Vle are funny, Mecora decided. It didn’t take much for them to make an excuse to have a party, and the proclamation was an example. Normally, Mecora would have welcomed any excuse as much as everyone else. But not this time. Not when her best friends were about to leave.
It seemed most of the townspeople agreed. Instead of an excuse to party, it had become simply an excuse to drink. A band played, as usual, but without the vigor and energy they usually had. In fact, they played a lot of sad songs, and love songs. The only people who danced were couples, many of whom were mixed.
Everyone else just sat and listened from the pubs, drinking their beers on their own seats. There was little trouble finding a place to sit this night.
The four girls claimed their drinks and sat down in a corner. No one had said anything since they’d met at the statue, and now it seemed to Mecora as if nothing was really worth saying anyway.
Apparently Handa thought there was. “C’mon, girls, we can’t say goodbye like this.”
“Why not?” crabbed Mereo.
“Well, we oughta toast each other, at least. It’s a big, scary step we’re taking. We’ll need all the luck we can get.”
“What under the Great Master do you need luck for?”
“Well, how am I supposed to get along without you two? You’ve given me so much advice, and so many fun things to do, and, and... Burn the forest! Why do you have to go?!”
There really was no answer to that, except perhaps some lame comment on her epithet.
Ueal and Mereo each tossed off another drink and slammed the glasses down on the table like they were a couple of laborers drinking away the day’s labors. Mereo sighed. “I wish it were all a hallucination.”
“Me too,” agreed Mecora. “I wish this glass could take it all away.”
“It won’t,” Ueal declared. “Nothing will. We’re just gonna wake up with this great big headache like we always do, only it’ll be nothing like the ache we’ll have after walking for five days. And the ache of leaving home, and the ache of living in the same place as every other light Vle in this whole burnin’ kingdom! I dunno, Maybe it’d be better to just walk off the platform. No problem. No, no problem at all.”
Everyone in the pub was watching and listening, but no one had the energy to say anything. Mecora decided she wasn’t gonna let.. let someone... do what? why? She took another drink and discovered it was gone. “Go get more,” she ordered Handa.
Handa stumbled off, and Mecora realized, as she hit a third table, that she was the worst off of the four of them. She must have been the most disturbed. Who? Was someone going to decide something?
The music ended, and the musicians packed up their instruments. Mecora thought about protesting, but Handa (miraculously) returned with the drinks. All four just set into their glasses; the sound of conversation faded around them as the patrons could no longer hide their voices in the music.
“This is really stupid,” Mecora commented in her best whisper for no reason at all. It just was, whatever it was.
“Yeah. We might as well drink brandy,” replied a white-faced blob across the table.
Somehow, that wasn’t what Mecora had meant, but she agreed anyway. She took another swig, and felt the blissful loss of worry, the loss of control... and the smell of something rather putrid....

The runningtree had apparently visited again and stomped on her head. This time, she didn’t even move, but just lay still as the room spun, and spun, and spun.
Eventually, it slowed, leaving just the headache. “Handa?”
No response. Oh, well, she’d just have to wait for her willow-bark tea. That, or get it herself.
Ueal was already awake. “I wish Handa was awake.”
“So do I. I can’t decide if it would be worth it to go to her mother’s shop myself.”
“No, no, I doubt it.”
“Yeah.”
A moan from Mereo said she was coming awake. “Is Handa awake yet?”
“No,” Ueal and Mecora chorused.
“That’s amazing. Normally, she’d be halfway to her mother’s by now.”
“Well, didn’t she have just as much beer as we did?” asked Mecora.
“Yeah.”
“Well, there you go. Her tolerance is lower.”
“By the Great Master! She didn’t jump, did she?”
“No, no, no, I can see her, right here, sleeping, the gentle rise... of.. her chest... Oh, burning forest!” Despite the hundreds of complaints from her head, Mecora got to her knees and went over to where Handa lay. “Handa? Handa, wake up, please. Please? Handa!” She couldn’t be dead! Not on top of everything else, it wouldn’t be fair, it just wouldn’t be fair...
Ueal and Mereo were beside her, helping in the attempt to wake Handa. “She might just be so unconscious we can’t wake her,” suggested Mereo unconvincingly.
“Oh, please, let that be true!” exclaimed Mecora.
An older man, apparently having heard the exclamation, came over. “A little too much last night, girls?”
Mecora looked up to see the town’s doctor, and nodded. “Kind of a going away party, I guess.”
The doctor’s eyes narrowed as he nudged his way in. The three gave way and watched carefully as he put his fingers under Handa’s chin. Then, he lowered his head. “I’m sorry, girls.”
Mecora felt the shock, but her nerves were too deadened. When you’re going to lose two friends, what’s one more, anyway? Only she’d never gotten the chance to say goodbye to this friend.
The doctor stood, and motioned to a man passing by. “Would you please go to Holice’s and bring her here?”
The man just stood there a moment, as if stunned at having to be the bearer of bad news. Then, he trotted off in the direction that Handa should be going. Not that man.
All wrong. It was all wrong! None of this, by any right, should be happening. How could something go so wrong, especially right under the gaze of the Great Master above? Unless there were no such being. That had to be it. Had to be...