Hushed Willows our time will come, too

maybe the reason he feels compelled to "help" poor mali and brilliance is they remind him of himself and ibby, a  little--crueler, harsher versions, true, but the same stalwart sense of loyalty to each other no matter what. and so it's only natural that brilliance appears to back her brother up. her teasing gets lost on him--well, yeah, that is what he's trying to do!--but mali's apparent misunderstanding he can address. "oh!" he starts, "no, it's--"

he's cut off by the sudden intrusion of eleuthera, tall and accusing. though not aimed at him he shrinks a tiny bit anyway, feeling rather that she isn't helping. to make matters worse, mama calls again, more insistently, and he knows their absence must be felt. "oh, ellie," he says, pleadingly, "they don't gots to get in trouble, we just needa all go together." 

of course, the way mali and brilliance are posturing at them suggests thats still unlikely. between the two of them, okeanos has found brilliance to be...slightly more tolerant of him (though he WILL make mali friends with him one day, just you wait), so he turns toward her imploringly. "i'unno why mama's callin' but she'll be worried if we aren' there," okeanos tries, quite reasonably in his opinion, "an -- an i bet your papa, too."

-----

speaking of papa:

delight, like everyine else, has noticed the failure of his children and seabreeze's son to appear. still on edge from the loss of solomon, his mind immediately jumps to worst case scenarios, vivid and horrifying. they've left him too, sick of his failures as a parent. or they've gotten lost, or been kidnapped, or fallen ill again -- that they simply are rebellious teens does not cross his mind in his fluster.

brilliant seabreeze summons him to follow her -- with a slightly apologetic look at the rest of elysium he follows. he makes the same realization as seabreeze and feels his heart stop--the worst possible scenario of all, his children still unable to reconcile with seabreeze's brood. every instinct in him screams intervene you fool!!! but here too he defers to his friend's lead, settle in to observe, albeit with a comically anxious expression.