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It had taken some time from the attacks but Miguel was slowly coming back to the happy go lucky kid he was when he first arrived. That had to do with his personality and the musical project he had thought about with Curnen. However, that wasn't what was occupying his mind today. That was the date. It was getting close to both his birthday (13 years old!) and Dia De Los Muertos. The festival was actually more important to him than his milestone birthday. With the departures from the inn and people that had lost family and friends in their 'real' lives it would help. Miguel firmly believed that the dead would visit wherever there was an ofrenda with their picture on it so he wanted to do that here. It would also help in his connection to his family knowing that they would be doing the same thing in their village.

Which was why he was sitting in the lobby with a couple of pieces of paper scattered on the small table in front of him that had doodles of an ofrenda like home and list of what he wanted to have in the advertisement. But, what he was currently working on was a mess in front of him. He'd been able to borrow some sugar and egg whites since there wasn't meringue powder at the inn to make a sugar skull. He was currently mixing a little bit of water at a time into the mixture to get the right feel. This was the very first time that he'd made them on his own without his abuelita's help.

He also didn't have a mold, so the skull probably wouldn't look too skull like, but he was trying!

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Liz was off her shift and heading to her room. She had no idea where she and Peter still stood and it was eating at her, but she continued to do her daily routine in an attempt not to go crazy or fall apart. When she saw Miguel, it was almost a godsend.

She diverted from her path. "You look really busy." She offered a smile as she crouched close to him.

Miguel crinkled his nose, "I'm trying to make a calavera - um, sugar skull like my abuelita makes but it's not working." He sighed softly. "She used to do it by hand when she was a little girl but she has a mold now. This kind of looks like a lump instead of a skull."

Liz looked at it for a moment, considering. "I can sort of see it." She could see the intent, anyways. "I think maybe you just need more definition in the eyes and teeth. Do you have a picture you're working off of?"

"Nope just off my memories." He reached over for the picture he'd doodled of the ofrenda that had a couple of sugar skulls on it. "They kind of look like this."

He hadn't thought about going to the library to see if they had a book on it.

She looked at the drawing. "You know... you're pretty good at drawing too." And music - Miguel was obviously very creative. "Maybe it's just about practice..." She studied the picture again. "Is this for Dia De Los Muertos?"

"It is." Miguel nodded while he blushed slightly at the compliment to his doodles. He never thought about them being any good.

"Do you celebrate it in Roswell?"

She nodded. "Yeah. There's a lot of people who celebrate it back home, actually." Roswell had a pretty big Mexican population. Liz paused. "Last year was the first time I really celebrated it. For my grandmother. This year... I guess I have two people now."

"I'm sorry." Miguel said immediately. "Did you find out that you lost someone else back home?" He knew that Liz's friend had joined her at the inn.

She gave a small nod. "Yeah. My best friend Alex. He, um. Well, he was killed. So, I think I'd like to celebrate this year so I can mourn him properly." Since she hadn't, obviously, attended a funeral.

"Are you thinking about the people you met when you visited the Land of the Dead?"

"Si, my ancestors." Miguel nodded. "They died before I was born, so I only had stories and pictures of them to know who they were." They looked like their pictures only in skeleton form. It had also helped that they had recognized Miguel first.

"That's nice you have the history to remember them, though... I think sometimes we let things like that slip through the cracks and then we forget, you know?"

"Si." MIguel agreed with a nod. "It's very important that stories and people get talked about." He paused and then said, "In the Land of the Dead if no one living remembers you, you have a final death." Miguel shuddered a little remembering the one he saw.

Her brow furrowed a little. "Do you mean like.. if people stop thinking about someone, they disappear disappear?" Liz wasn't exactly sure how she felt about that - she went to church sometimes back home and believed in Heaven, but that people would cease to exist in the afterlife? Still, she knew what Miguel was saying was real to him - he had been, in his world, to the Land of the Dead. "That's really... sad." She frowned and looked at the picture of Alex.

"Not just thinking about them, but also talking about them. It's really important." Miguel nodded. "They called it the final death. But, as long as someone remembers them, they'll be okay."

It didn't have to be personally knowing them, like his Papa Hector, he knew the story but he'd been dead when his great grandmother was a little girl.

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