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Solstice

Marcus had experienced something no one in this universe should experience-- his eyeballs being licked by Purple, but it looked like both of them were equally weirded out by it, so there's that. And that's how Marcus learned why Stephanie had normal-looking eyes.

Purple had been running around in his body all day, but now that it was close to the event, he teleported him away from the house for a bit to do this weird thing so that a wisp could seamlessly replace Marcus in case of danger without giving it away that such a replacement had happened.

"Why couldn't you do this without me in--" Marcus asked.

It dawned on Purple that Marcus was right. "Sorry, I didn't think of it," he said turning a bit red.

Marcus chuckled-- ok, maybe it was worth to go through something weird just to see Purple mess up with something because he hadn't yet seen that. Agari kissing Stephanie had stunned Purple, but that couldn't be counted as a mess-up per se.

Purple let out a breath and teleported Marcus to his room in the lake-house and moments later, though his window, Marcus could see how Purple's mythical beast form looked like--

Holy--

Purple did take on a human shape right away, but what was that even. Tharurun didn't trust Purple, but he had never seen Purple up close either. Purple was mountain-sized, scary as hell worm in poisonous purple color and white cloudy eyes - if Marcus hadn't seen Purple make all those amusing expressions thanks to Stephanie he would feel afraid, but, now he didn't.

When Marcus ran downstairs and right up to Stephanie, he heard something he wished he had not.

"Shucks, I didn't get to touch him," said his sister with a mortified expression in answer to something Dad had asked.

Purple had teleported in too far from them and transformed before any touching could happen. Well, Marcus was happy that Purple had found a girl who wanted to touch his worm form, but he had complex feelings about his sister's tastes.

Was that why she was disappointed to see him look human-ish? Just what sort of thing had Stephanie expected really?

More mythical beasts of all kinds kept teleporting in or flying in, or swimming in, most of them - figures he had already met at the concert. It looked like Mandy was so drunk she could barely walk straight, and August was so amused that he looked like a regular dryad, as he followed along Mandy giving drinks and snacks to everyone who arrived.

Mandy kept telling inappropriate jokes along the lines of -

"What did one butt cheek tell to another?" - "Together we can stop this shit."

Most were stunned, but then Mandy laughed and they couldn't help but laugh along with her.

And then Marcus overheard two arachnes talking. "Is it me or is August Galord a dryad?" "50-50, I'd say" another added. "Let's see when he's drunk."

And soon enough Mandy did get him drunk and it took no presence concealment to fall off, no other give-aways, when August started playing drunk-tag with Riveria a lot of people exchanged amused looks. They knew.

That's when Marcus had a feeling someone had their eyes on him, so he excused himself and ran to the house, snapping his fingers part-way and heading in the Boundary Cafe. Was it him or had the place both expanded and gained more visitors?

A team of three child-like Aheals were up on the stage playing drums and many were having typical Ureal Solstice snacks from all kinds of places and just enjoying themselves.

Marcus spotted Lauren and figured he might as well ask how were things going with those aether distortion devices. She noticed him coming and pointed at the seat next to her.