheless, his mentor seemed to eye the bird with a certain amount of suspicion, up until the act had concluded.
“I’m sorry,” Girard said with a goofy smile. He picked his tea back up and took a sip. “We can continue with the interview, now.”
“I agree,” Pesco said. “Although, formality of an interview as this is, I’ve already exhausted all the questions I had in mind.”
“Oh? You mean, you think we’re done here?” Girard glowed as he took another sip. “Haha, Gloria was right as always—that wasn’t so bad!”
“I didn’t say we were done quite yet,” Pesco clarified. “Surely Bluebird has a few questions he’d like to ask.”
He did?
Girard set down his saucer and looked apprehensively at the cadet. Bluebird could only suppose this was his mentor’s idea of tit-for-tat.
“Uh, yeah, lemme just…” Bluebird flipped through his notepad, as much to recall as simply to buy time. “… Hm, what’s your take on Blanche?”
“Oh, Blanche? Because, because she’s the one who found the wing fragment?”
“Not really. I just know you’re a big fan of hers, yeah?”
Girard stole a glance at a bunch of books in the headboard of his bed. “How… how could you tell?”
“Ah, just a little thing I overheard about… mango gelato. Ahah.”
Girard arched an eyebrow. “I see. Um, yes, Blanche is nice. She’s good.”
He picked his saucer back up.
“…”
He stared into the tea.
“… She’s more than good, actually.”
Despite the pause, he clearly had more to say.
“She’s, she’s great, really.”
With an unsteady claw, he lifted the tea to his beak and sipped the rest of it dry.
“And well, to t-tell you the truth, she’s probably the single-greatest author I’ve ever had the honor to read, much less call a friend…! I mean, I know she probably just puts up with me like all the others do, but even that much, that’s enough for me, it fills me with—” He shook his head. “I’m sorry, I’ve said m-more than enough, haven’t I?”
“No need to apologize, Girard!” Bluebird assured. “Do go on. It sounds like you’re very knowledgeable about her work, if nothing else. It could help us to have a second opinion on it.”
Bluebird couldn’t speak for his mentor, but he himself felt no closer to understanding the role of Changeling Ringing in this mystery than since he’d first heard of its existence from Blanche.
“Well,” Girard resumed, staring longingly into his empty cup, “I know that when you first meet her, Blanche can come off as a little… guarded, I’d say? It’s like she walks around in a suit of armor. And even with close friends, she’s only comfortable lifting the visor.
“… Okay, maybe I shamelessly s-stole that line from Pastor Pastern in chapter two of Something Subliminal! I could never come up with something like that, but I think it describes her beautifully. It just goes to show you she’s self-aware of her plight.”
“What plight, exactly?” Bluebird asked.
“The plight of an artist in general, I suppose?” Girard said. “I’ll quote Blanche again, this time from Swords Crossed My Mind. Right before the antihero dies, he says it so clearly, get this: ‘Paint with your true colors, but speak in gunmetal gray.’”
A pause for emphasis.
“It’s just so true, isn’t it?” Girard said.
The griffon had spoken these words as if they were sacred gospel, but Bluebird needed it in plain Ponish. “I’m sorry, Girard, you gotta bear with me. I sorta flunked out of my poetry class in high school… and it was an elective!”
“I just mean to say, Blanche paints with her true colors in her art, in her writing. Any fan could tell you that. But in the real world, I can see she’s afraid to act her true self, she acts like a totally different c-creature, because, because…” Girard gripped one claw with another. “… Well, I guess I don’t know why. But I would go to the ends of Equus to figure that out, and into the depths of Tartarus to fix it.”
“Ha, nice. Which book is that line from?”
“Oh. I guess, I guess that one’s just me.” He blushed.
“Welp, I don’t have much more for you,” Bluebird said, “but there is one thing in particular, I think, that maybe you’d have a better idea about than us.”
“He does have some exceedingly keen ideas about this case,” Pesco remarked.
