Yoshi looked over sleepily as the door opened and Liya let herself back in. The star-spangled black flames were almost gone; the only remnant of them was in Yoshi's hair, which was only half corporeal. The rest of her dark locks flowed upward and outward like smoke, drifting towards the ceiling.

She squinted at Liya for a long second, clearly only just awake. Then a strand of hair came free over her shoulder and drifted across her face, startling her, and she scrambled to sit up.

"Ah--s-sorry," she stammered, hastily finger-combing her hair. The motion did seem to work; as she fussed with it, the smokiness of it seemed to gradually condense down into a solid. "I took up the whole room again, didn't I..."

But Liya flung herself down onto the bed, grinning, and propped her chin on her elbow. "Hey, you know what?" she said. "You're gettin' better at it. Keepin' your shape in your sleep, I mean."

"Oh." Yoshi looked genuinely surprised. "I am?"

"Yeah!" Liya enthused. "Last I saw you filled the room all pitch black, an' you were a big glowing skeleton--a wolf maybe? This time you were like--I couldn't see the skeleton at all, an' you had a head shape on the pillow an' all these streamers everywhere all full of stars, but I could see between 'em enough to get to the door. It was cool."

As she described Yoshi so glowingly, a quiet and shy pride seemed to bloom over Yoshi. She said nothing, not even when Liya finished, but just sat with an almost embarrassed little smile, twisting her now completely solid hair between her hands. Liya didn't immediately say anything either, gazing up at Yoshi with her own kind of smile.

"You look happy about it," she remarked finally. Yoshi didn't seem to know how to answer; she just silently glowed. So Liya sat up and kissed her nose.

They put their heads together, giggling, and then Liya drew back.

"C'mon, let's get breakfast," she suggested, and took Yoshi's hand to lead her off the bed. "My treat."