"It was actually very funny that both of you knew how you were related to Alexei but you didn't understand what that meant about your relationship with each other beyond 'we were friends' even after I told you!"

Eric lowers himself until the water is up to just below his eyes and huffs bubbles out.

"Now that you're possessed of regular thinking abilities can you shed some more light on what the fuck?"

"I'd love to," he bubbles, then humpfs and tilts his head back so his mouth is abovewater to repeat that. "But I don't really remember a ton? Like, even less than I remember everything else about my life."

"...I think I was kinda boring though."

"You were?"

"I think I spent my entire life as an elder in Sulani going to the beach and drinking mimosas? And mimosas are great, don't get me wrong, but I didn't... do anything."

"Huh. What changed?"

"Zach, probably. Even back then he was a lot more interesting. I think he rubbed off on me."

"Wait shit I fuck my twin."

"Uh. I. Fuck, should I have tried harder to..."

"That's just weird! It's so weird! Like if I think about fucking Alexei that's, ew, no, but Zach is different somehow, but I definitely didn't fuck James back then—argh."

"...I had this—intuition—that it would be really weird and wrong? But you two seemed to not mind it? And it was really hot so I convinced myself it was fine but if you say it wasn't fine I'm gonna feel really guilty now."

"No it's—probably fine..." Eric feels like his brain is full of cobwebs right now. "It's just weird. It's so weird!"

"Uh..."

"Let's talk about something else! Life expectancy, oh boy I am so glad I'm a powerful spellcaster and don't need to worry about growing old!"

"Well we'll need to find fucking alexandrite first."

"...right. That's why we came here... In hindsight I guess I agree probably it was a good idea but I hate it here. ...wait, actually, why didn't you just buy it online?"

Peter bonks his forehead on the edge of the pool. "If I could've found it online I would've! Trust me!"

"But I mean, how hard did you look, it makes no sense that you'd need to hiking in the Belomisian Jungle to get a random shiny rock..."

"I'm so glad you're able to retain memories now but I need to wallow a little bit in being bitter that you don't remember me saying exactly the same thing to you three days ago."

"Yeah fair enough."

"I assume you don't remember."

"I... remember you being conflicted about coming... But I don't think I retained the reason why."

"Well, yes, it's insane that it's necessary, but I think it is, for a kind of... unconfirmed hypothesis of mine. I think that alexandrite is rare because alexandrite is rare."