“It’s about this latest book of Blanche’s, right?” Bluebird resumed. “What do you make of it, having read everything else of hers? Do you think it’s just a coinc—”
Bluebird hit the emergency brake. His mentor’s look of surprise had reminded him: They had promised Blanche that the details of her book would exist on a strictly need-to-know basis. Besides, Blanche herself was very protective of her works in progress, and so Girard wouldn’t have had any way to know about—
“Changeling Ringing?” he prompted, ears perked eagerly. “Oh, it’s just delightful, isn’t it? I think it has the potential to be her greatest work yet! I can’t wait until she—”
All the color drained from the griffon’s face as he, too, hit the brakes.
“Girard,” Bluebird whispered, “could you please explain how you already know about—”
“I’m not s-supposed to know!” he cried, exiting his silence as suddenly as he had entered it. “I said the wrong thing, I’ve s-screwed it all up, at the very last moment I s-stopped thinking and just blathered…! I’m not supposed to know…”
The griffon trailed off. The seconds ticked by as the griffon refused to voice any explanation in his defense. The cadet wasn’t sure a knife would’ve been enough to cut through this tension in the air. Even his mentor sat speechless, and simply cracked his neck; for the duration, the uncomfortably deep pops of his vertebrae were the only sounds to be heard.
Was this how this case was ending?
A senseless, fatal slip-up, and now the confession?
“If you just tell us the truth, Girard,” Bluebird found himself saying, before he even realized, “we’ll listen.”
The griffon buried his face in steepled claws. He was thinking, clearly—about the truth or about lies, the cadet couldn't bear to guess.
“The truth is…” Tears welled up in his eyes again, but these were not so joyous. “… I'm a b-beta reader. For Blanche.”
“Is that so? Like, you read her stories in advance to give her critique?” Bluebird asked. “Why, I don’t see the problem, then!”
“Would Blanche corroborate your statement, Girard?” Pesco pressed.
Girard turned to Pesco. “Y-yes, she would, should, but, but”—he turned to Bluebird—“the problem is… I’m still not s-supposed to know about… about Changeling Ringing…”
“And why do you?” Pesco continued.
“It was, it was a couple of weeks ag—no, no, a month! I just m-meant, a couple weeks before we came here, to the villa. I was, I mean, we were out for lunch at this café, because I had just finished beta reading Swords Crossed My Mind and she wanted to hear my f-f-f-feedback…”
“Girard, buddy,” Bluebird interrupted as Girard started hyperventilating, “take a deep breath for us. Okay?”
Girard nodded, and slowly inhaled through his nostrils before exhaling through his mouth.
He calmly opened his beak to continue. “Like I was saying, we were at this café—”
“Name of the café?” his mentor asked.
“Um… It was the Golden Pheasant.”
“Proceed.”
Girard looked sidelong at Bluebird, who simply shrugged. “Well, anyway, we were at the Golden Pheasant, and I was giving her my thoughts on Swords. But, for most of the lunch, she was occupied with writing the first few pages of this new novel she’d mentioned. Of course, I knew better than to ask her about it, even about the title, but, I was really, genuinely curious, you know… Is that so wrong? … And at one point, she left for the bathroom, and I guess she forgot to take one of the pages with her, and… I read it.”
“I see,” Bluebird said while scratching away at his notepad. “That sounds like an innocent explanation of things! Why all the fuss?”
Girard gave no answer, but still looked like he had swallowed a sack of bits.
Pesco explained on his behalf: “Because in order to verify his account, we’re going to have to tell Blanche he’s sneaked peeks at her work.”
“It was only the one time! … But, yes.” Girard hung his head in shame.
Pesco hopped off the bed and onto his four hooves. “No sense drawing it out. Let’s go get Blanche’s testimony. If we’re lucky, she’ll remember this outing you mention. And if not… I suppose we’ll have to go from there, won’t we?”
Bluebird drained the rest of his own tea. It didn’t taste quite as sweet anymore. “All right.”
