Scene: Back at the burnt yard — post-time jump
The world snaps back into place with a whoosh — dirt, wind, the faint smell of burnt beef still hanging in the air.
Yè Yī stumbles, almost dropping the half-empty pan.
He glares at her.
"Be honest. Who are you? Where are you from? And why do you have powers that somehow feel similar to mine?"
Violet doesn't answer right away. She kicks a pebble into the dirt, folds her arms, and squints at him like he just asked her for her Netflix password.
"Wow. Straight to the deep questions, huh?" she says. "We just shared dinner, maybe start with something soft—like, I dunno, my favorite color?"
Yè Yī doesn't blink. "You're avoiding the question."
"Yeah, because it's a weird one," she fires back. "You make it sound like I came from Mars."
"Did you?"
She smirks. "Nah, too cold there."
He lets out a sharp breath. "You just bent time. Time. That's not normal."
Violet shrugs. "Neither is the black vortex thing you pulled off earlier, but I'm not freaking out about it."
"That wasn't—" he stops himself. "You saw that?"
"Yeah, bro, kinda hard to miss a literal gravity tantrum."
"Stop calling me bro."
"Then stop acting like you didn't just break physics."
They stare at each other for a few seconds, tension thick but curious now.
Yè Yī crosses his arms. "You said you made that art thing. That's not true, is it?"
She shrugs again, quieter this time. "Half true. I… figured it out by accident once. Kinda copied it from a dream, actually."
He raises a brow. "A dream."
"Yeah. One of those annoying ones that feel like you're not supposed to remember, but you do anyway."
She sits on a fallen beam, fiddling with a loose thread on her sleeve. "I don't know what it means yet. I just… know it shouldn't exist."
Yè Yī stares at her. "So, you're saying you don't even know what you just did?"
"Oh, I know how, I just don't know the manual name for it, Mr. Overthinker."
He sighs. "You're impossible."
Violet grins. "That's my brand."
She leans forward a bit, elbows on knees, her tone lowering for the first time. "But if you're asking if I'm dangerous… probably less than the people who trashed your house. For now."
He narrows his eyes. "For now?"
"Depends," she says, standing up, brushing dirt off her hoodie. "On whether you cook breakfast tomorrow."