" Don't believe the tales of glory, laddies. Supressors who don't get eaten end up 3 ways. Tyrants, drunkards, or blow their brains out with magic. I've tried the last two and failed. Guess what I'm gonna try next?"

-Seth Xi "Bardkiller", "The Suppresor who Carved a Kingdom".

No matter how many times I saw it, the sunshadow was a spectacle. A lurid night fell for anywhere between quarter of an hour to multiple hours. An eerie glow illuminated the ring in the sky, like how Northern Lights light up skies in a peculiar fashion; only the ring was a static band among a tapestry of stars.

This sense of wonder seemed to be just me though. For a world whose sky was dominated by three moons and an ever-present ring, phenomenon like eclipses wasn’t very special. In fact, life on the planet had specifically evolved to take this slice of night time during the day into account. And that is what saved my skin today.

“I don’t understand”, Faeve’s voice woke me from my daze, “why do you stare at each sunshadow like it is your first love?”

First love, huh? I just grunted in response. I had known from experience in Salrest that letting slip the fact that sunshadows were indeed rather new to me brought with them unwanted questions about my origin.

“Do not space out like a fool and clean your wound”, Faeve instructed. My hand still dripped blood and other unidentified goop that made up a Soroscope eyeball. If the beast hadn’t reacted to the sunshadow by expanding its eyes, I’d have been resting somewhere inside its gullet by now.

“With what exactly?” I snapped. No food, no water, no supplies…this fucking trip is a nightmare. “Shipwreck. Everything lost, remember?”

Faeve rolled her eyes. The night light of the sunshadow glinted off her pupils, making her look like a dangerous predator. Which she is, I reminded myself as I saw her lithe form, drenched in blood and bile of the monster.

Speaking of monsters… “The core”, I uttered, “I want the core of this monster”.

“The core?” Faeve inquired. “Ah, you humans call the magic-hearts that”, She nodded. “No, the Soroscope is not a magic beast. It was made…” she flailed her hands as if searching for a suitable term, “… without magic, so no magic core” she explained. Her eyes darted about, searching the ground.

“You mean naturally”, I offered. Dammit!. All suppressors hated having to battle dangerous beasts without the chance of getting a magic core.

“You humans”, disapproval coloured Faeve’s words. “Magic is in this world’s air, water, ground; the very being and yet you insist on treating it as unnatural. Maybe that is why most of you cannot use it well”.

“Yeah yeah”. This whole fucking world is unnatural to me!!

Faeve’s roving eyes froze at an unremarkable rock. She crawled over slowly to the base of a rock, her hands tracing its surface as if she was following an invisible line. Her hand dug into the small crevices of the rock. Her face, blooming with a smile, told me that she had evidently found what she was searching for.

What is she?

She walked over, waving something rendered indistinct by the dim light of the sunshadow. Faeve came close and tried to pass the object to my outstretched hand.

My hands jerked back involuntarily as I realized what was. Another needleball?!

Faeve sighed as if she was dealing with a child. “Needleball juice is good for injuries”, she explained. “Why are you a suppressor?” she asked. “You do not know basic things”.

Because I have been one for less than a year, cunt. “Evidently. If I did, I wouldn’t have saved you”, I retorted.

Faeve went strangely silent. A melancholy came over our connection, something akin to an aching pain that wouldn’t go away. “I suppose so”, Faeve replied, her gaze somewhere far, “I suppose so”.

“I didn’t mean it that way”, I said. What…what do I do with her? Especially after what she said yesterday…

“It’s fine”, Faeve’s mouth quirked up in a wry smile, “the sooner we get rid of each other, the better. We go to the Mountain of Trees, get our connection dissolved and never see each other again”.

“Look I didn…”

“I don’t need pity”, Faeve interrupted. “Not from you”. She shifted her gaze as she insisted, “especially not from you”.

What did she mean by that?

“Nonetheless, we first need to actually reach there”, Faeve said with a tone of finality.

She doesn’t want me to ask, huh?

She gave me a look as if to fix me in place. “You are right about one thing. We do not have any supplies. Crossing the desert would be impossible without it”.

Then what were you rolling your eyes for?!

She put up her hand before I could interrupt, “that’s why we have to follow the pathfinder mushrooms”. She pointed at the little glowing patches of desert. “Following them usually leads to an oasis or watering hole”.

Usually? My eyebrows quirked up.

