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Okay, Chester, say your line. Stop trying to peek through the veil. Focus is your friend. There are no cameras, there are no lights, and more importantly, you have no mother. So start acting like it. "Leonardo, my friend," I put on my best smile, whispering at his side. "A word, perhaps?" 15:34

Credit to his venerability, the man did better than the rest at keeping his temper in check. But there\'s no softening that hard edge in his eyes, however.

"A word?" "More than a word, actually," I said, glancing briefly at Remelda again, crushing stray sticks under the soles of her feet. "Maybe… a little break, if you would so permit it, of course." "No," an immediate response. "The longer I\'m kept here, the deeper the peril Asteria falls in. We cannot afford to stop. We have to keep moving." "And move we shall, indeed, eventually, yes," I jogged ahead of him, and threw myself in his unstoppable path. "Surely you understand not everyone\'s a person of your exalted standing. We are not heroes, as such, there\'s no need for us to pace ourselves as such. You may be able to forge on to the ends of the earth, absolutely, but us mere mortals do not have your patience, temperance. We get tired, and we get grumpy. I suspect some of us, some more than others, have found ourselves grumbling into the latter." "Then do try and grumble away in silence," Leonardo said, marching past me without the slightest glance. "I\'m sure, you, \'mere mortals\' can certainly manage that." "Yes, but then what?" I said, keeping up with him. "Despite our best efforts, an argument sprouts, an insult taken too far, someone lashes out against their better judgment, and before we know it, there\'s a huge smoldering crater in the earth besmirching this lovely forest, and worst of all—that\'s effort and time wasted right there. An utter travesty that you, with your almighty capabilities, could so easily circumvent." Leonardo took another step forward, and not a step further. He let out a sigh. "With rest?" "No greater rejuvenator," I affirmed. "Let Remelda off on her own for a bit; hanging with humans for a time certainly does not do well for an Elf\'s spirit. Tressa aids you, but only reluctantly… a small show of generosity surely goes a long way to temper one\'s resolve. And my feet are beginning to kill me, and I spied myself a lovely shade beneath a tree close by. Surely a hero like yourself can spare some consideration for their fellow men, can\'t they?"

I left him alone to simmer with the thought. Ultimately, it was his decision, his judgment. I could only pray that wherever it was he was whisked away from, there existed a modicum of reason he took with him here. Leonardo slowly turned towards the rest of us, just a small shift in his expression commanding everyone\'s attention. "We shall rest here for now," he declared, the strength in his voice truly undefiable. "Everyone, do as you wish. We shall resume our journey at a later time." And there you have it. Issue solved, crisis averted, and with the deafening call, an echoing shout of \'cut!\' the scene had ended. I blinked, and it was like I just snapped out of a dream. Actually, a grand delusion more like. The vast, winding forest shrinking into a small grid of green grass and greener screens surrounded by an array of lenses and a sea of wires. "Good! Yeah, okay. Good enough," The Director nodded all around, coming into the scene with his usual round of praise and criticism. Mostly criticism. "Chester, I didn\'t like the way you paused at the beginning. We can fix that in post—but no more of that, understand? Make it natural, don\'t look like you\'re waiting on a signal." "Oh, leave him alone. He did amazing," Amanda said. She came forward, the light smile on her lips one of complete sincerity than reassurance. "If anything he\'s got a knack for this. Improvisation isn\'t easy. And with charm like that… I wonder if there\'s more where that came from?" She blinked musingly at me. "Maybe some you could spare for other times?" "Is this you hinting that I\'m usually boring?" I asked. "Nooo," she said, sounding a lot less convincing than she probably intended. "It\'s not that you\'re usually boring—of course not, you silly. It\'s more like, uh… you\'re rarely ever exciting, you know?" I fail to see the difference. "At the very least, I better see a lot more come the next scene," the Director said, staring me right down. "Terestra\'s debut. It needs to be perfect. Absolutely perfect. Which means you need to be perfect. Understood?" "I\'ll give it all I got," I said in return. Which technically wasn\'t a lie—just a simple matter of how much I had left to give at that point. But to him, fortunately, that was good enough; immediately stalking away to give Hayley and Leon their dressing downs.

"Are you okay?" Amanda took his place, standing a few inches closer in front of me, scouring my face all over like a doctor looking for symptoms. "And by \'are you okay\' I think you know what I mean by that." "Dunno, alright, I suppose," I said, shrugging. "I mean, how would you feel having your mom co-starring alongside you?" "Your mom isn\'t my mom," she said with a wispy breath. "And you definitely know what I mean by that." "I\'m fine. It\'s fine," I told her, shaking my head trying to shake off all her scrutiny. "Sure, it was a shock at first. But what the hell—I\'ve been shocked by worst. This is nothing. She\'s just another actor, it\'s just another scene. It\'ll all be over before we know it." I took my eyes off Amanda briefly to look around. A lot was going on around us. Members of staff in a constant ebb and flow, but even amidst the chaos and commotion, she continued to stand out above it all. Like she really was above it all. Mom looked like a splotch of darkness compared to everything else. Like a drop of black in an empty white canvas. Whoever made her costume desperately needed to come up and see the sun sometime soon. There she was, a little further off from where I last saw her. Dad and Sammy were with her now, and while Dad looked like his usual aloof self, Sammy did not seem to be taking Mom\'s new profession all too well. And while she appeared to be talking to Mom just fine, albeit, flabbergasted…I can\'t help but sense that her feelings went a little beyond that just being shocked. I remembered the discussion we had. About learning to live with what we know. About trying to see the best side to it all. It seems that way of living is about to be put to the test soon.

"You\'re curious too, aren\'t you?" I blinked, eyelids fluttering open to the sight of Amanda peering over at my family too. "Curious?" I repeated back. "No, come on," she turned back toward me, narrowing her lips. "You know what I mean." "Not this time, I don\'t," I said. "What are you talking about?" "Your mother," she muttered, her words soft and stifled with apprehension. "After all this time… I was just wondering… you know…" "Wondering about what?" Again, her gaze wandered over to that dark splotch in reality, that anomaly. And at that moment I understood what she meant. She wasn\'t just staring at my mother anymore. "If she still has it in her." And we\'re back after like a week-long break! Sorry about that. I was having a severe case of writer\'s back so I figured I should step back. I went ahead and read a couple of new novels to rejuvenate myself and it worked like a charm. I feel renewed now, and hope you\'ll be able to sense that in the writing here. Fingers crossed we don\'t run out of steam so soon again, eh?