~ PANDORA

The next morning, Pandora was just about to join everyone inside the luxury room when Howard called from somewhere behind her in the hallway. She waited for him at the entrance.

"Good morning, Howard," she said pleasantly, thoroughly aware that there were no mornings in the Underland.

"Greetings," he responded as he approached. "I was going to ask you something before we joined the others."

"What's up?"

"Well, I wanted to see if you would like to have lunch with me somewhere nice."

Gregor walked out of the luxury room rather swiftly and leaned up against the opposite wall. He gave them a small wave but seemed as though he didn't want to be talked to. Pandora gave him a wave in return before responding to Howard.

"That sounds great. I'd love to!"

"Wonderful!"

"You might be forgetting one thing," Pandora mentioned. Howard raised an eyebrow. "Don't we need an escort?"

"Well, no," Howard shrugged. "Although it's not a wise thing to go off on our own. Nike can escort us."

"Oh, I just thought... what Ripred said... it might've been something the Underlanders did," Pandora said awkwardly. "You know... escort two people when they go out... on a date."

"They have a super important war meeting today," Gregor chimed in before Howard could reply. He turned his head towards them, his eyes returning from wandering off into space. "All the allies will be there. I heard Nike has to go. She's the princess after all."

"But she would have told me," Howard said.

"They just decided on it now," Gregor said, pointing towards the luxury room. "Apparently some scouts saw the cutters advancing through the Dead Lands. They're not sure if they're gonna keep marching or stop again, so they want to be prepared."

"Oh no," Pandora said, a cold feeling rising from the pit of her stomach. She remembered when she first arrived, the cutters had started their invasion of the other creature's lands, and had stopped as a warning to the Regalians. They definitely played to what the Regalian's responses to things were. "I really hope they do stop. We're not ready yet!"

"Hopefully they don't know that."

"Yes," Howard said. "If they did, they surely would keep marching towards us."

"Only time will tell," Gregor nodded.

"Guess that means I'll have to go back to the kitchen and cancel my order," Howard said.

"What order?" Gregor asked.

"I asked them to prepare a packed lunch for Pandora, Nike, and I."

"You were going to go out to eat... like, a picnic?"

"We were planning on it, but now Nike cannot come," Howard said.

"Oh... hey, I can come," Gregor said, taking a step forwards.

"No, Gregor, we can't ask that of you. Luxa probably needs you at the meeting!" Pandora said.

"No, she doesn't," Gregor said. "She's not forcing me to be involved with the war... but don't tell anyone that."

"Are you sure, Gregor?" Howard asked.

"Well yeah, you did the same for me back in the day. It's about time I returned the favor... but, you now, without a detour through the Slag that will end up with us in the Firelands."

"Oh, definitely not. Thank you. That is kind of you," Howard said, a huge smile brightening his face. Pandora wondered if Gregor was being serious. Had Howard been an escort for Gregor and Luxa? How did that come to be? Better yet... Luxa had mentioned the Slag was no longer a way to travel on their last trip... so did that mean something bad happened on their last journey through?

"If we leave early enough, I think Nike can drop us off before heading to the meeting," Gregor said. "If the place you had in mind isn't in walking distance."

"I have the perfect place in mind. I'll make sure that everything is prepared beforehand," Howard said.

"Should we meet back here in a couple of hours?" Pandora asked. "I'd like to go back to my room and grab my backpack before we go."

"Alright. I'll get the basket and make sure Nike is ready," Howard said.

Pandora gave him a hug before he turned and walked away. "I'll see you later." She turned back to face Gregor. "So, did you already eat some breakfast?"

"To be honest, I'm not all that hungry anymore."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah," he said. Taking into account the way his eyes kept finding their way to the floor, Pandora could tell he wasn't feeling right. Perhaps he felt homesick.

"Let me just grab something to eat really quickly and I think we would have enough time for me to show you something," Pandora said.

"What?"