“Bad news is that we can’t follow them when the sunshadow passes”, Faeve explained, “Sunlight would render them invisible. We need to wait for night to fall”.

“Sounds good to me”, I confessed. “I’ll just sleep till dusk. Silatenn!”

“Not so fast. We need to clean the Soroscope”, She said sternly. “And is goodnight the only thing you picked up from my Elventongue?”

“Piss off”, I protested. “Can we even salvage the Soroscope? If was spewing poison”

“We just have to be careful”, She said, brandishing her daggers.

In the space of a few breaths, the dark began to dissipate. The sun was ending its sunshadow and entering noon. The stars were vanishing from the sky one by one, the moons lost their glow and turned to their dull, daylight appearance. The glowing mushrooms lost their luminescence and melted back into being indistinguishable.

With the return of the day, the winds raced through the lands again. The desert resumed its keening cry. With a final push, the sun birthed itself out if the ring and the day went on as if it had never been interrupted.

I felt a gentle tug on my arms. Turning back, I saw Faeve standing with the cactus, juice dripping out of an incision. She gestured me to come close.

Bracing myself, I put forward my wounded arm. Something that tasted so horrible…can’t be any good.

Sticky green fluid dripped down and…it doesn’t hurt? My tensed arm muscles relaxed, as a coolness spread across my palm.

Faeve and I worked as fast as we could to strip the Soroscope bare. Faeve’s daggers sliced through the bast expertly as she stripped it of its meat. I didn’t fare as well. In Salrest, the only insect type monsters were worms that spat acid, and…no one wanted to eat that.

But still, I got used to the process. There was a curious peace as we worked in tandem. The simple drudgery of the work, the same cutting, piercing, skinning anaesthetized the mind. And that meant, both our minds were silent. A small, but relative peace from the cacophony our connection had become.

As the day wore on, the rock walls grew blisteringly hot. The sun beat down incessantly and forced us to stop working. Our only refuge was a small cavern made of hollowed out rock. The Soroscope corpse started to give off a strange smell in the baking heat.

“Do we have enough?” I asked Faeve, pointing at the neatly arranged heap of internal organs.

She wiped her face, slick with dark blood. “Not nearly. The Soroscope was a baby, so it did not have more than two stomachs and that too would make really small bags. Even the intestine was badly damaged so not much rope can be made out of it. The blasted beast didn’t even have intact pincers to make some weapons out of”, she complained.

“It was a baby?” I all but screamed. “How big are the adults?”

Faeve pondered while tapping her blood-soaked fingers on her cheeks. “I saw one as big as a merchant ship swoop down on a party of suppressors”.

“Well, if it wasn’t heavily injured we’d be probably dead by now, so I am not complaining., I said. “Wait, swoop down?” My eyebrows shot up. How will a scorpion…

“Adults grow wings”, Faeve supplied. “Really troublesome monsters”.

The thought of flying supersized scorpions filled me with a sort of despair. Pretty much everything in this world filled me with despair.

I sighed heavily. “So, I suppose you want me to carry those in my bag?” I asked.

“Yes”, came her monosyllabic reply. She stared at the rest of the corpse wistfully. “Too bad it is going bad in the sun”.

I pulled out my bag of superior holding—or that’s what I’d have called it if this was an RPG. I never did find out what this was called since I had discovered a mark on it, and I was too scared to show it to people. I had heard that the Noble I murdered…no, paid his due had family that was looking for the murderer. Showing that bag would’ve been a death sentence.

As I opened it, my nose crinkled at the salty smell that wafted out. What the hell? I peered inside. “Uh…” strange sounds bubbled up my throat involuntarily. “Uh…”

“What?” Faeve’s voice was harsh.

“Uh…theres a problem”. My mind was racing to connect the dots. This…this…

“What problem?” Faeve sounded tired. “Is it the sort that illustrates how incompetent you are?”

I didn’t retort. “Remember when we fell into the sea, fighting that sea monster?”

“Yeah”, Faeve gnashed her teeth. Her memories flooded my connection. Memories she’d rather forget.

“This is a bag, right?” I explained to her slowly, but I was really explaining to myself. “So, some water got in”.

Faeve’s mouth hung open. “How much water?” she stuttered.

“As much as a bag such as this can hold I suppose”, I confessed. Look, I saw that fish I caught and put inside playing about so probably a lot, A whole lot”.

Faeve held her head in her hands. A stream of exotic expletives exited her mouth as she stared at the ground. “Now what? How do we keep the meat, you blasted kivala!”

