Sleep fled from Isabel Albright as the sun peeked through Billy's canopy. She kept her eyes closed for a moment though, more out of protest than from any real hope of re-capturing the lost slumber. It had always been like that. While her friends could sleep in, take long naps, basically goof off like teenagers were supposed to do, she'd been cursed with the ability to go from sleep to wakefulness in the blink of an eye. Worse, she was then unable to get back to sleep. It was a character flaw she'd tried desperately to overcome, but to no avail.

She was just gonna have to live with it.

After fighting her daily losing battle, Isabel grumbled and stretched and let her eyes flutter open. Once again she found herself in one of Billy's nest-beds, gazing up at a canopy full of blues and reds and purples that the sunlight filtered through to create a dazzling sight that would have had nature painters back on earth biting their brushes in half.

Yup, she sighed and sat up. Still here. The hope that all this was just some kind of crazy dream still lived in those brief moments between sleep and wakefulness, but reality was doing its darndest to murder that particular hope every time the sun came up.

It wasn't that she hated it here…

Well okay, it was. But to be fair, she'd kinda hated it back on Earth too. So, y'know, six of one.

What it really was though was that everything was just so dang weird. Every day seemed to bring something new that wanted to kill them. Or something that shifted her entire worldview a half-inch to the left again. Or something that was just plain stupid.

Like not having real toilets. She heaved a sigh and rolled out of the nest bed, then grabbed her own personal roll of toilet paper because she was not sharing that particular amenity with any of her siblings no matter how dumb that sounded, and headed for the area on the far side of the clearing that had been designated the 'bathroom'.

She hated that she had to take a friggin' shovel with her when she did her business.

When she got back to the campfire, everyone else was dragging themselves over to grab a plateful of whatever Mom and Dad had cooked up for breakfast. At least the food tasted good, even if it was starting to get a little weird too as their food stores started to lose the fresh stuff and now consisted mainly of canned goods. Canned chili and corn fritters for breakfast was certainly a choice.

But it was hot, and Mom and Dad had figured out how to brew coffee, so she wasn't gonna knock it.

"Morning, sleepyhead," Mom said, smiling as she handed Isabel a plate and a cup. The words were playful, because both her parents knew about Isabel's defect. She'd been the earliest riser in the house since she was three years old.

"Mornin'," Isabel grunted, then made her way over to a log and plopped down on it. She chugged her coffee–bitter and black, just the way she liked it–and started in on the chili and fritters. "God I would kill for a shower," she grumbled around a mouthful of meat, beans, and miscellaneous sauce.

"Best we can do is some private time in the river with soap and washcloth," Mom said apologetically as she doled out the cowboy breakfast to the rest of them. "Which, incidentally, will be required for some of you," she added, eyeing Lucas.

"What? I don't smell that bad," Luc protested.

"Luc, baby brother, you smell like socks that have been dipped in pickled onions and then covered in sauerkraut," Liv said, wrinkling her nose.

"Hey!"

"It's more like a kitchen trash can that hasn't been emptied in a week, and then someone accidentally made cheese out of it," Dinah said thoughtfully as she plonked down beside Isabel.

"Oh now wait–"

"If you fermented dime-store perfume in stale eggs for a month," Isabel said, getting in on it, "and then put that into a blender with two fish who hate each other, it would smell a little better than you do Luc."

"Okay," Mom clapped her hands together, "that is enough. Isabel, Dinah, Olivia, leave your brother alone."

"Yeah," Luc said, glaring at them in turn.

"And Lucas? After breakfast, you will go bathe. You smell like the worst parts of a camel."

"I thought all parts of a camel were its worst parts," Dad said thoughtfully.

"They are. This does not change what I have said."

"My 'brother'?" Dinah said, raising an eyebrow.

"You're part of the family, kiddo," Dad said, holding out his bowl so Mom could ladle in some breakfast chili. "Which means you are now the proud owner of a little brother, not to mention a couple sisters and a used set of parents. Or, godparents, if you prefer."

"What's the appeal process on that," Dinah said, smirking at Dad.

"I like her," Isabel said, pointing her spoon at Dinah. "Let's keep her."

"So what's on the agenda for today," Liv asked, very pointedly changing the subject. "We going out exploring again? I wanna see what is off to the east of us, start filling in the map a bit, that kind of thing. Oh and that reminds me, I took some time last night to check into this treasury thing, and we're getting a bunch of coins each day that I need to decide what to do with, and–"

"That," Mom said, interrupting Liv in mid-rant, "is actually something tu papa y yo have been discussing."

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"Uh-oh," Isabel said around a mouthful of corn fritter. "I know that tone. Bad news incoming."

"Not bad news," Dad said, giving her a Look. "But there are definitely some changes coming down the pike."

"I swear, guys, if you tell us you're splitting up again I'm going to murder you both right now," Liv said, and while her tone was light and teasing Isabel could see the way her little sister tensed up.

"No," Mom said immediately. "Nothing like that."

"No," Dad agreed. "That's not going to happen ever again. No, what we've been discussing–and what we came to a decision on last night–is how we're going to be living here moving forward."

"Up until now," Mom took up the narrative smoothly, and Isabel wondered if they'd practiced this or if it just came from being parents, "we have been acting and reacting without a real plan for success. We have been scattershot in our approach to exploration, building, training… Pretty much everything."

"Which," Dad said, "is understandable to a point. This is all new to us, we're all coming to grips with the entire situation, and for the first while we were basically in crisis survival mode."

"But now we have a home," Mom took up the narrative. "A place of safety, provisions, and the ability to stop and actually consider our next moves."

