I’m… I’m not real, am I…?

In those few words that Vualla said, Randidly felt an existential exhaustion that he could only barely comprehend from his months struggling along as solely an image. It was a question asked with the raw vulnerability of one who is about to collapse.

Randidly opened his mouth before she even finished asking the question. Where his emotions might be in a tumult, his instincts were not. “You’re real, Vualla.”

Perhaps it was because Randidly had lived a lonely childhood where being ignored and dismissed was common. There were times he had looked at the dusty mirror in his dark bedroom and wondered what he had done wrong to be so universally isolated. To that reflection partially obscured by a t-shirt hanging over the mirror frame, Randidly had asked repeatedly what he had done to deserve this.

And in fits and starts, Randidly had learned that these dark emotions and whims of fate were all just fear wearing the guise of truth. The walls he had built were hollow, designed to reassure him that his current state was not his own fault. And in fact the fake walls he built were the very reasons that such long shadows lay across his Path.

Yet then the System arrived and gave him another shot. The necessity of survival slowly guided Randidly to knock down all the mental and emotional blocks he had placed over himself. And the whole process had been liberating. To the point that Randidly remained conflicted over the fact that the System brought significant benefits to his life.

Yet now to see Vualla struggle against that same loneliness… and to realize that everything Randidly felt about being singled-out and doomed as a child was actually true for this Vualla…

No. I will not let this happen. Heat and certainty spun in Randidly’s chest. Outloud, he repeated himself, although some part of him knew it was just as much for himself as for her. “You’re real, Vualla.”

When Vualla looked up at him, her eyes were glassy and hollow. She released great, gusting breaths, her shoulders rising and falling with each exhale. “But-”

“You’re real,” Randidly replied again, even more firm this time. His own breaths accelerated as that heat in his chest rose to the point that it seared his chest and constructed his lungs. It seemed like fire was jumping back forth between them, pounding and urging their hearts to accelerate along with the heat of the connection. “You’re real.”

Vualla blinked. There were tears in her azure eyes as her gaze lowered back down to the ground. “Randidly, you don’t need to-”

“You’re just as real as I am, Vualla,” Randidly hissed. But the violence and urgency of his words surprised him. He could feel the Grim Chimera raising his head and howling in fury, gnashing his teeth toward fate. In addition, Randidly couldn’t claim to have any understanding of how someone could do something as powerful as duplicating a person. Especially when it seemed likely that the person in question was already dead.

But even if he had suspected that Vualla was… something else, to face that truth now-

“And even if-” Randidly’s breath hitched for a second and he allowed the air in his lungs to hiss out toward the ground. Then he derailed that sentence and continued to let his words tumble off his tongue and into the air between them. “No matter what, we can find a way-”

“Randidly.”

The word was so heavy with genuine bemusement and not a little impatience that it stopped Randidly dead. And so Randidly slowly looked back up at met her gleaming eyes. Vualla was still crying, but she rolling her eyes with a fragile smile traced across her mouth. “We aren’t children anymore. We are soldiers, right? We… need to face the truth. Of what I am. It’s only if we do that we can-”

“Fuck truth,” Randidly whispered, and he meant those words more than he had meant anything in a long time. To his surprise, he was smiling widely at Vualla, and her own smile grew in response.

Because this was what caught the Grim Chimera’s eye and now pulled Randidly closer to Vualla. There were times where it was very difficult to be strong. This was one of those times. Yet now, here, even as Randidly was doing his best to reassure Vualla, it only took a few seconds for her to shake herself out of the tragedy that gripped her and turn her empathy toward him.

“Fuck truth,” Randidly said again.

Vualla shook her head. “We already have said that we will be the ones to tear down the Nexus… and now you want to upend reality? Randidly Ghosthound, I almost suspect you are simply talking a big game to try and impress a lady during her moment of distress. Which would make you quite the opportunist.”

“So you are saying this is an opportunity?” Randidly’s mouth boldly replied, even as his mind scrambled to keep up.

Vualla blinked and then blushed.

That heat between them intensified further. Randidly could feel the two Fates, the same Fate, that disfigured glove, roaring between them as they were soon carried away by the growing heat and smolder. But it was only when the heat began to spiral around the two of them that Randidly realized it wasn’t just emotions that he felt. It was desire and affection and shared loss and shared discovery and shared sense of powerlessness. It was a craving to change the world.

It was a prayer.

The Nether Ritual.

Randidly’s concentration on the heat was broken when Vualla brought her fist slowly up and bumped it into his chin. But then after the skin was touching, she held her knuckles there, pressed against the rough stubble along his jaw. “Don’t be dumb. Wanting something can’t make it so.”

“But you can feel how much I want it,” Randidly breathed and he wasn’t sure exactly what they were talking about anymore. Maybe it was the moment, seeing the iron of Vualla’s spine emerge even as she was forced to question her own existence, but a strange explicit honesty was born in him as he stared at her annoyance in her scrunched up nose and furrowed eyebrows. “And that matters.”

Is this me talking or the Grim Chimera? Randidly wondered. The Grim Chimera chuckled.

Is there a difference between us?

Some less emotional parts of Randidly felt stirred to action. This is a bad idea. Becoming further involved in Vualla.

But look at her now, proud and defiant against her doom. Randidly shivered. Even if it’s an act… I refuse to take a step back now. Not when she fights against the same tyranny of the corrupt power of the Nexu that I want to end.

Then the Grim Chimera opened its eyes and sneered toward the less emotional parts of Randidly. And in terms of bad ideas… how does this compare to challenging the entire System?