“Hey! Language, young lady!” I retorted. “It’s not all bad”. Huh, maybe we can… “Isn’t there any salt separating magic in your arsenal of assassin magic?” I really don’t want to have to drink cactus water...

Faeve looked straight into my eyes. Her mouth hardened into an uneasy smile. “I was…exiled before I could learn much about poisons and such. The ones I do know are not of this kind…” She trailed off.

Tsk.

“Huh”, She suddenly sat upright. Faeve swivelled her head to towards the pile of bloody organs. “The stomach!” she exclaimed, her voice high pitched, “we can use the stomach to refine the sea water!

“Really?”

“I believe so”, Faeve said with a voice of certainty. “Soroscope carapaces are usually the colour of the surrounding of where they live, to better mimic their surroundings to hunt prey. Since this one has a yellow one…must be a sand-dwelling one. Since water is scarce, they need to absorb whatever liquid their prey possesses…and it means having to refine the salt of their bodily fluids!” she slammed her hands on the ground.

“I have never heard a more disgusting and splendid thing in my life”, I said as a grin spread across my lips. “What are we waiting for? Sun will set in a bit”, I said.

By the time the sun dipped below the horizon, we had packed everything. Unfortunately, the salt water would take some hours to refine so we were still stuck with cactus water for the time being. I took a piece of chewy Soroscope meat into my mouth that we had sizzled on the hot rocks by the beast's own fat.

I looked at the remainder of the corpse one last time. “Do you…”, I pondered loudly, “do you know what could harm a Soroscope like that?” Whatever the fuck did that it was out there. We were heading straight for it. Fucking splendid.

“Pray we don’t find out, human”, Faeve answered without turning her head. “The Soroscope youngling was far from home; alone, hungry and exhausted. Whatever was chasing it…is far beyond our strength and guile”.

I shivered. Just like me, buddy. Running from what you fear, just like me. The bit of flesh in my mouth turned to mud.

“They’re here”, Faeve’s call brought me out of my daze, “time to go”. She turned her head back at me, her eyes on mine. “It’s our foolishness to think we’re above them. Beasts, in the end, are much more like us than we care to admit”, she said softly. She shook her head and rid it of whatever thought was possessing her and pointed at the sands.

With the passing of the sun, the desert-canyon had come alive. As the first stars came into being, so did light bloom in the harsh landscape. The pathfinder mushrooms pulsated with a soft blue-white light like luminescent footprints heading far off into the distance.

As we walked slowly, Faeve frequently kneeled and put her ears to the ground and checked the glowing patches, her eyes tracing invisible lines. She frequently gestured me to stop and proceed to repeat the process a few times before resuming our journey.

“Say Faeve”, I called her during one such stop. “Why do you guys call these mushrooms?” They look like mold dammit!

She looked up at me, her face illuminated ghastly by the dim bioluminescence of the Pathfinder colony. “Touch them, you’ll see”

I kneeled down beside her. I don’t really wanna touch but…There was an ethereal quality to them that drew me in an inexplicable pull. In a world where almost everything was trying to eat us, these things looked so fragile, so harmless that it was wondorous, endearing even. As my fingers brushed them lightly, spores exploded into the sky in a little cloud of glowing dust. As my fingers traced their form, I realised they were just what Faeve said…mushrooms, just very, very tiny.

I lost count how many hours we walked through the cold, desolate desert. As winds lashed and billowed about, hidden critters came alive under the sands. The myriad sounds grew into a deafening dean that drowned out the keening cry of the desert. One moon had set, and another had taken its place. But in a world with three moons, that was hardly a thing to pay attention to.

“How long?” I asked Faeve. My legs had started to ache and throb, the wounds picked at by the cold winds.

“Pathfinders can stretch for a long distance through the desert. We can’t see it, but all of them are connected deep under the sand. The mother plant must be near the oasis and these long branches radiate out from it

”, she explained in between walking.

“Yeah but…” I protested, “we need fire”.

“We can’t rest”, Faeve said in a strange tone. “We are being tracked”.

Say what?

“Who? How many?” I asked while unslinging Thirst.

Faeve looked at my blade, her eyes flashing with dismay. She softly nodded before answering, “I do not know for sure. But it has heavy footsteps, and gaining on us”. She paused for a bit before continuing, “We probably cannot fight this one. In a desert abused by the sun, the predators are all nocturnal. And what comes out at night here…is nothing good”.

