After his father's reminder about their unusual behavior, Alex and the group decided to act normally and not think about the things weighing on their minds. It was a near-impossible ask, but they could only try not to worry their families.
The lunch was everything it always was.
Loud, warm, unhurried, the table was crowded with food and voices. After a full year inside the Ancestral Realm, after everything it had asked of them, the battles that had no clean edges, the moments where survival had been a narrower thing than any of them would say out loud, a day like this was something each of them had carried in the back of their mind like a private promise.
A reason to get through to the other side.
It wasn't as freeing as it had been before. The weight was still there, quiet and patient, sitting just beneath everything. But the table was full, and the food was good, and for some time, they truly forgot the troubles plaguing their lives.
That was enough.
