"She did what?!" Ulana couldn't believe him, nor, for that matter, could the rest of the team.

Standig was crying so hard, he could barely get the words out as he explained the deep gash in Lolo's left wrist. With her armor now removed, Jadu was assessing the full extent of Lolo's injuries, and it was ugly. In addition to the self-inflicted wound on her wrist, Lolo's left shoulder had been mutilated, her leading right leg had sustained three significant wounds that would require stitches, and she was absolutely covered in dark bruises.

"Somehow, she got away without broken bones," Jadu said, finding the one piece of good news. "These are flesh wounds, which will heal, but it's going to take time. That shoulder might give her long-term problems though, and she's going to be anemic for a while. In fact, just from blood-loss, I'm not sure how she's still alive."

As the shock wore off, Fortus started raging. He was angry at the dragons for the attack on the Wolf Tribe. Angry at Standig for keeping the knowledge of the attack from the team. Angry at the Dragon General for the massacre. Angry at himself for not being the one to chase Lolo into the woods. Angry at Lolo for hurting herself. "How could she do this to us?!" From the way Standig explained things, Lolo had exploited Standig's greatest weakness, herself, to get him to let her pursue her revenge. Rightfully so, Standig was now a mess because of it.

"Guys," Jadu's voice brought Fortus back to the moment, "Lolo is a suicide risk."

A silent numbness settled on the team.

"You really think…?" Ulana couldn't finish. "She only did that so Standig would let her go!"

Jadu shook his head. "Sane people don't cause serious damage to themselves on purpose for any reason."

"What do we do?"

"Until she gets through this, we can't leave her alone, and she can't have access to weapons or things that she can use to hurt herself with."

"You're serious?" Ulana felt sick.

Jadu nodded.

After patching her up, Jadu officially put Huo Lohse on suicide watch. Ulana and Fortus took it in turns to stay with her as Lolo wouldn’t allow Standig anywhere near her, Jadu was stretched thin tending to the many injuries among the Wolf and Bear Tribe soldiers, and her brothers were all needed to help piece the Wolf Tribe back together.

With her nightmares terrorizing her anew every time she fell asleep, Fortus took the night shift. It worked out well, because Ulana could then be with Lolo during the day when she needed to do things like use the restroom or take a bath.

Time became irrelevant to Lolo. She slept almost constantly because, even with her nightmares, it was easier than being awake with her thoughts. When she’d wake up, she would often hear the people around her talking about her in hushed voices as though they were afraid to break her-- as if she could break any more than she already had.

She knew that she was on suicide watch. It’s not that Lolo particularly wanted to die, but somewhere in that twisted up knot of emotions and pain, Lolo felt like her existence was hurting people, especially the ones she cared about the most. After all, she was the reason that the Dragon General had chosen to order the massacre instead of releasing the hostages. He did it in an effort to destroy her. It had worked. And now her friends were in pain every day watching her suffer through the aftermath. She’d even intentionally used herself against Standig, knowing fully that she was his greatest weakness. How evil must she be to do that to him? Fortus was up every night helping her cope with her nightmares. Ulana was sacrificing her days to keep an eye on her. Jadu checked in as often as he could because he was worried about her. And her family…. Her brothers had lost their mom and her dad had lost his wife because of her.

The one thing that seemed to keep her going was her blind hatred for the Dragon General. Lolo was certain that he was the dissident she’d been given the Silver Wolf spirit to help stop, but Fortus wouldn’t let her train right now. Something about weapons being off-limits, but, oh, how she wanted to train. The sooner they could end this mission, the better. Then she could leave everyone behind to live better, happier lives without her. She desperately wanted to protect everyone from herself. Wouldn’t one clean break be better than this prolonged agony? She was convinced that it would be even though she also knew better.

She knew that her friends and family loved her. She knew that they would be devastated if she died, especially if she died by choice. It was one thing for someone to die from natural causes or at the hands of someone else. It was something completely different and horrible for someone to choose death. Suicide is a slap in the face to everyone that loves you. It’s like saying, “your love isn’t enough to keep me here.” But, now, that’s not how Lolo saw suicide at all. Suicide was loving someone so much that you remove yourself as a barrier or source of pain from their life. And in Lolo’s messed-up head, she honestly believed that.

