The Friend approaches Condolezza and whispers quietly in her ear for a few seconds. She turns and lets her hair whirl past her neck while gazing wiltingly at him. He gives her a warm smile and a peck on the cheek, for which she simpers nicely, and crosses to Jen's table, toward which she is slowly returning from a surprisingly long visit out aft.

He hands her two horse-scale tablets of neon green, and gives her a smile of her own -- and exactly why none could tell, but was it a differnt smile? The angle of the jaw? The set of the teeth? The elevation of the left eyebrow -- it seemed, as some smiles do, to linger in the space resonating.

"Ginseng, B-complex, astaxanthin and a little aspirin. It'll set you completely right in three minutes."

She accepts them with a weaving hand, holding the back of her chair with grim resolve, and slumps down into her chair, throwing the giant tablets down the hatch as she does. Her eyes clear and her ears perk up, and she looks around.

"Thanks, Friend! Amazing stuff! Condolezza, I am jealous -- you write such beautiful songs!! Where do you get your inspiration?"

The Friend slips nightward once again, gazing toward the far faint constellations, smelling the night air with its delicate scent of magnolia languishing beside slow rivers, and noticing the faint trace odor of singed kittens...