I emerged from the bathroom to the view of Krysanthea and Nessy. The raptor was processing the husky’s rant-tale of our Mini-Mart bulbee summoning.

  The raptor-girl’s scaled features were locked into an expression of bewildered stress mixed with barely held in horror that would have been comical if she wasn't so genuinely disturbed. Her feathers stood fully up, creating a emerald-violet porcupine-corona around her head that seemed to vibrate with indignation.

  "Let me get this straight," she began with a barely concealed growl. "You want to recreate the conditions that summoned those... eldritch electric insects? And this will bring them here? To Ferguson quarry? The valley I've sworn to protect from exactly this kind of contamination?"

  Nessy, utterly unfazed by the raptor's reaction, nodded enthusiastically. "Yep! That's the plan! The bulbees will pollinate Sandwichu, we'll get more sandwiches for Alec's reconstitution, my Scrutiosmia and your whatever… and then we can fight those slimy baddies! Yay!”

  "No," Krysanthea declared, crossing her arms over the ‘I heart-paw U’ logo on her borrowed pink shirt. "I've already compromised by allowing that damned tree to exist here. Introducing another unknown System entity swarm is out of the question!”

  I sat down at the fold-out table booth, and started to sketch on a notepad I'd found in one of the drawers. My pencil moved almost unconsciously, capturing the scene before me—Nessy's eager, forward-leaning posture, tail wagging in enthusiastic arcs; Krysanthea's rigid stance, her scaled hands clenched into tight fists.

  "What about a controlled introduction?" I suggested, my pencil continuing to trace lines on the paper. "We can keep them contained within the enclosure with the tree."

  Krysanthea's amber eyes narrowed. "And when they inevitably escape? When they multiply and spread? What then, Alec? Will you take responsibility for whatever harm they cause?"

  "Yes," I said after a moment of considering her words. "I will. I will personally destroy any unauthorized bulbee infestations."

  Kristi pursed her lips.

  "Anyway," I began carefully, adding detail to Nessy's fluffy ears in my sketch, "What if… They're beneficial? Not everything Systemfall makes is outright hostile and entropic. Calvin said the bulbees were attracted to positive vibes. That doesn't sound too awful. Perhaps we need to learn to co-exist with some things instead of simply murdering everything?”

  "You want to coexist with… bees fused to lightbulbs?" Krysanthea repeated flatly. "You do realize how that sounds, right?”

  "No more ridiculous than a dog and a raptor sharing an RV with a reanimated corpse from another dimension," I pointed out.

  "Fair point." She let out, shuddering slightly.

  Nessy bounced to my side, peering over my shoulder at the drawing. "Ooh! That's me!" she exclaimed, her tail wagging with increased vigor. "You're drawing me bugging Kristy-twisty!"

  I looked down at what I'd created—a whimsical scene of Nessy ambushing Krysanthea with an enthusiastic face-lick while the raptor tried desperately to escape. The details had emerged without conscious thought: Krysanthea's dignified feathers in disarray, Nessy's expression of pure joy, the tension between them captured in a single, frozen moment.

  "You're quite good," Krysanthea commented, her professional tone unable to fully mask her surprise as she too moved to examine the sketch.

  "Thanks. My grandfather taught me," I said. "We'd sit out by the quarry on summer evenings, and he'd show me how to capture the way light plays on water, or how to suggest the weight of stone with just a few lines."

  "I know…" Kristi said, eyes looking past me. "I was here… with the other you. You kept drawing me, just like this… asked me to model for you. It was… nice."

  "Me too!" Nessy bobbed. "Hey, it's all about positivity and connection, right? What if you draw more moments of our pack bonding? Happy stuff! Like... us sharing breakfast, or Kristy trying not to smile when I make stupid jokes! Then we can hang the drawings around Sandwichu and the RV like Calvin did with his eye-drawings!" Her words tumbled out in a rush of excitement. “I think that's how a domain gets established!”