Whoppity fucking doo

Sweat coated my forehead even in the chilly desert night. “You’re telling me now?” I growled. “What do we do?”

“We run”, Faeve replied. “ Not every fight can be won, human”.

“I know that”, I snapped. “But if we can somehow…”

“No”, she refused. She turned her face towards me, her eyes searching. “The problem with you is that, for you, the fight is the escape”, she said while she walked faster.

What does she even mean by that? My jaw tightened. While I matched my steps to follow her, I spat out, “What do you even know about me?”

“Enough”, Faeve replied. “After you cut my hair, I asked around”. Our connection grew chaotic as both our emotions churned inside it. “Crazy, asshole, nasty fucker—I believe these were the words used about you. There were rumours about you. Unsavoury, frightening rumours”.

The room flashed in my mind, piled with corpses of both man and beast, consuming, cannibalizing, cursing. Stop! Stop! Not now! Half eaten faces stared at me with dead, accusing eyes. I had to!

Faeve’s figure shook as my emotions flooded over to her.

“That”, her voice was hoarse, “That is what I am talking about”. Her fists balled as she continued, “You go to the dwarf’s workshop to fuse cores. Even fools know to stay away from that. You live on top of a whorehouse and you don’t lie with a woman…or man, you are a junkie…”

This fucking bitch!! “All suppressors are shady, you cunt. And I’m a junkie?” anger rose like a wave of heat inside me, drowning my reason. “Every fucking suppressor is a junkie. You can’t live without numbing yourself after day after day of killing and maiming. I am a junkie? Your asshole father drinks Shivang and fucks his daughters. Why are you taking that out on me?

Faeve didn’t slow down but her mind was like cold water. I could feel her heart breaking as my words sunk deep within her. Her breath came in short, sharp gasps.

My teeth gnashed. Didn’t you say you didn’t need my pity? But deep down I knew what I did. I wanted to break her. And I did.

As soon as I thought that, Faeve stopped. She turned back to me. Her eyes, glowing in the moonlight rested on mine.

I backed away unconsciously. What is she… I wanted to look away, but I couldn’t.

“Oh no, Eridan”, She whispered, her voice unreasonably loud in my ears. “You wanted to break yourself”, she mouthed.

I gulped.

“I have known men like you”, her voice choked. She shivered as she remembered from something past.

Her father?

“Men who torture others for pleasure”, She closed her eyes. “But the truly damned ones, too fucked up, too far gone like you torture yourself because you think you deserve it”.

Her words sliced through like a blade of ice. My hands shot up to the kivala fang necklace around my neck. No…she isn’ right! She can’t be. The fang dug into my palm. No!

Faeve’s eyes followed my gaze. Her lips quirked up in a smile that was as sad as her eyes. A deep sigh escaped her lips as she turned away, her shoulders drooping. She started walking again, her hands still balled into fists.

I looked up at the sky once to see the dark desert night fading. Arin… is she really right?

The rest of the way passed in silence, our footfalls the only mark of our existence. As the night dissolved into a murky dawn sky, one by one the critters stopped their cries. It was a perfect silence as if the whole world waited with bated breath the birth of the sun. The trails of the pathfinder mushrooms grew more numerous as similar trails from joined the one we were following. As more time passed, more and more such trails cropped up like they were rivulets rushing to meet a mighty river.

The trail of pathfinder we were following swerved between two boulders and hid from our sights. Faeve ran up to the boulder and climbed on it. She stood on the boulder, her golden hair swaying in the dawn breeze.

“We’re here”, Faeve’s tone was frigid.

Instead of climbing up the boulder like her, I went around it. The murky dawn sky hung over a fantastical landscape. Well, technically all landscapes here are fantastical. But still…this… a small hill arose from the rocky ground, different from the flat-topped mesas and buttes around it. It was as if someone had dropped a mass of sharp, jagged rocks carelessly in a pile. That was however not the most curious bit about it. The rock is…glowing?!

As I stood with my mouth agape, Faeve jumped down from her stone perch and cupped her palm above her eyes to see better.

Wait, it’s not the hill itself…tens and hundreds of trails of the pathfinder mushrooms radiated from the hill in different directions. Though the dawn had dimmed their lights, my eyes still spotted them spread as far as the eyes could see; their trails traversing over rocks, twisting, hiding. The jagged hill was where all the trails lead to, its walls and the ground before it grew thick with the pathfinders. Their combined glow had the effect of rendering the hill into a mass of pulsating light. Each of the trail was akin to a root, and the hill the tree.

