Morning broke over the island of Tephra in bright washes of gold.

And Wynona threw her pillow over her face when shafts of light poured through her window. She was so sore, and so tired, and she needed maybe a lifetime's worth of sleep to recover from the events of last night.

Of course, because Loch was Loch, she knew she wouldn't be so lucky. As if on cue, a sharp, neat knock clapped on her bedroom door. Wynona threw her pillow to the side and sat up. She had bruises all down her arms and on her legs from the number of times she'd fallen last night. Ugh.

"Wynona!" Loch called through the door.

"Come in," Wynona groaned.

The door slid open and Loch, already dressed and neat as could be, stepped into the room. "How are you still asleep? We have to report back soon, I told you."

Wynona flopped back on the bed, throwing an arm over her eyes. She wondered what kind of freak of nature Loch was, and how he got to be so…efficient.  "I'm tired," she mumbled. "And we paid for these rooms, why can't we enjoy them?"

"We're on a schedule."

"Fine," Wynona grunted and  kicked her way off the bed. 

Loch smirked faintly. "I'll let you change," he said.

Once he stepped out of the room, Wynona peeled out of her sleep clothes and frowned at her uniform. It had gotten soaked last night and had only partially dried out while she was asleep, even though she'd tossed it over the window sill to air out. With a sigh, she got dressed, reminding herself to be grateful for Zale and Keiba still letting them stay here for the night. 

After everything with Yura, the innkeepers had remained kind to the Slayers, which was more than Wynona could say for anyone else. The rest of the village had given the Slayers a wide berth as they picked their way out of the rubble of the baths, even after Keiba had explained that they'd saved the village.

That was true, Wynona supposed — but also she had been the one to put the village in danger. Probably. She still didn't know how she'd done that, but she felt a little guilty for it. The baths would need to be completely repaired before anyone could use them again.

And still, Keiba had been kind to them. Wynona felt a bit ashamed of that too. Or maybe she was just ashamed of feeling so grateful that someone still trusted them. Whichever way, it wasn't a feeling she especially liked having. Maybe she should have just been content with a  simple lizard-catching mission. 

With maybe more force than was entirely necessary, she tugged on her boots and laced them up. Then she shouldered her small pack and bid a silent goodbye to this quaint little room. At least they were still getting paid for their work, she figured. And at least she could go back to HQ and say she'd helped save the village, rather than accidentally destroy it. 

Her license was safe. That lifted her spirits quite a bit.

Out in the hall, Trent stood beside Loch. Or, rather, he leaned against the wall beside Loch, with his arms crossed and his eyes closed. Wynona walked up and tapped him — gently! — on the shoulder.

"What! Ah!" Trent's eyes startled open. "I'm awake, geeze, Wyn."

"I was just saying good morning," Wynona grinned.

Trent made a face at her, and Wynona smirked.

"We have to go," Loch said plainly, picking a travel bag off the floor and slinging it over his shoulder. "I need to talk with the higher-ups about reimbursing Keiba and Zale for the damages at their baths — and helping them rebuild."

A fresh sting of guilt tightened in Wynona's stomach. License saved or not, she knew that she owed the safety of her career — and the fact that she wasn't in serious hot water with Loch — to Keiba for sticking to her story that no one was at fault for what happened. In fact, when they made it back to the inn, Keiba had said to Loch that no one could be sure what had happened, really and truly, to wake Yura. And wasn't that the way with sea monsters? They were mysterious, she said.

Wynona wasn't sure they were that mysterious, but Loch seemed to take her word as trustworthy. And Wynona was grateful for that, however guilty she might have felt. 

As they reached the front desk, Loch stepped up to pay, and Zale and Keiba smiled at all of them. Wynona gave an uncertain wave back, and glanced around. It struck her that, despite all of the chaos last night, the air of the morning seemed much more full of hope. She could see people bustling around out the window, going about their lives. That warmed her heart a bit. And then it startled her — just yesterday she hadn't even wanted to be here. But now, somehow, she was invested. Or she at least felt responsible, in some capacity, for what had happened last night. It was a relief to know she hadn't permanently damaged the lives of everyone in the Village of the Springs.

"I hope you slept well," Keiba smiled. 

"Very," Loch reassured.

"Yeah," Trent agreed. "The room was great."

"We do our best," Zale laughed. 

Wynona looked at Keiba. She had a big bruise on her upper arm, where Yura's claw had first hit her, and she sat on a stool behind the counter rather than standing. Wynona's heart trembled a little with worry. 

"How are you feeling?" she asked. 

"Sore, but I'm all right." Keiba smiled. "I have all of you to thank for that." 

"It's our job," Loch remarked. "And, like I mentioned, I'll speak with HQ about getting you reimbursed for the damages. Because the damage was caused by Yura itself, I can make a case for the Slayers to support you with the cost of repairs." 

"Thank you," Zale said. 

"What are you going to do about the hot springs?" Wynona couldn't help but ask. "You said Yura was what heated them, and now…it's gone." 

"Well, they'll just be springs now. Maybe swimming pools. The water doesn't ever get truly cold around here, unless you drill down far enough like we did for the cold water baths," Keiba said. "But the rest? I'm sure people will still enjoy those. A bath is a bath after all." 

"And we've got the Black Susans doing their best to see if they can design a heating system," Zale added. 

That surprised Wynona. How long would it take the Black Susans to make a heating system? It seemed like a big undertaking, and they were a small village. And their inclination to keep strangers out probably wouldn't help get anything done quickly, she thought — before it occurred to her that the village had been deliberately isolating itself for generations, and, as far as she could tell, seemed to be getting along just fine. Maybe the Black Susans were capable of more than she was giving them credit for. That startled her a bit. Claybay and Tephra always seemed so small and insignificant to her; the thought that there could be things about either island that she didn't know left her feeling a little less certain of herself. 

"Won't it take a long time?" she asked. "To do all the repairs? What will you do in the meantime?"

"Well, most of the baths on the men's side are just fine," Keiba said. "We just need to clean them out and get rid of Yura's carcass. The deck has a few cracks, but it's the women's baths that are really going to be unusable for a long time. Once we get the men's side in order, everyone will just have to bathe together for a while." 

That gave Wynona a moment of pause. They'd been so serious about keeping everything separate yesterday. 

"It's not tradition," Zale added, as if reading her mind, "but we'll manage. You're kind to worry."

"And it's only temporary," Keiba said. "People will manage for the time being."

"People do seem fairly cheery," Loch observed, watching other townspeople mill past the foyer windows.

"Oh, they want to all see what happened." Keiba waved her hand. "Nothing's more exciting than a good story." 

Wynona could believe that. She suspected not a lot of exciting things happened in the village. And maybe they liked it that way, but big events were still exciting. After all, she'd been so excited upon encountering, and surviving her encounter with, Pelican. She felt a bit of sympathy for the more adventurous people in the village. Especially that curious kid, Suna or something. They'd been so smart and quick on their feet last night.