This was why sleep was better. Even reliving the horrors of battle, death, and abuse were better than the endless torrent of thoughts that plagued her when she was awake. And at least while she slept, Fortus and Ulana could get some sort of a break from watching over her....

***

Lolo woke up against Fortus's shoulder. This was becoming normal. For the first time in a while, she actually bothered to examine his face. At some point during the night, he'd fallen asleep. He looked exhausted, and Lolo found evidence to suggest that he'd been crying. She knew his tears were because of her, and she wanted so badly to take that pain back from him. For now, though, he needed sleep.

Fortus's nightmares had gotten uglier too. Instead of helplessly holding his expiring friend, he was watching her kill herself, unable to stop her or persuade her to stop. By the time he would manage to get to her, it was always too late.

Drenched in sweat, Fortus woke up to find Lolo's head resting on his chest. She was watching him intently, and the amount of concern on her face made him emotional.

"Are you ok?"

She hadn't asked him that since the battle. Actually, she hadn't said anything since the battle nearly two weeks ago.

"Fortus?"

He broke down and pulled her into a tight hug. "Please don't leave."

She knew what he meant. "Your nightmares have changed."

"Lolo, promise me! Please. Promise me that you won't hurt yourself again. You have to promise!"

She lifted her face off his shoulder to look him in the eyes and wipe his tears and sweat away with her sleeve. She hated seeing Fortus like this. Even knowing intimately everything that he'd gone through, Fortus somehow seemed larger than life, so when moments like this struck, it was enough to knock the wind out of her. However, she didn't know what to say. On the one hand, she wanted to comfort Fortus. On the other hand, she didn't want to make a promise she wasn't sure that she'd be able to keep.

"Say something!" Fortus's tears were building into panic. "Why aren't you saying anything?"

"I don't know what to say."

"Say that you promise!"

"I don't know that I can."

The pain on his face made it even harder for Lolo to breathe. His head was spinning trying to come up with the one thing that would convince her to abandon all thoughts of self-destruction. Unable to find anything worth saying, Fortus rotated Lolo onto her back to convey his feelings in a way that words would inevitably fail to match anyway.

They were just friends. They both knew that their feelings for each other only went that deep. And yet, Lolo welcomed the distraction, and Fortus took a strange comfort from knowing that as long as she was here with him, she wasn't somewhere else getting hurt. With their emotions so raw, they were both extremely vulnerable but only vaguely aware of how foolishly they were behaving.

They startled back to reality as Ulana knocked on the door to change the guard.

"Fortus," Lolo sat up and caught his shirt before he could walk away, "I'll try."

Losing interest in getting the door, Fortus sat back down on the bed. "You will?"

"I can't make promises right now. But I'll try, and maybe someday I can promise."

Ulana walked in just in time to watch Fortus kiss the top of Huo Lohse's head. It required a lot of restraint for Ulana not to say anything, but she was relieved to see Lolo allowing Fortus to be affectionate. It marked a shift in Lolo's mental condition that was most welcome.

***

Even though she was no longer on suicide watch, Fortus stayed cautiously close to Huo Lohse. But the chilly depression and guilt that had led to her suicidal feelings were replaced by a scorching anger, and Fortus had to give her a wide berth. Holding murder in her heart against the Dragon General changed Lolo. It gave her a drive that no one had ever seen in her before, and her temper had an exceptionally short fuse, especially where Standig was concerned.

Fortus suddenly had to worry about Lolo over-training. Her injuries were still healing, but she didn’t seem to care about that. Additionally, the team found Lolo difficult to spar with. Her swordsmanship style had changed dramatically, and she was calculating, aggressive, and dangerous like a predator. Maybe it was the result of having to fight to the point of absolute exhaustion all alone, but Lolo was no longer interested in a good match. She fought to kill. In doing so, her team had a hard time countering her. Fortus mandated the use of practice swords whenever Lolo was involved, and occasionally, even then, she would take things too far and someone else would have to step in to pull her back.

To make matters worse, Standig was also in a foul mood these days. He couldn't blame Lolo for being angry with him, but that wasn't the problem anyway. The problem was that she had turned into a completely different person. He didn't even recognize her anymore, and he felt as though he'd lost her. Standig was grieving that loss, but he didn't have the words to express what he was feeling. Frankly, without Lolo, there wasn't anyone to talk about his feelings with anyway.