I turned towards Faeve, “Where is the oasis?” The hollowness of my voice shocked even me.

Faeve’s eyebrows knit together. “I…I don’t know”, she confessed.

“I guess only one thing to do”, I grumbled and started walking towards the hill. Soft footsteps dragged behind me, as if reluctant to follow. Sigh. A dull ache had begun to take hold in my head. Why the fuck did I have to say all that…

Up close, the hill was even more impressive. Wait what’s that? A glowing cave entrance spread before us. Since even its inner walls were encrusted with pathfinders, we hadn’t seen the cave from the beginning.

“Is the water in there?” I asked. Argh. My head…

Faeve surveyed the entrance with the eyes of a hawk. “Good”, she uttered. “the entrance is small. Nothing big can be waiting inside”.

Oh yeah. If it’s a watering hole…who knows what is in there?

“Don’t we have water enough by filtering from the stomach?” I asked. No use taking chances.

She pursed her lips, her eyes hardening. “No”, she said. “though the salt-water will preserve the stomach for a few days, it’ll rot before we can make it out of the desert. To make a proper bag out of it, we need a leatherworking shop”.

“Fine”

Suddenly, the pathfinders on the hill and the trails outside flickered…and then sputtered out. While we were engrossed, dawn had rolled in over the land in its resplendent glory. A dark shadow peeking between the landscape between us was the only mark of the wall beside the sea.The wind had picked up again and as the desert wailed its eerie keening cry, we decided to go in.

We drew our weapons as we trudged into the cave. Blue light from the pathfinders untouched by sun glinted off our weapons and illuminated the cave. Every available surface inside was coated by the mushrooms. The soft, moss-like floor rippled blue lights outwards at every step we took. Oh wait…

I had barely enough time to rush beside Faeve and clamp her mouth shut with my hand. Glowing spores erupted in a puff of cloud where we stood.

Ugh! I hacked a cough as some spores entered my mouth. Faeve had stiffened, alarmed by my hand on her face. As the dust cloud settled, she touched my hand with her cool fingers. Her touch lingered for just a moment more before she pushed my hand away.

“Thank you”, She mouthed.

“Can’t have you…falling sick”, I replied in between coughs. I know I know…I am just being nice to her because of earlier.

“Should have covered yours as well”, Faeve complained while taking out a piece of cloth to cover her mouth. Her voice softened, even if just a little.

“I tried to”, I gave a sheepish grin. “ I forgot I had a sword in hand”.

Faeve shook her head. “Be careful”, she whispered before covering her mouth.

I just nodded before doing the same. Yeah, who knows what’s inside.

The cave entrance widened out into a long passage similarly illuminated by the pathfinders. It was almost as if it invited us. We both shivered as the temperature continually dropped inside the cave.

Something’s wrong. I couldn’t shake the feeling that this cave was something nefarious, something that was more than what we had bargained for. Then again, what wasn’t?

But each step I took, my skin crawled. The tunnel of light seemed to stretch as we walked. My vision swam, as if tricks were being played on it. Is it the spores?

Even Faeve’s footsteps fell heavy and unsteady.

What’s going on? I called her softly.

Faeve didn’t respond, instead, she changed into a faster gait and eventually broke into a full sprint.

What is she doing??

I ran after her, by brow strangely clammy even in this chilly cave. Blue spores exploded one after another in our wake.

As we ran, I noticed the passageway wove lower and lower. We’re underground? As we went further and further away from the sun, our breaths gave off clouded mists. And despite the running, we both shivered. This is strange! How can it be so cold?

My train of thought was broken as the passage suddenly widened into a huge subterranean chamber. Faeve’s run ground to a halt as she broke into the chamber. Her eyes widened as her eyes fell on what lay before her.

What happened??

She took a couple of steps back while her mouth hung open. Her hands fell limp beside her, daggers pointing down.

What did we get ourselves into now?

I burst into the chamber as well.

A huge field of flowers spread before us glowing in shades of blue and white. Unlike the pathfinder mushrooms, they didn’t illuminate the place. Somehow their quiet glow made the surrounmdings even darker. The flowers covered the ground, hung from the walls, were rooted in crevices…what even is this!? Wherever the eyes fell, stalks jutted out of the ground bearing intricate, lily-like drooping flowers.

I took a step forward. So…so…beautiful.

