It happened in the middle of the night, as it always seemed to. Billy drifted off to sleep at Ronnie's side that night, full with enough contentment and happy dreams as he ever managed those days, and awakened to a cold and empty feeling in his heart. It was a familiar pain, but more intense: his bond to Katara silenced. For the first time in months, he was completely alone in his head.

Since he'd spent the vast majority of his life that way, he hadn't expected it to be so difficult, but what Renne had warned him about once was proving to be all too true. Losing a Bond was as painful as losing a part of yourself, because that was what they had become, hadn't it? And he didn't have a connection left to help him through the grief this time: just Billy alone, as it always should've been. It left him experiencing an even stronger wave of sorrow than before, the grief Katara's presence had held back the first time now running free.
( Running from it all... )
((ooc: I know this is a lot of tl;dr bawwing, so it can stand alone. Replies are open if you really want to and your character would see for any reason, though---I know it's hard one to reply to. It's fairly quiet so that the cast can find out and react on their own time. He won't be in any mood to make announcements, I just had to write this while the energy was there.))

If there was one thing that Saber needed to do no matter what her circumstances were, it was to keep busy. But if there was one thing about her that remained a constant, it was her caution and reserve. Perhaps she should have volunteered for one of these missions on the various worlds, but the Servant remained suspicious of the whole matter... not to mention that she needed to find a long-term solution to her prana problem before she threw herself into anything like a serious battle. Her transient body hadn't dissipated, which meant she was anchored to the material plane somehow; it might have been that Stacy herself was Saber's temporary 'Master', as bizarre as the concept was. But she had no way of knowing what might happen if she pushed herself beyond her reserves.

She had kept her activities to a minimum as a precaution -- spending much of her time sleeping to conserve her pool of mana and searching out better meals than the unidentifiable (and inadequate, by the King of Knights's standards) mass Stacy provided for nourishment. However, she could not afford to let her skills deteriorate. She needed to practise. Fortunately, the Sensoriums were up to the task.

The plant-suit she had accepted as this reality's 'civilian attire' was replaced by the raiment of a Heroic Spirit: gold-trimmed blue dress and blue-etched silver cuirass, gauntlets, tassets, and sabatons. Yet, to the naked eye, she appeared unarmed; Excalibur remained hidden within Invisible Air: the Bounded Field of the Wind King. With her unseen sword in hand, Saber moved through training patterns with the natural ease of a veteran warrior who had known little but war her entire life... and even after her death. Out of all the mysteries surrounding her, at least she knew this. Perhaps things would become clearer with a little workout.