  "I really don't see how this would help with anything Systemfall related, but some art on the walls would brighten up this old ass RV," Krysanthea admitted grudgingly.

  "Yes! Draw us eating breakfast! Draw us brushing fur! Draw us sleeping in a pack pile! Draw Kristy secretly enjoying my hugs!" Nessy directed, bouncing on her toes.

  "Hey! I do not secretly enjoy your hugs," Krysanthea objected.

  "Sure you don't, scale-face," Nessy winked. "Just like you didn't snuggle against Alec all night. I can smell lies, you know."

  [Sudden Inspiration: Artistry! Sometimes defeating the Extra-Syntropic Agentic Rules of Reality requires a different kind of weapon. Who needs guns when you have pencils? Pack Quest [Of Nessy the Husky]: Establish your domain!]

  The System message flashed in silver sparks. Nessy yelped in surprise, nearly toppling backward.

  "Did you two see that?!" she exclaimed, pointing at the fading text. “I just gave us a Quest! Eeeeee!”

  "Yes I saw. Bloody fantastic," Krysanthea muttered, removing her hand from her weapon. "Now I'm receiving direct communications from the reality-warping cosmic entity that's destroying our world. Wonderful career development."

  “Pfff,” Nessy let out.

  Kristi frowned, glancing around the RV. "You know, I'm not entirely sure if this is an improvement over the highway loop. At least there I was being tormented by an incomprehensible cosmic force that had the decency to remain anonymous. Now I have an omniscient entity with a sarcastic streak monitoring my existence and sending me text messages." Her feathers ruffled indignantly. "It's like being trapped in a reality TV show produced by an eldritch horror with a liberal arts degree."

  Nessy burst into laughter. "Aww, you're so cute when you're existentially disturbed! You know, the System's not that different from the internet these days. The Ferguson web's just as eldritch—I was on PradStagram yesterday and saw an account that posted nothing but pictures of weird clocks and comments in a language that doesn't exist."

  "That's... disconcertingly accurate," Krysanthea admitted.

  “Still better than no internet though!" The husky said.

  "I suppose that is actually a good point," Krysanthea admitted reluctantly. "Our tech infrastructure should have collapsed weeks ago. Nobody knows why the cell towers and internet still function."

  For the next bit, I sketched scene after scene of our unlikely trio from memory, occasionally asking Nessy and Kristi to pose for me. Some were serious—Krysanthea with her ranger outfit and gun and serious face on. Others were playful—Nessy attempting to teach Krysanthea more dog facts, the raptor's expression that of stoic reluctance.

  With each completed drawing, something within me loosened, warmed. Silver, barely visible threads stretched from the art to us, connecting drawing to drawing like a transparent web. These weren't just illustrations; they were artifacts of connection, proof that even in this broken world, new bonds could form.

  [Achievement Unlocked: "Novice Depictomancer" - Successfully rendered emotional connections visible. Who knew pencils could be more powerful than swords? (The System did. The System always knows. The System observes all achievements, no matter how small.)]

  "Another one!" Nessy clapped her paws together, tail wagging furiously. "Ooooh, we got an achievement! That's good, right? Does that mean we get a prize?"

  Krysanthea squinted at the fading silver text. "Is it... sassing us? The cosmic force reshaping reality is... sarcastic?"

  "You have no idea," I replied, shaking my head. "It's got quite the personality."

  "I like it!" Nessy declared, bouncing on her toes. "It's like having a really weird, omniscient friend who only communicates through snappy fortune cookies."

  "It's not our friend, it's an extra dimensional entity infesting and destroying our reality" Krysanthea muttered, though her gaze lingered on the space where the text had been, a reluctant fascination evident in her expression.

  Nessy fluttered about the Airstream pinning the large illustrations to walls using sticky taffy she found in a box, stretching out the barely visible silver web across our domain.

  I carried a few of the smaller sketches to the corner where Sandwichu sat. Once there, I carefully opened the plexiglass container under Kristi's supervision and arranged the sketches in a circle around its base.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  "Now what?" Krysanthea asked.

