[Tristan and Stephanie’s Home]

The pitter patter of bare feet running along the hardwood floor of the cozy, silent home can barely be heard throughout the house.

Jamie: "I need to use the bathroom next, Pauline!"

Pauline: "You know Timothea takes so long!

I have to go now, Jamie!"

With their heads laying next to each other on the floor, Isfet and Ichythis both wake up to the abrupt shouting of the bickering crown sisters.

Ichythis has a cigarette butt in-between her lips and she removes it, tossing it in her ash cup.

There is ash all over her large chest and sharp chin.

Isfet: "Did you fall asleep with a cigarette in your mouth?"

Ichythis(nods): "Yea, it happens a lot more than you’d think."

Isfet: "Isn’t that kinda dangerous?"

Ichythis: "I guess.

I mean, say what you want, but I’ve never fumbled a cig before in my life."

She knocks softly on the hardwood and chuckles.

Ichythis: "Don’t wanna jinx myself now."

The one eyed Isfet gives a chuckle back and reaches for her pack of fags.

She pulls one of the long sticks out and looks over to see her smoking buddy opening a new pack from her carton.

Isfet: "Jeez, you already finished a pack?"

Ichythis: "Two."

She sparks up the cigarette and hands the lighter to her friend.

Isfet: "Heh?"

The gorgeous Middle Eastern woman takes the lighter and ignites the end of her cig too.

Not very proud of the unhealthy chain-smoking, the orange haired Ichythis opens up her third pack from the 6 pack carton that MamMon DæMon had given to the both of them the previous night.

Ichythis: *sighs* "To keep it real with you Iz, I woke up a few times and smoked in the corner.

After the night I had..." 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

She looks at the blood stained orange floral cloth still wrapped and tied around her arm.

Ichythis: "...I couldn’t sleep much."

Isfet looks at the clear and obvious sentimental keepsake wrapped around the little sister’s left bicep.

Behind them, on the couch, the groans from a hungover Peyton awaking can be heard and a *THUD* only makes the pain worse for the hurting man falling off the couch.

Peyton: "Urggh, my head..."

Ichythis: "Mornin’, Party Boy.

Have a little too much to drink there?"

While the adults are beginning to wake up, the responsible Petra has a bowl of cereal in her hands and a DVD case under her arm as she calmly walks into the living room.

She puts the cereal down on the small table and looks around at her home’s guests with a cute smile.

Petra: "Good Morning."

Ichythis: "Morning, cutie."

Isfet: "Good Morning."

Peyton(muffled): "Uggghh."

Without trying to bother anyone, Petra prances over to the DVD player and opens up the case.

She removes the compact video disk and the machine "eats" it as she slides it in.

She turns the TV on and an anime opening starts playing.

Grabbing her bowl from the table, Petra sits down in from of the television while eating her chocolatey cereal in peace and quiet.

The most responsible of the quadruplet crown sisters munches while humming the opening and swaying back and forth.

The two smoking women on the other side of the room watching with smiles at the adorableness of the little black haired girl.

Suddenly, Bethany yawns and stretches her way into the living room seeing everyone else is basically already awake.

Bethany: "Oh, is everyone up already?"

She looks over at Petra eating her cereal and the usually lusty woman gets heart eyes from the cuteness of Petra.

Bethany goes cheek to cheek with the "Shepherd Sister", but fully engulfed in her show, Petra pays her Auntie no mind.

Bethany: "Ohhh, Pae-Pae your so adorable I can’t stand it!"

Entering the room, the silent Timothea has a bowl twice as big as her sister’s and she waddles over, sitting next to Petra.

The "identical" sisters comedically take bites at the same time but Timothea isn’t paying attention or fully engaged to the action animated show like Pae-Pae is.

There is a scene of someone being stabbed and blood is shown.

Ichythis: "Damn that’s pretty cool."

Isfet: "Is this appropriate for someone their age to be watching?"

Stephanie: "Petra has always gravitated towards these types of shows and cartoons..."

The rest of the living room looks over to see a freshly dressed, blushing, and smiling Bethany.