"Would you want to take a look at the Overland Museum with me?"

He seemed to perk up a little bit at the offer. "Sure."

"Great! Then after that I can grab my bag from my room." Pandora entered the luxury room and asked a servant for a bowl of porridge. As she waited for her request, she greeted her friends and the others in the room. She carried it in one hand and slurped the oatmeal as if it was a drink as she headed back out to Gregor. She smiled and motioned her head to one side, asking him to follow. Perhaps, she thought, spending some time with him in a room that made Overlanders feel closer to home would allow her to get to know Gregor better.

***

~ GREGOR

"Luxa!" Mareth exclaimed as he hurriedly entered the luxury room. Many people had already arrived and were waiting on the servants to bring them their breakfast. "Scouts saw the cutters advancing in the Dead Lands. We need to mobilize troops today!"

"Today?" Luxa said, her tone calm even though her eyes had a certain spark to them. "Take a seat, Mareth, surely it won't come to that so quickly." Gregor looked around at the other people in the room, noticing they looked just as stressed as he did about the news.

"What is to say they will stop? It is obvious we are not fully prepared for their attack." Mareth was right; with all of the inner turmoil amongst the Regalians, the army's defenses wasn't on anyone's mind for the longest time.

"Then a meeting must take place. Immediately."

"I'll inform the general," Ripred said, standing up without complaint and leaving the room. Luxa and Mareth were already talking strategies. Vikus and Aurora hurriedly made plans to tell Queen Athena of the news. Even those people present whose place wasn't with the army, such as Nerissa and Hazard, discussed it. Was Gregor the only one just sitting there? How could they possibly think they could get any plan into place so quickly?

The increased volume in the room made Gregor's head swim. Certain words hit his mind like a freight train. "Cutters, army, defense, soldiers, formation..." Once Gregor had a chance to process the words, however, all they sounded like were "kill, kill, kill, kill, kill." It made his blood boil. He couldn't take it anymore, and before his vision got any narrower, he stood up and left the room.

He leaned up against the hallway wall and took a deep breath. He could feel his rager sense slowly make itself present, and was having trouble reeling it in. If only he could have pulled Ripred aside before he left the room! Pandora and Howard were only a few steps away, talking. Gregor put up a hand to acknowledge their presence before staring down the hallway in the opposite direction.

Lunch out of the palace? Were they talking about a picnic? Gregor listened in on their conversation. They hadn't a clue about the important war news. They sounded happy, and Gregor very much regretted telling them, until he realized he had a way out of his current position: inviting himself to go with them.

Was it selfish of him? Pandora and Howard wouldn't think so. What about the war? Luxa told him to forget about it. She knew he needed help, and if he thought a picnic was a relaxing way to get rid of the aggressiveness of his rager side, he was sure to take it.

The picnic wasn't until later, and Gregor was still feeling the negative effects of his rager sense in his mind. It was oppressive, with horrible thoughts pouring in subconsciously and overwhelming him.

That's when Pandora mentioned the Overland Museum. He hadn't been there in years! What kinds of things had fallen since the last time he was here? He had to know, and Pandora was the perfect person to take him to see it. Did he even remember the way down to it?

He didn't know Pandora for very long, but Gregor definitely knew that Pandora was a good friend with a big heart. How could she possibly know exactly what Gregor needed to hear or see?

***

~ PANDORA

"I don't even know if I can remember the way," Gregor said, scratching the back of his neck as they made their way to the nearest stairwell.

"Don't worry. I've been there plenty of times. It's one of my favorite places in the palace."

"Because it feels like home," Gregor suggested.

"Well, yes. There's that," Pandora said. "However, I also enjoy my time there... because... oh, you'll think I'm silly."

Gregor gave a slight smile; it didn't even reach his eyes. "We've ridden on giant bats, talked to giant rats, and would rather hang out with a giant cockroach than any Overlander near our own age. Trust me, I think we have more in common than you think. I won't think you're silly."