  “Now we should manifest noms, for I am a hungry creature,” Nessy flitted over to the kitchenette. “Let’s make breakfast!”

  Kristi opened her mouth.

  “I'll make eggs n’ bacon!" Nessy announced, yanking open the small refrigerator and pulling out an egg carton and bacon package delivered by the ranger volunteer yesterday. "And Kristiskers can make toast! Team effort!"

  Krysanthea's eye twitched at the new nickname. "It's Krysanthea. Or Officer Strand. Or even just Kristi. Not whatever nonsense you keep inventing."

  "Sure thing, Raptor-snoot!" Nessy replied cheerfully, completely ignoring the correction as she cracked eggs into a pan with more enthusiasm than precision. Then she obliterated the egg shells with her mouth sending a few bits of shell flying in all directions.

  “Do you not know how to do anything without making a mess of yourself, dog?!” Kristi growled.

  “What? It's good calcium, I gotta chew them thoroughly. Also, if you wish to do the hard labour parts, then call me ‘Breakfast Commander’,” Nessy grinned. “Then I can boss you and you can do all the cooking!”

  “What? No!”

  "Consider this–messes are just opportunities for fun cleaning later!" Nessy declared, moving with such vigor that some of the egg sloshed over the pan's edge, spattering onto Krysanthea's borrowed shirt sleeve.

  The raptor froze, amber eyes fixing on the stains. For a moment, I thought she might actually smack Nessy, her scaled hand twitching at her side.

  Instead, she took a deep, measured breath through her nostrils. "Control," she muttered to herself. "Restraint. Discipline."

  "Those are terrible names for children," Nessy commented absently as she ignited the gas. "Ooh, smell that! Nothing like morning eggs to brighten the day! Sunny side up just like Alec likes them!"

  Krysanthea's feathers fluttered up and down. "I wasn't—that's not what I meant. I was practicing self—" She cut herself off, realizing that the explanation was utterly futile. "Never mind."

  Nessy spun back to the stove and smacked Kristi’s chest with her tail.

  "Could you possibly contain your movements to a smaller radius?" Krysanthea asked. "This space wasn't designed for your... expansiveness."

  "My what now?" Nessy paused, her ears perking forward. “Is this a big butt joke?”

  "No. You're taking up too much room," Krysanthea clarified flatly.

  "Oh!" Nessy's face brightened with understanding. "That's because I move with joy, lizard-bird! You should try it sometime. Like this!"

  Before Krysanthea could retreat, Nessy pressed against her, guiding the raptor's rigid arm in an exaggerated motion to the eggs. The look of utter mortification that crossed Krysanthea's face was princess—her feathers rigid with shock, her amber eyes wide with indignation.

  "See? Cooking with feeling!" Nessy proclaimed. “You gotta wiggle them so they don't stick to the pan! Like this! Wiggle, wiggle!”

  "Unhand me!" Krysanthea hissed.

  “Unhand me, Breakfast Commander,” Nessy stuck her tongue out.

  In a few seconds of silent staring, Nessy released the raptor and moved back to the stove to fry the bacon.

  The toast popped up, slightly charred around the edges. Krysanthea focused her attention on it instead of her dogged nemesis and retrieved the toast, placing the slices on plates with military neatness. Whatever her many qualities, the raptor approached even breakfast preparation with tactical precision.

  "Almost done!" Nessy sang, moving the eggs to a plate with a flourish that sent tiny droplets of butter flying from her spatula. One landed on Krysanthea's snout, glistening there like a misplaced tear.

  The raptor went cross-eyed trying to look at it, her expression shifting from surprise to resignation.

  Before she could wipe it away, Nessy noticed. "Ah! You've got a little something—" Without warning, the husky lunged forward, her tongue darting out to deliver a quick, affectionate lick directly across Krysanthea's snout.

  The resulting reaction was explosive. Krysanthea recoiled with a startled squawk, stumbling backward and colliding with the refrigerator.