Jadu, Ulana and Fortus spent considerable energy and effort serving as buffers between Huo Lohse and Standig. Any time the wolf and bear interacted, the conversation quickly became heated if not entirely hostile. (Though, their sparring matches were legendary.)

The one piece of good news was that Standig’s theory on how meditation expanded their capacity rather than accumulated spiritual energy seemed to be true. Despite being utterly spent at the battle for the Wolf Tribe, Lolo’s spiritual energy returned quickly with just a week or so of short, regular night meditations.

Lolo’s nineteenth birthday came and went in early March. The one time Ulana tried to bring it up, she was met with a threatening glare that quickly communicated danger should anyone mention it again. Spring soon followed along with the two month anniversary of the massacre. It was on this day that Standig decided to finally try talking with Lolo first thing in the morning.

“Can I have a word?” Fortus, Ulana and Jadu braced themselves for an explosion.

Lolo didn’t say anything, but she did look up to meet Standig’s eyes.

“In private?”

Her jaw clenched, but she nodded curtly.

Standig led Lolo through the trees to the meditation circle.

“What is it?”

Standig sat down and gestured to suggest that Lolo follow suit. She shook her head, and Standig had to take a deep breath in an effort to remain calm. “Um. How are you?”

She snorted and looked away, shaking her head. “Fine. How are you?”

Standig swallowed hard. “Lolo, I know you’re mad at me, but we have to move beyond this.”

“Yeah? For the sake of the team? For the sake of our mission? Because we’re primordials and have to get along?” Lolo ranted. She’d heard it all before.

“Because we’re friends,” Standig looked like he was about to cry.

“I can’t move past this.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know,” Lolo shot back, but it was the truth.

“Can’t you at least try?”

For whatever reason, Standig’s tone felt patronizing, and Lolo prickled. “Sure, Standig. I’ll try.”

“Ok. Then will you come sit with me for a minute?”

“I don’t want to.”

“Then how can you say that you’re trying?”

She knew this moment had to come, that Standig would try to make-up with her. But she couldn’t do this. Not today. "Why today of all days?" Lolo felt her ever-present anger beginning to surge again, so before it could get out of control, she turned around and walked away, heading back for the courtyard.

“Lolo. Lolo, stop!” Standig got to his feet to chase after her.

She really, really couldn’t do this today. Lolo knew that engaging with Standig right now would not end well. She kept walking, stubbornly ignoring him.

“You can’t just walk away from this. Lolo!” Standig chased her into the woods, stopping in front of her to cut her off. “Lolo, talk to me. We’ve been friends for years! Help me understand all of this.”

She looked up and registered the strained self-control on his face. He was struggling with this too. “Not now, Standig.”

“Then when?”

“Later.” She moved around him to keep walking.

“When is later?!” Standig was losing his cool.

“I don’t know.”

“Lolo!”

She picked up the pace. Both of them were getting too emotional, and here, there was no one to hold her back from hurting him. She felt Standig’s hand snatch at her arm, and she wheeled around so fast, Standig startled. Her hand batted his away. Shaking, her anger was barely containable as she fixed him with a warning look. A moment passed while Lolo tried to exhale some of her growing fury. Then, without a word she turned back toward the courtyard and broke into a run.

No matter how many times he’d seen that look on her face, Standig still couldn’t get used to it. He knew he should let her go. He knew she was right on the edge of losing her temper. He knew this could only end in a fight, but he was getting desperate. Standig had been trying to deny it, but the truth was that he needed her. This tension between them was ripping him apart.

Lolo cleared the trees and headed for the tunnel. There was no way Standig would give up on this once he’d built up the courage to get started.

“Lolo?” Fortus moved to intercept her but thought better of it when he caught the look on her face.

Standig came bursting through the trees, chasing Lolo down, and Fortus immediately moved to screen him off as Lolo slipped through the tunnel.

“Let her go, Standig,” Fortus said as gently as he could while remaining firm.

Standig was shaking, but not from anger. He was scared, terrified that he really had lost his best friend, that she had completely shut the door on their friendship, that she wanted nothing to do with him. He took a few deep breaths to try and calm himself down. She’d come back when she'd cooled off. He could try again then, right?

“Standig, are you alright?” Fortus asked awkwardly.

“Fine.”

“Is something going on that I should know about?”

Standig shook his head.

“She’ll come around eventually,” Fortus tried to assure him.