Vualla leaned forward and pressed her forehead against Randidly’s collarbone. All his swirling thoughts were blasted away by the impact. Before she leaned forward, Randidly hadn’t even realized how close they had gotten. Yet what really struck him at that moment was how much warmer her skin was than even the heat of the Nether Ritual humming between them. She was on fire.

“I might just be an image.” Vualla muttered into Randidly’s chest. All he could see as he looked down was the long mane of azure hair that covered the top of her head. “And we both know that no matter how powerful the image, it isn’t the same as possessing a physical body. I might fade eventually.”

“I-” But Randidly stopped that part of him that he shared with the Grim Chimera from speaking. It was the part that urged him to say something grand and romantic and confirm all of the swirling emotions into something straightforward that could be stated in three words. It demanded a strong stance be taken against those hesitations he still had.

But that was just fear. To overcompensate was not the answer. So Randidly settled himself down as best as he could, slowly being devoured by the heat from Vualla’s close proximity.

And things weren’t simple between them. There was so much that Randidly didn’t know about Vualla. And even if he wanted to learn those things, that didn’t mean that there wouldn’t be answers that made him sad or jealous or disappointed in her. They barely knew each other. To move to grandly now would be to ignore all the normal pitfalls of becoming close to someone due to the existential pitfall of what Vualla was.

So following the Grim Chimera’s aggressive instincts in speaking was not what Randidly wanted to do. Instead, he thought about his own uneven and frenetic relationship history. He thought about the pursuit of Sydney and his time with Tessa. The Nether cores in Randidly’s chest hummed and began to slow in their rotation.

There was a buzzing and Randidly was back, standing in his sun-drenched yard, looking up at Sydney’s elbows as she leaned out the window and watched him. He was back in the messy dorm room at Rawlands University. And at that moment, Randidly could remember with incredible clarity what he had wanted to hear when he was at his most lonely and isolated.

It boiled down to one single thing.

He had wanted Sydney to acknowledge there was a meaningful connection with him.

He had wanted Tessa to acknowledge that she was just as unhappy in their awkward relationship as he was.

He had wanted them both to tell the truth in their hearts. But he had been too afraid to ask for it or force them to reveal it. So both in the yard and in the dorm room, he had turned away and continued to live. He had hoped these things would reveal themselves with time.

Everyone deserves the truth. Especially Vualla. Especially considering… Randidly pressed his eyes closed. Because although people sometimes became very skilled at lying to others, you could never truly lie to yourself. And the truth your paranoid heart created would terrorize you worse than almost anything imaginable would be able to manage. To leave her alone with that suspected truth and provide vague platitudes was the worst disservice that Randidly could do.

When he opened mouth to speak he felt Vualla shiver. “As someone who spent a lot of time in the past year as an image… I can say with assurance that I won’t treat you any different if you end up just being an image.”

“And what if I end up being a puppet. What if everything I say, even now, is meant to manipulate you?”

Randidly laughed hollowly. “Then I think the mastermind behind this is a damn bit smarter than I would have guessed.”

Vualla raised her head slightly and then brought her head back down on Randidly’s shoulder in a headbutt. “Don’t joke.”

“I’m not joking.” Now Randidly smirked wickedly. “I obviously wasn’t there, but my image Yggdrasil was. Cail’s face when he realized that my physical body had escaped… you could have fit an ostrich egg through his mouth. His bald head was covered in sweat. He is not an emotional chessmaster.”

“Hah,” Vualla released a laugh that sounded more like a sigh. “...I wish I could have seen it. So… now what?”

Randidly turned and looked at the grave of Vualla’s father. Then he turned again to face out toward the Great Rift. Intermittent comets of Nether continued to rain down along the frontlines, concentrated primarily toward the edges. The war hadn’t waited at all for their private drama. “Well, it’s not like the Nether invasion will stop now that we… we have learned about you. There are still battles- oof.”

Vualla brought her fist into Randidly’s stomach with enough force to cause him to release a breath. She lifted her head from Randidly’s shoulder and glared at him. Her eyes were red-rimmed and intent. “No. Not the battlefront. Just… this. I’m… I’m not what you thought, right? I might feel like I have a body, but-”

After furiously rubbing the tears out of her eyes, Vualla continued to speak. “S-so this is your chance to… well to return to something… normal. You can just walk away from me if you think it’s too dangerous. Because… neither of us really knows what I am. I mean, shit, if I was a really an image, why can I-”

With both hands, Vuall reached up and grabbed Randidly’s shoulders. She began to lean forward and before Randidly could respond, their face was only inches apart. At the last moment, it seemed like the physical and emotional ramifications of what was about to happen hit Vualla and she just hung there, inches away, with her mouth open and her eyes widening.

“It feels so real…” Vualla muttered. But from the way she said it, it was more for herself than him.

She’s right though, this could all be more manipulation. Even if Aether Detection can’t pick up anything suspicious doesn’t mean it’s not there. Randidly admitted to himself. But then he finished leaning forward the rest of the way toward Vualla and bridging the gap between them. His lips pressed against hers.

Vualla’s lips were warm. What felt like a second later, there was a tremor that shook Vualla from her head to her toes. Randidly could distantly feel her fingers tighten on Sulfur’s shoulder protections. Tighten so much that Sulfur cooed in pleasure.

The Grim Chimera roared. Heat wove together and tightened into a knot that left the two of them bound.

Then Randidly leaned back. They were no longer touching, but the distance between them still felt entirely bridged. The air buzzed.

“Maybe you’re right, but…” Randidly licked his lips as he looked at Vualla. “You can be afraid most of the time, but if you claim to be alive you cannot be afraid all of the time. So… let’s not run away.”

Twisting her mouth, Vualla punched Randidly again. But it was a light blow.