Thank Goodness.

Vieve here.

You have no idea how utterly relieved I am. I don't know who participated in the Solstice for definite, but most of the people who I knew for sure were helping out seem alive and kicking, which is soimmenselyrelievingyouhavenoidea. Seriously, the Solstice may have been freaking scary for you people, but at least you knew more about what was going on than Chester and I. And not knowing things that are important, such as whether your friends are still alive, is scarier than the scariest thing you can name. Nothing is Scarier.

I was working in the morning again today so I could have the afternoon to breathe, and around twelve when I'm just thinking about going come, Chester comes in the back door, grinning ear to ear, goes "I'll be kidnapping Vivi now, we're going on a date."

You can kind of predict how that went down. Max dropped the empty bowl he was carrying on his foot, Leah slopped water all down herself, and Mariko walked in to see what was going on and started laughing.

They were quite freaked out. Is it really so abnormal for me to, I don't know, fancy someone? I am a girl. I may have been a Bifauxnen with an allergy to Y chromosomes in my youth and I may have never dated anyone, but I am indeed female. Meh.

Over to Chester.

--Vieve

You forgot to mention the betting pool on when we *ahem*.

(WHAT? I didn't know about that! --Vieve)

It's pretty apparent you're a girl if you don't mind my saying, Vivi. Either way, lunch was pretty damn fantastic (note to self: Max knows all the good eateries in Auckland.) and Vieve is a lot easier to be around now she knows most of her friends are safe. She's still distracted, but she doesn't need reminding to eat and sleep now. Also, she's a lot more fun to hug if she's not always tense.

Turns out I am invited to Christmas dinner with Vieve's family, too. That's another group of people who have seen this coming a while back. I've called Mum to ask if my family are doing anything on Christmas night (they  usually don't, we're normally more lunch-gettogethers) but I got her answerphone,  so I've told her I'm living with Vivi until the people renting my house find somewhere else to stay and to call her home phone as opposed to mine.

Sigh. Vieve and I have rented a Studio Ghibli film because those films are...just...so...so...they make me happy. We're going to eat dinner, and we are going to watch it, and we are going to thank whatever deity is up there, if any, that things are being relatively normal.

--Chester