Even with most of everyone gone off into their own little groups, and most people leaving Larimar alone at this point -- which was good, given ze'd gone off to get away from people in the first place, and had been more than a little rude to the cat who actually had tried to check in on zem -- the entire situation was still grating on zyr nerves. Ze was better, now, considerably so, but there was still... ze didn't know anyone, didn't want to know anyone, it was ******** late and ze wanted to either be:
1. at home, on zyr computer, talking to zyr friends, or:
2. at home, in bed, asleep and dead to the world until morning.

It was not a hard question, in theory. These were two very, very simple states to achieve; the only reason ze was not currently achieving either of them was the random ******** teleport to the a** end of space with a ton of random ******** people. Again, in theory, ze could have just found a place to nap: ze'd napped on floors before, when times had really called for it, when ze'd needed to catnap and catch a quick little bit of rest between other things.

But Larimar was too on edge and pissed off to even think about sleeping while ze was here, and that, also, was probably a great way to get literally stabbed in the literal back by either an overzealous space elf or an overzealous space robot. Or both at the same time, if they were working together, which wasn't the most unlikely option.

Had the robots even done anything questionable yet? No, not really, not that ze was aware of; there'd been nobody running screaming, no blood, no bodies. Killing could be subtler than that, and as an agent of the Negaverse ze knew that well, too - but there was no sign that anything here meant them ill, except for whatever the <********> Chrysocolla was on about and whatever she thought was going on. God, who cared? She hadn't done anything to endear herself to Larimar (who was willing to admit to zemself that ze was not exactly easy to endear oneself to, but never mind that, anyway). But, still, things liked to fall into rhythm and line; Star Festivals and Halloweens and Winter Holidays were always a little cursed, wrought with wild magic and non-youma monsters running wild in the world, and it felt like it followed naturally from that knowledge that the robots were probably going to try and kill everyone.

Everyone? At least some people. These were space robots, and no matter how much some of them looked like children's toys weathered and pitted by age, every time Larimar looked at them ze just thought about every single evil robot and AI in all the media ze'd ever consumed. The fact nobody had found a way off this rock - was that natural, just a side effect of being so far from anything on Earth and anything anyone knew, or was that enforced; was it a law the robots had set into place with their own technology, something no human knew?

It was a big universe out there. Too big to be arbitrarily skeptic all of the time. Ze tried to not think too hard about the cosmic aspect of the whole thing, usually, but it was hard not to when things were - like this.

There was still no need to go over and rejoin the group. Not yet. Not right now. Ze was plenty happy sitting off on the side and staring into space, as it went, and tracing the unfamiliar stars.

[wc: 609]