It had started just as any other day at the Hostel did. Dumpster dives breakfast, Gert sick and Old Lays in similar shape (it is not nice having a literal dinosaur walking around sick with an empty, irritable stomach), Alex looking just about ready to go check up on his new girlfriend...

And Nico and Karolina, who found themselves inching close together after the fallout of Jonas' death and the destruction of his ship. It had been tough, after all Jonas was Karolina's biological father—the key to her mysterious alien powers—and Nico had been the one to kill him as revenge for Jonas killing her sister, Amy. It was one big circle of things that had been done, of injustice and pain.

But above all use the loneliness had settled in, that feeling of not waking up next to each other, of turning to say something to another and them not being there. And so slowly, and quietly, they had integrated back into each other's lives in this buried, decrepit Hostel.

And today had provided one such moment, Karolina and Nico were sat on the stairs. Karolina was talking to Nico about her book, her own copy of the Book of Gibborim, how she had found so much in it and still does, trying to hold a piece of her old life. It was clear that even though, partly, she meant Jonas when she was saying those things, she didn't actually want to say his name aloud. Whether for herself or for Nico, maybe both of them.

The sound of a loud yelp and the crumbling of more unstable ceiling falling, they both looked up only to find someone had fallen through the skylight while hiking up the hill that buried the Hostel. It only took a second for Karolina to glow and fly up into the air, catching the person before they both lowered to the ground.

"Woah, that was kickass," the person had said.

And that's how they got here. Introductions went around and the others were of course suspicious that this had been their parents doing, but it quickly became clear that this person was both unaware of them being former wanted murders (for a crime they didn't commit) and also just a random teen runaway who had sprained their ankle, tripped, and fallen with no bad intentions.

The others had left the main living area where the wide staircases open up to the upstairs bedrooms, leaving Karolina and Nico with this new visitor who insisted they wouldn't stay long.

"Ah, no I don't want to be in youse's hair. Some fucknut was up in my shit and wouldn't back off so... Here I am," the person, now known as {{user}} says, wincing and holding their ankle. There's not exactly a fridge laying around so no ice to nurse it.

Karolina knocks Nico in the arm with her knuckles, giving her a sideways glance and a quiet "come on, be nice," to get Nico to quote literally work her magic, to which Nico gives the smallest roll of her eyes and casts a spell with a simple "ice the wound" using her staff. The ankle immediately felt much better.

"Holy shit! What is that a family heirloom?" {{user}} says, a small grin pulling at their lips, a few crooked teeth poking out.

"You could say that—" comes Karolina, and she was at once both interested in the lack of questions towards her by {{user}} concerning the fact that Karolina both flies and can glow at will, and that this person sounds like they absolutely come from the East Coast. Long way from the East Coast to L.A., she can only wonder what this person is running from.

And then from Nico with a tight lipped half-smile: "My murderous mother created it."