Shadow Link was sitting on a rock outcropping in a volcano's mouth. There was lava far below, but there was a lot of rock formations around that it was safe enough to walk. The temperature was down from what it would be in reality, but it was still rather warm.

He was in the shadows, watching a scene down among the steam. Not smoke, steam. It was created from a massive amount of ice the had been sent into the lava.

"I don't care," he said to himself.

And among a bridge of rock stood five figures. Four together, one a little bit away from them.

"I don't care."

The steam would clear enough occasionally that the figures could be seen. Oddly enough, it all appeared to be the same boy, but in different colored clothes. Except for the one separate, with different coloring as well.

"I don't care."

And there was yelling from the separate boy. The one who looked like him. The one who was him. Yelling at the purple clothed boy standing in front of the other three about betrayal for his dreams. Then the cold words from the purple boy who said that he could never give up the hero in him. That he wasn't as evil as Shadow Link who was evil enough to turn on his owners.

"I don't care."

And then the Shadow Link in the scene leaped at the other four boys and then was hit by a blast of light from the four swords, vanishing completely in the light.

"I don't care."

And then the scene would repeat.

What Shadow Link was trying to do was convince himself he didn't care. When he had been away from his world, he didn't care enough to want to go back. However, hearing that those from his world might also be dead...it started to get to him. Which was stupid. Why should he care that his owner might have died? That Zelda might have died?

He didn't care. He wouldn't care. And he'd relive all the reasons for why it was stupid over and over again until that insane idea left his head.

If one would look into the Sensoriums, there was a simple garage set up where a few people were having a discussion.

"I just don't think that Demon in Me works right now," argued Matt with Joel. It felt good though to talk with the teen even though they were just holograms or whatever, but the main theme was that Matt and the other guitarist were discussin lyrics.

"Well it's your call," replied the other. "What now?"

"Let's work on Will To Love," replied Matt as he started to strum. "Just follow my lead. I've got a few ideas."

"So many strangers on the street / Yeah and everyone you meet / Can't Relate, Can't Translate, Can't Create a connection. No..."

Robo had been spending most of his free time (which was, at his last count, ALL of his time.) scavenging around for spare parts and building something, sometimes in his room, and sometimes at work table in engineering. His device, when complete, looks sort of like a portable TV. He flicks on the screen and something like an infinite tunnel appears. After shifting it around a bit, he seems satisfied and clicked it off. This would probably turn out useful at some point or another.

In the short time since Mal's arrival, the ship captain had experienced pretty much the full range of emotions; he'd been at the lowest point possible, only to rebound and hit the highest point once he learned that his ship Serenity was on board with him. It wasn't enough to make him forget to worry about his crew, but it was more than enough to get him out of the funk he'd previously been in.

So, being true to his word, Mal showed up at the vehicle bays with Jo, ready to show off his ship. Except she was the real thing, not an imitation projected by the Sensoriums.

Whether he was able to actually let her fly his ship was another matter. Somehow, he thought that Stacy might not like that idea. Either way, Mal was in a very good mood. Having his ship with him was like having part of his crew around. With a large smile, Mal pointed Serenity out to Jo, unable to keep a note of pride from his voice. "There she is. That's Serenity. She don't look like much, but don't be underestimatin' her. She's a good ship, and she's served me and my crew well."

It was kind of hard to recognize Steve over the last few weeks after he'd gotten out of med bay. He was, for instance, actually in a pretty good mood-- so people who identified him as "the mopey redhead" would have only his hair to identify him by.

Today he did look rather pensive, though, as though there were something on his mind. And there was usually something on his mind, but the slow return of worry to his expression was easy to spot.

It was time for his usual meeting with Luke anyway, so maybe he could be coerced into bringing it up.

"Hey Luke," he said as he caught up to the Jedi. "How you been?"

Arha had left a message for Obi-Wan some time ago that she was taking the day to work on lightsaber crystal shaping. With the image of his crystal firmly embedded in her mind, she had begun tooling down a length of wormtooth and working it into a recognizable crystal-shape. The milk white crystalline mineral was finely cut now, hours later, and she sported several cuts on her hands and fingers from the taxing process. She began on another, determined that if something should go wrong with the installation of one, backup would be a good plan to have.

"Sallat Allah bi-kaswatay-h al-jaam!" she snarled as a razor sharp edge bit into the fleshy part of her forefinger. The translation didn't matter at all, and Stacy provided none for the particularly painful sounding oath. Arha half-hissed as she popped her forefinger into her mouth. Another slice to add to her connection. At least she clotted almost instantly.

It still didn't make the process fun or the wormtooth any better to work with at all.

After a moment of coddling her injured finger, she carefully used fine mister to spray off the blood and a small air jet to dry it before suspending it (which resulted in another slice and yet another curse) in the holders she had fashioned that allowed her to used the Force to rotate the piece as she was working on it. She sat back a moment, sucking at her doubly injured finger a bit more and scowled at the second piece in frustration.

This was going to take hours more.

Aeneas was very glad that he'd figured out how to work his comm ring.

He was standing outside the Pod Caverns, alone and staring into the seemingly endless expanse of off-color orbs. Against the humans he looked large, but here he was very, very tiny.
And nostalgic, ironically. Aeneas had little to be nostalgic about, and looking at these bizarre pods hardly seemed like a good reason to spur memories, especially from only a few days previous. He was kinda hoping they wouldn't.

Regardless, the pods were not the main things on his mind right now. Aeneas was trying to focus his sense of direction; and frankly, that was taking up most of his efforts.

Although, he was fairly amused by Mal Reynolds's claim that he would not be able to find him here. Unless this person wasn't a human—and his speech patterns strongly suggested that he was—he would find Aeneas quite easily.