A ripple played through the meadow of luminescent flowers as if it had heard my footsteps. Maybe they have. I shivered as the thought struck me.

“What are these?” I whispered. Even my muted voice felt loud enough to break the sanctity of the scenery.

There was no reply.

I turned back to see Faeve still standing with her mouth open, her face illuminated in the sparse light of the few last patches of pathfinders.

As my gaze met hers, her mouth moved. “I do not know. But we need to find another way out. The pathfinder back there—” She pointed at the passage we just came through “is abnormal. The spores were meant to incapacitate and confuse”.

Of course. Just our luck. We found the only belligerent pathfinders in the whole fucking world.

“Why can’t”, I gnashed my teeth, “we catch one fucking break”.

Suddenly, Faeve’s teeth shone as she broke into a broad grin, “Maybe we just did!”

“Huh?”

She pointed somewhere behind the field of flowers. “A lake. We found a lake!”

“Where?” I whipped my head. Why can’t I see anything! All I saw was darkness.

Goddamn Elf eyes! I could feel Faeve grinning at the thought. Well at least she isn’t…sigh. I really shouldn’t have said those things.

“What if these are dangerous too?” I asked Faeve as we approached the field of flowers. They probably are. Nothing is safe in this world!

Faeve knelt down by a flower, inspecting it by the light of a torch we improvised with Soroscope fat. As soon as she tore off a flower from the stalk, it lost its meager light.

She sniffed the flower.

Oi! Isn’t that dangerous?!

“No”, She declared, “it’s safe”.

She said it’s safe but…I couldn’t shake the feeling something was wrong. Every time Faeve brushed against the flowers, they rippled with light like they tracking her position.

Is it just me? Have I finally gone crazy?

The dull aching in my head rose in tandem with the sick feeling in my stomach. Argh! my fucking head!

“Are you okay?” Faeve asked as the torchlight cast shadows under her brows crinkled in concern.

“Yeah, yeah”, I gnashed my teeth as I tried to keep down the bile that was threatening to rise up my throat. “Just a headache”.

The shadows on her face deepened. She turned away, but not before her lips hardened in a line.

I know what you want to say. My jaws clenched. I know. I fucking know.

Though our connection carried my thoughts to her, she made no indication that she had heard. That irritated me more than I thought I would. Stop! Stop feeling like this. You know you can tide over it,I assured myself.

A laughter bubbled up my throats in derision. The fuck I can. Last time when Apopris and Shivang were unavailable in Salrest due to a temporary trade route blockade…I was frothing in my mouth in my room…no way can I tide over. If the girls at the establishment hadn’t smuggled in some contraband…

“It’ll pass”, came Faeve’s firm, yet steely reply.

“Speaking from experience of junkies?” I snapped. Laughing at me, are you? My head…

“Unfortunately, yes”, her voice quavered. “Faelor isn’t the only one I know. My mother…” her voice trailed off. She paused. When she spoke again, her voice had the composure of an assassin, “after Faelor took her into his harem, she…broke. She took to all the…“entertainment” available to a royal concubine. Rarely had I seen her since without a stupor. From a woman who fought down a Troich to keep me safe, she…she loved her vapours and liquids more than she loved her own daughter”.

Oh. My mind reeled at the new information. Is…is that why she was so unnaturally aggressive towards the Kairex? Her own mother…neglected her so she conflated her with the bird’s excessive affection?

Faeve eyes bored into mine as if I was a ghost of the past. Her sharp gaze was defiant, daring me to say something cruel; to mock, to ridicule.

Her stare shook me to my core. What do you want me to say?! What? Her eyes fixed me into place, rooted like a dead butterfly pinned and labelled for the viewing pleasure in a collection. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to! The protests died in my throat. Of course, I had a choice. Everyone does.

I gulped. Don’t stare at me with those eyes! Don’t!

Faeve’s gaze softened. Her eyes searched my face as sweat trickled down my brow. “The pain will pass in a bit”, she softly said. “It always does”, she insisted, as if to convince herself as well. Our connection thrummed with life. Her sorrow didn’t hit me like a violent sea storm. It spread like a calm lake with hardly a ripple, engulfing me. I found myself sinking in it bit by bit.

You…Faeve… my mouth twisted in a small smile. Such a fine pair we make...fucked up beyond saving.

Faeve broke the eye contact, her eyes darting down. “Yeah”, she said, “yeah”. She walked towards the edge of the subterranean lake, her shoulder drooping down like it carried the weight of the world.