As his apprentice joined his side, Pesco looked back at the griffon, who remained seated. “You too, let’s go.”
“W-wait, I have to be there when you tell her?!”
“Not per se. But I would greatly prefer to keep you in our line of sight for the time being.”
Girard grimaced, and clutched at his wrist. But he did not protest.
“Pesco,” Bluebird said softly, “if it’s just a matter of Girard being a flight risk, then perhaps I could chaperone him here, while you go talk to Blanche?”
The severity on his mentor’s face did not waver, but he relented. “Works just as well.”
He made way for the door.
Girard breathed a thank-you in the cadet’s direction. He then wilted at the neck, staring down between his legs. The cadet understood that the griff was simply about to break down again…
But the griff popped his head back up again. “Wait, Pesco.”
Pesco cast an eye behind him.
“I just, I remembered something… I mean…” He stood up with a claw in his pocket as he met the detective’s stern gaze. “I just wanted to thank you, y’know, for our little talk we had, w-while Bluebird was out. Um, I know I’m p-probably not in your good graces anymore, but you should know it s-still really… meant a lot to me.”
Pesco turned around just in time for the griffon to fall into his chest and wrap him in a full-bodied hug. The earth pony tensed up and his eyes widened for the several seconds it took for him to dismiss the griffon as any sort of threat. His body gradually relaxed.
He patted the griffon softly on the back and, with the same stony expression as before, said, “It’s all right, Girard. I meant what I said, and… you never left my good graces.”
Bluebird only ever saw them once in a blue moon, but he could recognize the signs of his mentor struggling to swallow his emotions.
Girard let go and sat back down on the bed, wiping his eyes. Pesco reached a hoof inside the breast pocket of his trench coat—Bluebird knew even before his mentor safely retrieved the syringe in question that he was doing his due diligence in making sure that the griffon hadn’t pickpocketed him.
“You should hold onto this,” he said listlessly to his partner as he examined the syringe, no doubt double- and triple-checking that it hadn’t been replaced with a facsimile.
The cadet nodded as he completed the hand-off. For Girard’s mental health, he promptly stuffed the syringe in one of his saddlebags. Out of sight, and out of mind.
Pesco stepped out of Girard’s sleeping quarters. A moment later, there was the sound of the door as he exited the double bedroom. Out of sight, and out of mind.
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At this rate, they're all going to be changelings. Or just caught in an unrelated but equally horrible web of lies. The big reveal will probably end up tearing off quite a few masks at this rate.
I mean, I probably would too, so...
Okay, Gloria, I can tell you're deliberately trying to butter him up. So just what are you up to?
Oh, these two are hopeless, Grid and Bon. It's so obvious what's going on there, I'm surprised it wasn't already common knowledge with everyone else.
I want to read more into this whole exchange...but I'm not totally sure just what exactly I'd be reading into it as.
I dunno, maybe it's nothing, maybe it's my own biases showing, but...something about this jumps out at me.
Hmm...this would imply that either Grid has terrible memory...or he's trying to hide what he was really doing that night.
...and yet I'm still not inclined to assume he's the changeling. Something about that doesn't add up to me.
Besides, I already know we're going to inadvertently uncover other secrets this lot has all been hiding that are unrelated to the changeling--that's just par for the course with these set of circumstances--so it could just as easily be something like that, serving as another red herring at play here...I mean, we know there's this whole thing developing with Grid and Bon...I suppose it could be something pertaining to that...
...or I suppose I'm just dead wrong about my past assumptions.
I guess we'll see.
That he didn't actually want to do it. So...interpret that how you will.
Well...didn't see that coming. But to be honest, I'd think Blanche would probably appreciate the strong admiration of her work (even if she's not that great at expressing it outwardly--kinda cagey, her).
Which makes this, like Blanche's book itself, a more than interesting coincidence, given current circumstances...