  "WHY?! Why must you constantly LICK things?!" She growled, frantically wiping at her snout with both hands.

  Nessy looked genuinely puzzled by this reaction. "It's helpful! And efficient! Why waste paper towels when I have a perfectly good tongue?"

  “You…”

  "Look!" Nessy pointed excitedly at me. “Alec thinks it's funny!”

  I tried to conceal myself behind my sketchbook, struggling not to snicker.

  “Alec!”

  “I didn’t do nothin’,” I commented.

  Nessy giggled, returning to the bacon. Once it was ready, she combined the meat and eggs and sprinkled the food with what appeared to be an alarming amount of spices.

  "I didn't ask for—" Krysanthea began.

  "Trust me, you'll love it!" Nessy interrupted, delivering the plates to the table occupied by my person with a flourish. "Ta-daaa! Breakfast is served!”

  Nessy plopped beside me and immediately dug in, consuming food with the single-minded focus only a hungry canine could muster. Krysanthea, by contrast, examined each bite with a skeptical glance before delicately consuming it, her scaled fingers holding the fork as if it might explode.

  I bit into my toast, surprised by how normal this felt despite the utter strangeness of our situation. "The eggs are good, Nessy."

  "Thanks!" she replied, tail thumping against me. "The secret ingredient is love!"

  "And an unsafe amount of spices," Krysanthea added, taking a sip of water.

  "That's how you know it's working!" Nessy grinned. "Feel the flavah of love in your mouth!"

  "That's not a saying."

  "It is now! I just made it one!"

  I found myself smiling despite their bickering. There was something almost comforting about their constant back-and-forth—like the rhythm of waves against a shore, predictable yet ever-changing.

  Nessy devoured the last of her eggs, then eyed Krysanthea's plate where more than half the food remained untouched. "Are you going to finish that?"

  "Yes," Krysanthea replied firmly, placing a protective hand near her plate. "Just because I don't inhale my food like a vacuum cleaner doesn't mean I'm done."

  "You eat so slowly," Nessy complained. "Like, glacier-slowly. By the time you finish breakfast, it'll be dinner!"

  "Some of us have manners," Krysanthea sniffed.

  "Manners are just rules someone made up," Nessy countered, subtly inching her fork toward Krysanthea's plate. "Rules can be broken in times of great hunger."

  "Touch my food and lose a finger," Krysanthea warned without looking up.

  Nessy retracted her fork with a dramatic sigh, then perked up as a new idea struck her. She loaded her fork with a tiny bit of remaining egg, pulled it back like a catapult, and before I could warn her, launched it directly at Krysanthea.

  The small yellow projectile sailed across the table with surprising accuracy, landing squarely on the raptor's cheek with a soft plap.

  Silence fell over the RV.

  Krysanthea slowly reached up, removed the egg from her cheek, and stared at it as if it were a particularly puzzling artifact from an alien world. Then, with deliberate movements, she placed it at the edge of her plate and turned her gaze to Nessy.

  "Did you just," she began, her voice dangerously soft, "throw food at me?"

  "Technically, I catapulted it," Nessy clarified helpfully. "Throwing would have used my paw, not my fork."

  The raptor's amber eyes narrowed to slits. "I see."

  What happened next occurred so quickly I almost missed it. Krysanthea's scaled hand moved in a blur, scooping a small portion of egg onto her fork and flicking it with sniper-like precision. The projectile hit Nessy directly between the eyes, sticking to her fur in a perfect yellow star.

  Nessy's expression of shock was priceless. Her mouth fell open, blue eyes crossed as she tried to look at the egg on her face.

  "You..." she whispered. "You fought back."

  "A proportional response," Krysanthea replied primly, dabbing the corner of her mouth with a napkin as if nothing unusual had happened.

  "Ha! So you can be cudgeled outta your box," Nessy said with absolute certainty, rubbing her full belly. "Now… We must create some more positive vibes. Together! But first—" She pulled out her phone with a flourish, "—selfie time!"

