Seungwan leaned against the brick wall behind her, trembling fingers pinching the end of a burning cigarette. It was one of those bad occasions when weed couldn’t quell her anxiety.

    She had spent the entire day, and much of the night, fruitlessly searching for Joohyun in the Astral Plane. Joohyun’s meeting with Eodum clearly wasn’t going well; her continued absence from the Galactic Lounge was indication as such.

    To Seungwan’s left, a door creaked open. Two gaudily-dressed, slender-limbed women emerged, followed by the thumping of an upbeat song from within the Lounge. Its ear-ringing bass made Seungwan glad that she’d chosen this moment to retreat into the alleyway.

    “Hey,” Solar said, accepting the offered joint. “How are things?”

    The question was made to sound casual, but Seungwan knew that both women were wondering about Eodum’s appearance last night. She couldn’t scorn them for their curiosity; Eodum’s presence had come as an unpleasant surprise to everyone.

    “Not good,” Seungwan said. “I haven’t spoken to Joohyun since last night.”

    “No explanation on the situation with her dear husband?” Moonbyul asked, releasing a cloud of smoke into the air above her.

    “We know what the problem is,” Seungwan said, thinking of the skinny, scared-looking monolidded woman that she’d seen galavanting around with her older sister. “That mortal Joohyun has been seeing.”

    “Her name is Seulgi,” Moobyul said. “We met her earlier tonight. She…”

    Solar and Moonbyul looked at one another, trading one of their cryptic, wordless stares. Seungwan snapped her fingers, regaining their attention.

    “Joohyun gave her a Charm,” Solar finished for her partner.

    Seungwan’s head whipped around. Solar raised both hands as if to defend herself.

    “No. She didn’t. You’re lying.”

    “I wish I was,” Solar said, hands still up. “It’s how Seulgi managed to escape from Eodum last night. She used Joohyun’s power.”

    Seungwan held back a gasp. Joohyun? Giving her - no, their - power to a mortal? How could she be so foolish?

    “And how did Eodum react to that?” Seungwan asked, effortfully calming herself. “I asked around in the Lounge before, but most were too frightened to speak openly of the incident. I figured you two would be more open to it.”

    Moonbyul hit the joint, checked to make sure they’d smoked all they could from it, then stamped it out under her heel. “He didn’t really react much at all. The mortal girl used some of Joohyun’s light-bending powers, looked like she was about to challenge Geulim Ja, then seemed to gain some sense and ran away. He didn’t chase her or anything. Just returned to the Astral Plane, dispersed, and things went back to normal. Sort of.”

    “She-” Seungwan paused, searching for words. It was quickly growing difficult to control her panic. “She tried to challenge Geulim Ja?”

    “No, no, thank the Stars, no,” Solar assured. “But it sure looked like she was thinking about it.”

    Seungwan wrung her hands, struggling to process the idea of a human mortal trying to stand up to the god of darkness.

    “She’s going to get us all killed,” Seungwan muttered.

    “Uh, here,” Moonbyul said, offering a filterless cigarette. “This might help calm you down.”

    Though she highly doubted the veracity of that statement, Seungwan took the cigarette anyway, allowed Solar to light it for her.

    “It’s Joohyun’s fault, of course,” Seungwan said. “What is she thinking?”

    Moonbyul and Solar shared another look, this time the corners of their mouths twitching in a frustrating harmony. Seungwan managed to overcome her urge to clap at them.

    “She’s thinking that she wants to get out of her arrangement with Eodum,” Solar said. “Or, at least that’s what we believe.”

    Seungwan nodded, filling her lungs with heavy, unclean tobacco vapor. Her cough reflex was suppressed enough by the constant , but was still tickled by the harsh smoke.

    “But she always seemed at least partly content with it in the past,” Moonbyul said. “At least for the sake of maintaining harmony amongst us all. Why the sudden change?”

    Seungwan looked away. “I don’t know.”

    The two Representations stared at her, searching for the answer they knew she refused to give.

    “Joohyun’s business is not mine to share,” Seungwan muttered.

    “When it starts to affect the rest of us, it stops being just Joohyun’s business,” Solar said. Moonbyul nodded along with her wife’s words.

    Seungwan crossed her arms over her chest, then turned away from the two women. “Nothing’s changed yet. It isn’t out of the ordinary for Eodum to visit his subjects on planets sometimes.”

    “No, it’s not,” Solar agreed. “But how many of those planets have been destroyed directly after?”

    Seungwan paused.

    “This planet is part of our home, you remember,” Solar continued. She hadn’t raised her voice, but the danger underlining her tone was apparent. “Eodum destroying Earth wouldn’t just affect the planet itself, but the entire system.”

    Seungwan glanced at Moonbyul. The violet-haired woman’s stance and fidgeting betrayed her uncertainty and fear. She couldn’t be blamed; if Earth were consumed, Eodum would likely kill her as well, just by collateral.

    “I will speak to Joohyun,” Seungwan promised. “I’ll make sure she doesn’t do anything to put us in danger.”

    If I can even find her.

    Solar nodded, wrapped an arm around Moonbyul’s shoulders. “I guess that’s all we can ask for, for now.”

    The two lovers departed then, leaving Seungwan to finish her cigarette alone in the foggy night. She stared up at the clouds and took another pull.

    Solar and Moonbyul were right. Up until recently - five years ago, to be exact - Joohyun had been perfectly fine with her and Eodum’s arrangement. Her preference for women was known only to a select few (a few who would never speak of it to Eodum), but for the good of the universe, Joohyun had chosen to wed him.

    Could Seungwan even be angry at her sister for choosing this path? Linking up with a mortal was downright stupid, but wasn’t it Joohyun’s life? Did she not deserve to make the decisions she wanted?

    Put in her sister’s shoes, Seungwan couldn’t decide what her choice would have been. Though the decision to marry Eodum would have been an easy one, Seungwan doubted that she had the resilience to endure what Joohyun was about to go through.

    Seungwan extinguished her cigarette, turned to the sky. Thin, wispy clouds streamed overhead, blocking the stars and the moon, throwing Bristol University into an unnatural, eerie darkness. It seemed an omen.

    What are you doing, Joohyun? What’s your plan now?

    Seungwan wished she could speak to her sister, try to talk some sense into her. If Seungwan could take Joohyun’s place, she would do so in a heartbeat. As the eldest, however, Joohyun had the strongest connection to the Astral Plane. Eodum had chosen her as his bride for a reason.

    And then there was the matter of Seulgi, Joohyun’s love interest. Seungwan felt both pity and contempt for the mortal woman. Pity for the horrors that surely awaited her in the coming weeks, contempt for her potential to put Seungwan, her sisters, and an entire population of Representations in danger.

    Seungwan didn’t want to intervene. Joohyun would be furious with her, and there was always a margin for even the most well-drawn out plans to go wrong. But if it came to it, she would have to. For the good of their people - for the good of their youngest sister - Seungwan would take matters into her own hands.

Grabbing her earbuds from her pocket, Seungwan opened the back door to the Galactic Lounge and went inside.

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Surprise extra chapter! I finished this one up quicker than I thought, so I decided to post it. Chapters 7 and 8 are in the works currently. Chapter 7 is the end of "Act 1" of the story, and also Sooyoung's first POV chapter.

Thanks for reading (: