Sable wraps her arms warmly and gently around Hyacinth, softly stroking her hair. She presses a soft kiss to the back of her head and gives her a gentle squeeze.

"I love you," she murmurs. "It's going to be okay."

"Yeah." 

Hyacinth closes her eyes and listens to Sable's heartbeat. 

Sable smiles softly, still blushing, and runs her fingers through Sin's hair a few more times, before wrapping both arms snug around Sin and closing her eyes as well. They've had a hard day, but they're together. They'll figure it out.

She sends a last burst of love to her headmates as a goodnight, then tries to sleep.

There's a sense of time passing, warm and close and pressed close together, a distant feeling of comfort and rest. 

Then Hyacinth opens her eyes and discovers that she is standing at the foot of her bed, fully clothed in her dress and shoes, and apparently has not fallen over from sleeping standing up. 

"Yeep." 

She takes a slow breath. 

"Thaaaaaat was not a good awakening." She looks over to her side, and discovers Sable standing right next to her, also fully clothed. 

She hugs her. Having Sable near fixes a lot.

This very gamified awakening process produces very jumbled Pirates for the first few moments of being awake. "What. Huh. Glrbl."

And then they process Evenstar's presence and someone manages to cohere enough to hug her.

They take a few slow breaths, holding their girlfriend tightly.

"Morning, sleepyheads."

Hyacinth squeezes the Pirates gently while they figure out who they are this morning. 

She sighs out a breath.

"We're going to have to fix the situation with the bed. I think couches and cushions don't do that; we can make something to cuddle on that's not a bed, and that probably shouldn't cause... that." 

Eventually they cohere enough that Hailey settles into front. She holds Sin at arm's length for a moment, exhales slowly, and then pulls her back into a tight hug.

"Gweh," she replies, eloquently.

"I feel that in my soul."

Hyacinth hugs, then carefully pulls away. She pauses and gives the Pirate in front a few moments to reconstitute from soup. 

It's one thing to be informed that her girlfriends do this every morning, it's another to see it happen right in front of her. 

She takes a slow breath.

"Hi. Hailey this morning. I think," she stretches and twists a bit, trying to feel a bit more embodied, "the extra discontinuity of waking up on our feet fucked us up a bit. Normally we're faster about it than that."

"Yeah. You sure you're okay? I can pull the colored pillows off the bed and we can sit for a bit if you want. Don't think I trust the bed to not... that." 

She nods and squeezes Sin's hands. "Yeah. I think being busy'll help me better. If that was Minecraft physics, though, it probably only happens at night. But no way to know for sure without testing."

"Let's save that for another time." 

She gives Hailey a little smile. 

"At least I got to spend a 'night' together with you all in bed. That's been a dream for me for a long time." 

She blushes and looks away. "Same."

"So! Wha'cha wanna do today? Explore, see the forest and maybe find the locals the book mentioned?"

"We're going to have to head back up that treacherous stair again... It wouldn't be so bad if not for the dark section in the middle, but, yeah. Can't avoid it forever." 

Hyacinth takes a deep breath and clasps her hands together. "I'll lead. I want to see what the world's like out there." 

Hailey nods. "I've got your back. Let's go."

Hyacinth unbars the door, and goes out to the corridor. The treacherous stair stares back at her. 

"Okay," she says to herself. "Let's go." 

She cautiously ascends the steps. 

She edges into the dark section of the twisting stair with a heavy swallow, and keeps going, sticking close to the central pillar. 

Then she bumps into something. 

It's shaped like a person, a foot taller than her — and she's six foot one — and completely black.

"Aaaaaa!" 

She yelps, fumbles away, completely misses the edge of the stair, and falls.

"Shit!" Hailey whips around and looks down toward where Sin fell. "Are you okay?"