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Tensions are high in Neverland.

Not even four years ago, the Hounds had taken advantage of the crisis of the water-systems to advance their own goals, driving many people away from resources to make a quick play for power. Now the air rippled with the careful tension of a gas buildup before a cycler explosion below decks, and it didn’t look like anyone cared to clear it before it blew up in their faces.

No one cared about the Lost, they said. But the Lost were the words on everyone’s lips, their names and deeds alike. When there was trouble, they said the Lost did it. Come to find out, a lot of the kids causing the trouble were doing it for good reasons, or at least reasons that felt justified to a lot more people than just them. Some of them joined the Lost, when Pan figured out who had done it and tracked them down to speak with them face-to-face. It was better than letting them punch away at civvies who didn’t know any better and had been parroting things the Hounds had been saying about Troublemakers, the Kids Like Them (barring that a lot of those Kids were fully adults, these days).

Now, though… The Hounds were so entrenched that Lav watched as the barman accidentally added a sound to her name that, as of late, had come to mean “young alternative woman”, diminutive. She had only ever heard it on the lips of Hounds, and had a feeling she knew who he had been talking to. The barman flinched back, seemingly expecting a fist in his face, but Lav just smiled at him, tipped her hat, and turned back to her friends at the table with the drinks. Used to be, nobody flinched when speaking to her. Used to be, folks had a reciprocal understanding of respect, she thought. Well, maybe not everyone. She paused, turning the details of this thought over in her head like a ventsquirrel on a stick, and discarded it with a shrug.

Hounds didn’t show their teeth around the Saintslow. They knew they didn’t have a toehold with the everyman here- not after the last Hound in command of the zone had been run out of his office by an armed and angry mob- but they were still slouching around, silent-like. Even now, she had her eye on a trio of men slouched over a table, muttering to each other and throwing glances over their shoulders at the Lost table, which was crowded with a joyous riot of color and celebration, a display of Lost pride.

The kids were just happy to be home, Lav knew, but she also knew that the boys at their own little table were scared of them. So she didn’t pay them any mind, except to glance at Rickshaw as she sat back down. She nodded, he nodded back to her and looked back at the other table, and a mutual understanding and agreement flit between the two. Rickshaw leant back, away from the group, folding his arms as he watched the bar. Lav leant in, seizing an opening in the conversation to jump in and entertain. Someone had to keep the party going…

The boys left, after a time, she noted. She also noted that they had been armed. More folks were packing heat, these days. More than she was used to. And she suspected, soon, that somebody among the Hounds- perhaps higher up- would find a reason to use those willing hands, the eager trigger fingers, and come raining down on all those poor chumps in Trunk Central government, who, pitifully, believed that Lawring Policy would do a wit to help things.

Lav knew that Lawring Policy only ever got updated to sidle alongside the will of the people, saying, “see, I was here all along”, or to justify darker things. She could feel some darker things coming, these days.

Not tonight, though. Tonight, the day was long and dark and full of song, and there were those who sang it, making merry. Tonight, it felt as there was no world outside these walls, and those within them had to hold on, to drink deeply and be happy, for it was their truth and right to do so. Lav was glad to count another night like this among her number.

She raised her glass in some tireless toast, and others raised theirs to her own.

“May we never let a day of peace be weary,” she said, and the Lost shouted with her, “DRINK!”

The glasses clinked, and tipped, and Lav settled back, hoping for another night like this, that tomorrow’d be another day, that she wouldn’t look around and see faces missing the next night spent in their company.

Tonight, Lav drank. Of water cool and deep, knowing each the Lost at her table would die for freedom, to protect each other.

She dreaded it, that fact.