"And a list of things that need to be done," Dad added, holding up a notebook. "Not just things we need to accomplish in terms of getting this place up to liveable standards, but–"

"Is 'build a working toilet' in that book?" Isabel demanded, cutting Dad off.

Dad blinked, glanced at Mom, then with exaggerated movements opened the notebook up, took a pen from his pocket, and jotted something down in the pages.

"Yes," Dad said. "Of course it is."

Isabel rolled her eyes. Parents.

"The point is," Mom said, chuckling, "that we are going to be moving forward with purpose and planning, not in the chaotic and undisciplined manner that we have been."

"You're gonna give us chore lists, aren't you," Dinah said flatly. The other kids turned and stared at her, then, with dawning horror, back at their parents.

"Yes," they both said at the same time.

"I knew today was gonna suck," Luc lamented, raising his eyes to the sky. "I could feel it when I woke up."

"Tu papa y yo have worked up a rotating schedule for everyone," Mom said, holding up a sheaf of loose-leaf papers. "But it will not just be chores. Dishes need to be washed, yes, as do clothes, and we will all take turns at such things. But more than that. We will be building a home, and that will require raw materials. And those raw materials will then need to be milled and machined into their final forms so that tu papa can turn them into a house for us."

"We'll also be scheduling in daily exercises," Dad said. "And your mom will be making up various training scenarios and methods to help us not just understand our new powers better, but figure out how to use them and fight with them individually and as part of a team."

"Oh my god," Isabel said, understanding finally dawning. "You're not giving us chore lists… You're putting us through boot camp."

Everyone blinked at that, and then Mom got a little smile on her face and inclined her head to Isabel.

"That… Is not a bad way of looking at it," Mom said. "We will be engaging in various activities that will teach us all to work together as a unified team, both in battle and in peaceful pursuits. We shall learn how our abilities may compliment each other, and also what our weaknesses are and how we may cover them."

"We'll also all be spending time at each of the crafting stations," Dad put in, nodding at the crafting table and the forge in turn. "I want everyone to at least know how to use them and how they function, so that we can always be sure that someone can turn out materials when we need them, even if some of us are laid up or otherwise indisposed."

"And just how are we gonna learn that?" Luc asked, eyeing the forge dubiously. "I mean, they don't exactly have instruction manuals."

"They don't, but I do," Liv said, smacking her forehead. "That's what you're gonna say, isn't it," she demanded of Mom and Dad. "You're gonna ask me to dive into my Quaestor scrolls to find out how to use them."

"Si," Mom said, completely unapologetic. "That, and Toraline will also act as a guide as much as she can."

"The stations bear similarities to other crafting elements from the time of Mighty Caesar," the sword piped up. "It is not one-to-one, but there are enough that I believe I can be of use in coaching in at least some of their uses."

"We're also going to set up an exploration and hunting rotation," Dad said. "Because Liv is right, we do need to fill in the map. The more territory we claim, the more eyes Billy can put out and the more protected we'll be here at home."

"Hunting?" Dinah perked up. "How's that gonna work exactly?"

"No hunting except in hexes we already control," Dad said immediately. "And then only when we've got at least one hex of buffer between the hex you're hunting in and any unexplored hex."

"So basically we're gonna be hunting crabs for a while," Lucas said, examining the map Liv had pulled out and spread out on the ground before them. "'Cause anything else is too close to unexplored stuff."

"For now, yes," Mom said. Then she grinned, "I hope you all enjoy seafood."

"As long as the tartar sauce holds out," Isabel said. "I'll make it work."

"What about the elf?" Liv asked. "What's our plan for her?"

"Keep her comfortable and on meds as long as we need to," Mom said, shrugging. "There is nothing else to be done. We will watch her, and care for her, and when she awakens we will try to talk to her."

"And hopefully she doesn't try to run away screaming in terror," Dad added under his breath.

"Olivia," Mom added, looking at Isabel's little sister, "We will also need accurate counts of how much coins your treasury earns every day, and we will set up a distribution system for you to follow. We will also need you all to keep careful watch on your personal coin counts. We do not want anyone ending the day without coins in their… Er…" Mom hiccupped to a stop and blinked, suddenly at loss for words.

"We never actually decided what to all the place where we keep our coins, did we?" Isabel said with a smirk.

"I vote 'wallet," Lucas said immediately.

"Why?" Dinah asked.

"Because otherwise one of you girls is going to vote to name it 'purse', and I don't wanna be walking around telling people I've got coins in my 'purse'," Lucas said, making a face.

"You are such a sexist pig," Liv said, glaring at her brother.

"Listen, there's just some things that a man won't do. Back me up here Dad."

"I am secure enough in my masculinity that I would not mind keeping my coins in a purse," Dad said with a perfectly straight face.

Lucas made a face. "Come on, you're not gonna make me–"

"I vote for 'purse," Dinah said. Luc shot her a betrayed look.

"Purse," Liv and Isabel said at the same time.

"I think Purse would work quite well," Mom said, nodding. "Then it is decided."

"Well you all can have purses," Lucas growled. "But you can have my wallet when you pry it from my cold dead hands."

"You can't use that quote," Isabel said, jabbing her spoon at Luc. "You've never even seen that movie."

"There's a movie?"

Isabel just rolled her eyes and went back to her breakfast before it got cold. The rest of the family fell to bickering about chores and rotations and stuff as she shoveled the rest of her food down her gullet. By the time she was done, it was all over except the shouting.

Vacation time was over. It was time to get to work. Chores, ho!

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