Bethany: "Good Morning everyone."

She walks over and pets Petra and Timothea on the heads.

Bethany: "Good Morning, Girls."

Petra: "Good Morning."

With a mouth full of cereal, Timothea looks up and nods with a smile.

Stephanie looks back over towards her guests explaining Petra’s specific interests in anime.

Stephanie: "Usually when we needed a break and had to put the television on for a bit Jamie, Pauline, and Timothea could watch whatever.

But, whenever we would put on those other non-serialized, loud, attention grabbing cartoons meant to distract kids, she wouldn’t be entertained at all.

Petra is a special little girl, she needs something that she can invest her mind into.

Before this apocalypse, when she was 5, she found out a video store in our town had a bunch of these shows on video but unfortunately for her at the time, they were mostly all subtitled.

Petra was so determined to watch these cartoons, she actually learned how to read by herself a whole year before her other three sisters did.

Which helped me and Tristan a lot when it came to helping the others."

Ichythis and Isfet raise their eyebrows, impressed by the mental tenacity of the young child of quadruplets.

Ichythis: "Wow.

All that, just to watch some foreign cartoons?"

Bethany sits back in the loveseat both the other women had rejected the previous night and the one she was hit into by Tristan.

Bethany: "To tell you the truth, these are cartoons, but some of the deep shit some of those characters say, makes you sit back and think sometimes.

I’ve for one, never given any credibility to cartoons because I always saw them as nonsense.

But sometimes I’ll catch a few scenes or watch an episode or two with adorable little Par-Pae after training, and sometimes even I’m caught off guard by reading the insightful messages within some of these shows."

Tristan: "I’ve always appreciated that about Petra."

Finally, Tristan comes into the living room, joining his guests, he is perfectly coordinated and balancing a completely full food tray.

The tray has 5 plates of the same meal.

Scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast.

As well as 5 full glasses of orange juice.

Tristan: "It was clear while she was a toddler, there was something that had ’sparked’ in her mind at an early age to where she was constantly learning and absorbing information."

Petra is still fixated on her program while the adults are clearly talking out loud about and behind her.

However, with the subtitles playing so fast and the characters talking in a foreign language while fighting, she has no time to focus any other mental energy on the conversation behind her.

The thoughtful host puts the tray down on the table Petra used for a moment and hands out one of the full plates and a cup to Ichythis...

Ichythis: "Th-Thank you."

Then he hands one of each to Isfet...

Isfet: "Thank you."

Tristan places a plate and OJ on the table next to a still face down Peyton, who gives his host a thumbs up and a muffled...

Peyton(muffled): "Thanks man."

And finally he gives the meal to a blushing Bethany, pretending like she’s playing coy.

Bethany: "Ohhh, Tritty you shouldn’t have!"

Tristan: "Don’t flatter yourself.

Me and Stephanie already ate, I’m going to leave Jay’s food in his room.

Man got home pretty late last night so he probably had a long day."

He leaves the living room and turns the corner down the hall.

Stephanie remains in the room and looks at her guests.

With a mouthful, Bethany stuffing her face, swallows her food and looks at her Squad 1 member.

Bethany: "So Steph, what’s the plans for the day?"

She takes another bite of food and swallows before washing it down with some OJ.

Bethany: "Didn’t you say we have to go and meet up with General Nephilim today?"

Ichythis(to herself): "...’Nephilim’?"

Even though she says it quietly, Isfet’s sensitive ears pick up the repeated name of the General and the facial expression Ichythis made after hearing the name.

Stephanie: "Well, umm Tritty and I had woken up early to make you all breakfast so that we wouldn’t be late, but there’s still an hour until the General is supposed to accompany us to Erebus City."

Suddenly, in complete xcitement of the main character finally beating the arc’s main bad guy in her show, Petra jumps up with her arms in the air and a tearful open smile.

Petra: "Get him, Captain Stretchy!

You got this!

Ahhhh!"

The older sister has tears in her eyes too, but not from the show...

Stephanie: "She’s always been so very impressionable.

It makes me happy just knowing that she’s happy, cheering for the good guys."