  "No," Krysanthea said immediately, escaping from the dinner table. "Absolutely not."

  "Absolutely yes," Nessy countered, tail wagging so hard it became a blur. "The bulbees need to see our happy faces! It's critical for the summoning! And," her blue eyes sparkled with mischief, "there needs to be face licking."

  "I am NOT—" Krysanthea began, but Nessy was already beside her, wrapping one arm around the raptor's stiff shoulders and extending her phone with the other.

  "Smile, Kristy!" Nessy chirped, squeezing closer to the horrified raptor. "On the count of three, both of us are to lick her cheeks!"

  "Both of—" Krysanthea spluttered, but before she could escape, Nessy was already counting.

  "One... two... THREE!"

  Nessy's tongue darted out, swiping across Krysanthea's left cheek just as the camera flashed. The raptor let out a high-pitched, indignant squawk.

  "Alec! I said both! Where's your lick?" Nessy yelled at me.

  “I'm not a dog,” I hesitated, looking at Krysanthea's stunned and somewhat murderous expression.

  “Not with that attitude,” Nessy huffed. “Come on, you square, we gotta generate the vibes harder. You want to wait a thousand years for new sammiches? I don’t!”

  With a small sigh, I relocated to where they were standing, leaned in and delivered the quickest, lightest lick possible to Krysanthea's other cheek. She tasted less like human skin and more like soft leather. Nessy’s phone camera clicked, capturing the raptor’s expression of pure, dignified suffering.

  "Wonderful!" Nessy exclaimed, examining the photos. "Now Kristy has to lick us!"

  "I most certainly do not," the raptor hissed, her feathers fully extended in alarm.

  "It's for the ritual," Nessy insisted. "The bulbees need to see mutual affection! Reciprocity! Pack bonding through shared saliva!"

  "No! It's gross and I'm not doing it," Krysanthea muttered.

  "Come on, Kristy," Nessy cajoled, positioning her phone again. "Just one quick lick. For the greater good of Ferguson. To save your town from acid slimes."

  With a look that promised future retribution, Krysanthea leaned forward. "Fine," she growled. "But if either of you ever mentions this again, I will personally ensure that you're assigned to toxic waste cleanup duty for the remainder of your natural lives."

  “Uh-huh.”

  I winced as the raptor's thinner tongue flicked out, making the briefest possible contact with my cheek. The sensation was strange—slightly rough, oddly cool, and over almost before it began.

  "Now do me!" Nessy exclaimed, bouncing in place and positioning her furry cheek directly in front of Krysanthea's snout.

  With a look of profound resignation, Krysanthea delivered an equally brief lick to Nessy's fur, her amber eyes squeezed shut as if enduring physical pain. The camera clicked several times in rapid succession, Nessy clearly determined to document this historic moment from multiple angles.

  "Perfect!" she declared, reviewing the photos with unconcealed glee. "Look at us! We're adorable! Kristy, you look like you're tasting something that's already killed you once!"

  "That's because I am," the raptor muttered darkly. “This is killing me on the inside.”

  "Don't be such a drama-li-zard," Nessy giggled. "Now for the pièce de résistance—group selfie with all of us licking each other simultaneously!"

  "That's physically impossible," I pointed out.

  "Not with sufficient closeness, the right attitude and extreme flexibility," Nessy countered, but relented at our expressions. "Fine, fine. Just a normal selfie with smiles. You both know how to smile, right?"

  Somehow, she managed to corral us into a tight group, Nessy in the middle with one arm around each of us, her phone held at the perfect angle to capture all three of our faces. After several attempts—most of which featured Krysanthea looking like she was being held hostage—we finally captured one decent image where we all looked, if not happy, at least not actively miserable.

  "These are freakin’ GREAT for a start!" Nessy declared, flopping onto the bed nest and scrolling through her selfie collection. "The bulbees are going to LOVE us!”

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