It had been Dabble’s idea.

Or maybe it hadn’t been. Maybe it was easier for Winterwing to blame Dabble, or maybe she had been just persuasive as he remembered, but something else had been pushing her towards it. He would never be sure. In the months and years to follow, Winterwing would occasionally have to speculate how much Dabble knew. No, ‘know’ was the wrong word. Maybe the word he had been looking for was ‘intuited’. He was not sure of the actual rules, because no one seemed privy to the full mechanics, but it seemed very likely, just through the nature of endless loop and echo, that Dabble must have touched something. A hunch, or maybe just a strange errant thought that bothered her occasionally.

It was Dabble that had asked where Emily intended to go, once they parted ways. Emily had an answer that was a non-answer. A transparent, simple response that was embarrassed and careful, but still made it clear she had no where to go. This was the first hint he’d gotten that she literally had nothing except the clothes she was wearing and the bag she was carrying, and the good fortune to have found herself in this city at the end of summer, rather than in winter.

There were programs, places for people without a place, and they would find what she needed. No one went without, not on Puckworld, not unless they wanted to. She would have been fine, or at least, at that moment, he was sure she would have been fine.

It was Dabble, though, who volunteered the couch, and did not even look at him for permission as she said it. She didn’t provide him a chance to object, and excluded him from the proposal entirely, as if it weren’t concerning his own home.

She was right to, of course. A night with them was going to be better and less invasive than anywhere else. Emily could still benefit from those things that would help her back to where ever she wanted to to be. Dabble was impulsive, but as uneasy as he felt, he could not find a reason to talk her out of it that wasn’t callous and selfish.

But, Emily saw that discomfort that he didn’t voice, and declined, and nearly made a clean getaway, back into the afternoon crowd. That would have been the last they saw her, and he would spent time afterward wondering what had happened to her. Maybe he would have even glanced at the news story of her disappearance, never making the connection that it was the person he had talked to one day.

Dabble looped an arm around Emily’s and dragged her back, as if she were an overeager child catching a pet that had slunk away. Dabble was inseparable from that arm until she had gotten Emily all the way back to the apartment, pulled off the bag, and handed her a towel and change of clothes.

Dabble waited until she was certain she heard the sound of running water before she dropped her smile, and turned to him, with the most stern look a young adult could manage, and wordlessly reprimanded him for having not extended the invitation himself.

There was no argument. He looked away, sullen and ashamed. Dabble had won.

Teal was truly the most patient person on the face of the planet. She had met his parents, several times. They had liked her, he thought. She had not been with him, that time on the road he had found a body, and he could not recall why not. Maybe she had been too busy, or perhaps he had been careless and forgotten to invite her. Maybe he had had no choice in it at all, and serendipity demanded that the skimmer, which would absolutely not carry three, be available for two that day.

Winterwing had told her about the day he found a girl on the side of the road, as he was sailing through the fields of golden grasses, in the corner of the world that time forgot. Teal had seen that old road before, had even enjoyed a lunch with him occasionally in the little town that was barely a town, buildings around an intersection of two old roads.

She had listened with mild interest, inquired if the girl had been okay. He had said he didn’t know. She nodded, but sat and stared at him, like she expected him to say something more.

Teal met Emily the day after Dabble adopted her. Teal harbored no jealousy, had given a nod and offered help with the search for a job that would give stability. She even agreed the extra room was ideal, having declined use of it herself some time prior, when he had offered it to her. Teal insisted that the next step of her life was going to take her off-world. She was trying to get onto a project that terraformed a moon, spoke about it with glee, and wanted to leave her things with her parents, not in his spare room.

Too much can happen, she said, while she was gone. It was not an admonishment, or an accusation. She did not like the commitment of leaving her things with him, and he did not like the idea of traveling in space. Too much can happen, he agreed, and told himself he was being sensible, rather than a coward.