Still inclined to think that Girard's at least a changeling...maybe Grid's the still-hypothetical second? Or maybe it's actually neither, and we're all wasting our time pursuing those avenues of theorizing. All three options (and a couple more still) are still very much on the table. And I suppose there IS still Gloria to consider in all of this...that gal's definitely up to something. She's been coming across like she's trying to pull a few strings behind the scenes, but I don't know for what motive exactly yet...
11239460
Yeah, even if none of them prove to not be the changeling (still haven't quite ruled it out as a possibility), I expect a whole number of secrets this group weren't prepared for will have come to light before it's all over...but I'd like to think it'll be for the better for most to all of them in the end, even if it's rough handling the reveal.
And it makes sense anyway--this story is just as much a character study as it is a whodunit mystery.
I still feel like it is either none of them and this all hinges on something not hinted at, or it is Girard.
If it were Girard and Gloria already knew about him it would explain a lot. It could be that she was someone he helped escape (provided that the changeling passages actually happened and are not just Girard reading the book.) and she paid him back after he was exhiled by taking him in as a brother. This is why he knows so little. Girard originally left a wing fragment as a gift so that it could be used as a rubbing for the book’s cover, but he did not think it through and started the entire debacle that way. Zorn figured it out via his test and tried to warn Gloria, only to learn that she already knew. He is now cold to her because he feels betrayed for being left in the dark and does not want to ruin something he does yet understand by telling everyone else. It also explains why Gloria is so blase about everything going on. The book that she hid was potentially a book on lockpocking that she got for Girard who insisted on getting Zorn’s test after learning about it from Gloria. The only thing I cannot explain is the kitchen scene, but that may just be the musclehead being a suspicious for no reason. [\spoiler]
It kinda seems to me that everyone except Blanche is in on the changeling, and are trying to cover for them. Blanche isn't in on it because she would have reacted negatively (the rest know this thanks to Girard), and she was obviously the one pushing to bring in the guard.
Okay, I'm not going to be sidestepped by Gloria and Grid looking more suspicious now than they've ever been thanks to those slips of the tongue. That line from this fic's long summary about the changeling not being the only one to have his identity unravel... it's taken to the extreme here, and because of that, everyone's going to lie but for every other reason. Sure, Scolus isn't 100% evil, but I can't help but see him smile just a bit at how easy staying hidden may be because everyone is suspicious.
Still, it's now known that Bluebird is snooping around, at least to Gloria (I'm not sure if Grid is cognizant of that yet), who seems to be the worst person you can show your cards to if you're up against her, given the little we've seen of her past her talk about diplomacy and such. Whatever she's planning (or not planning; it's fully acceptable that she's just a mean bird trying to get through this alive), she now has to account for that.
So what's known now? Assuming that none of the suspects are the changeling, this is where things stand for their own arcs:
As things stand, I still say it's Grid that's the most suspicious because I'm almost at the story's midpoint and everyone else has shown some of their cards save for Grid whose only depth so far is anger that the changeling is driving them apart and confusion at Bon being touchy-feely with him as of late. I mean, it's hard enough to hold in your own trauma of being ousted by the hive without having to convincingly fake the trauma (or at least the inner problems) of another person entirely.
Stepping out of the mystery, though, it's nice to see the game of Griffonstone draughts come in again. I did spoil myself on that detail because the table of contents clearly showed the name of Chapter 13 well before I came close, but given how the story's showing its cards (or not showing its cards), I can't trust them at face value. Chapter 16 is titled "You're the Changeling" followed by "What Happens Now?", but given that Chapter 10 was titled "What Creature Am I?" and what I got there wasn't someone getting major suspicion on who the changeling was, I can't say with 100% certainty that the changeling would be revealed in those two future chapters... so congratulations on having intriguing chapter titles without giving away anything at all!
Other than that, it's good characterization for... Girard, mostly; I bet that I'll see Grid, Gloria, and Bon shine in the next chapter in his place. And given that this fic is its own thing without a series, Bluebird's mention of Pesco struggling to hide his emotions hints at something I should've called some time ago: Pesco's going to learn a thing or two here before it ends, though I don't know what.