"Ok," Pandora gave him a warm smile as she led the way down a corridor. "I've grown up with a passion for history. My mother worked with artifacts, so museums were always my favorite place. The Overland Museum is someplace that I can call mine. The Underlanders don't mind what I do with the things down there. I can distract myself with sorting through everything, and I feel closer to my mother than I've been able to in years."

"Do you miss her?" Gregor asked, his eyes on the floor. "My mother's in Virginia right now. She bawled her eyes out when I left. I don't know if I'll be able to go back."

"I miss her every single day. She died years ago."

"Oh, I... I didn't know," Gregor said. Pandora quite liked the fact that he didn't just automatically say "I'm sorry." It drove Pandora crazy when people said that when they didn't truly feel the pain she had. She felt that the right to say "I'm sorry" was only given to people who have experienced it for themselves, such as when she had said it to Luxa back when she had first arrived in the Underland.

"It looks much different than it used to," Pandora said as she waited at the door to the Overland Museum.

Gregor chuckled. "Lead the way." He walked slowly when he entered, as if soaking in the closet-sized room. Although it was filled to bursting with odd objects, it was also extremely organized.

Pandora laughed as she picked up a children's toy that was incorrectly in the bin with the instruments. "I'm happy to see that they try their best to keep this place organized. This must have fallen down recently." Pandora placed it in its correct place.

"Did you do all of this?" Gregor asked, gesturing at the neatly-lined shelves and brimming crates of objects.

"Yes. I'm not sure how long it took. Probably hours. Maybe days." Gregor slowly ran his hand along a shelf, making his way along the wall for a closer look.

"Nice. A whole basket of batteries. That's good," was his only comment. He sounded hollow. Pandora wondered how long Gregor suffered from his uncontrollable bouts of the thing the Underlanders called the "rager sense." She didn't even know if she ever had seen Gregor's true personality since he'd arrived.

"Maybe you'd like to send something up to give to your mom as a present? There's lots of antiques." Pandora started rummaging through a crate near the door. "I can have someone run it up to Rose. She still sends letters down. I can get your family's address from you, and give her a note to mail it. How about it?"

When Pandora looked up at Gregor, he was leafing through a journal, his eyes scanning the pages with a puzzled look on his face.

Pandora gasped. "Don't look at that!" She jumped up and practically tore it from his hands. She snapped it closed and put it back on the shelf where she had left it. It was one of the journals she wrote in... the kind of stuff that she didn't want other people to see.

Gregor stood there dumbfounded. His hands were still up as if they were still grasping the book.

"I... I'm sorry. That was rude of me. I overreacted."

"It's ok."

"No. No. I really am sorry. I should take better care to put that somewhere where people can't read it. No one's supposed to read those. You didn't.... you didn't get that big of a peek, did you?"

"I saw a couple things... but nothing that made any sense. You like writing poems, that much I got out of it."

"I don't write poems. The words just come to me. I don't take the time to carefully rhyme everything."

"But..."

"Yeah. I know it's in rhyme. I can't help it. I'm sure everyone's talked to you about my psychic abilities. Nerissa says I'm prophetic. All the Regalians think I'm crazy, and that I'm making fun of their founder. It's complicated."

"Trust me. I get complicated," Gregor said.

Pandora hugged her arms and turned away. She didn't want to get into any details at the moment. It was just too much. And too long of a story. She walked around the room, pretending to look at things or straighten things up.

"You know, I really would like to send something to my family," Gregor offered.

Pandora looked over at him. He was smiling, and it seemed genuine this time. She was glad that a trip to the Overland Museum helped him get out of his slump. "Sure. Do you need my help to pick something out?"

"Yeah. Could you help find something for my little sisters?"

"Of course."

"And could Rose also send a letter from me? I want to write to them."

"I can get you a piece of paper and a pen right now. Heck, there's a whole box full of pens and pencils over here!"