Episode VIII

Bone to Pick

Fog clung to the damp, sickly earth, rolling into every nook and cranny with an oppressive omnipresence. Every clod, every stone, and every malnourished plant fell victim to the omnipresent cloud. The few insects that flew around this land buzzed around almost blind, the billowing mist was so thick. None knew what could hide just a few meters out, beyond the realm of sight.

One particular dragonfly lazily flitted about, landing atop a curved, stone slab. Engraved upon the face of the slab was a name and a range of dates: Margaret Zero: 734—762. It was a simple, rather unassuming tombstone, essentially identical to the many, many hundreds of others that stood on either side of the shrouded road. Even though the graves were packed tight, it was only possible to see five or so in any direction before it became too obscured.

“Who makes a graveyard along the sides of a road?” Jenny asked, clutching her hands to her sides. She was not dressed for the damp, chilly weather, but she didn’t want to admit it to Amaris.

“I think most graveyards are along the sides or at the end of a road,” Amaris said.

“What I mean is who puts a graveyard in the middle of a road through the wilderness?”

“For all we know, we’re entering a town right now.”

Jenny raised an eyebrow. “Amaris, we’ve been walking through this graveyard for an hour.”

“Half an hour,” Amaris corrected.

“I’m counting the ‘Amaris-is-paranoid time’ in the total time.”

Amaris put her hands on her hips and huffed. “Look, it’s a well-known fact that graveyards are creepy and I just wanted to make sure we weren’t going to be eaten alive by zombies or something.”

“Hey, maybe you were right to check,” Jenny said, raising her hands. “I’m just exercising my right to count that as part of the travel time.”

“You said ‘walking,’ not ‘travel’ earlier.”

Jenny facepalmed. “Amaris, has anyone ever told you that you’re a computer?”

“It was a bad joke the bullies at school used to tell all the time,” Amaris admitted. “…Huh. I could royally kick their butts now without breaking a sweat. I wonder if Ralph will be able to comprehend me drop-kicking him to the ground…”

“Ralph?”

“Big tough sports guy.”

“Oh, a jock,” Jenny nodded in understanding. “Why didn’t you just say so?”

Amaris gave her a strange look. “What’s a jock?”

“…A big tough sports guy?”

“There’s a word for that?”

“Um… yes?”

Amaris, not sure what to do with this information, turned her gaze forward. She was quickly reminded of why she hadn’t been doing this previously since there was essentially nothing in front of her. Just gray. She didn’t like the sensation of walking into absolute emptiness.

Pitch didn’t either, which was probably why he’d been hiding in the backpack ever since they started trekking through the graveyard.

Every now and then, Amaris looked to the left, checking to see if the name on the nearest tombstone was the same as one they’d passed previously. Unfortunately, the names and dates were all unique, so far as she could tell, which meant this graveyard wasn’t looping back on itself, it was just unnaturally huge.

Or maybe the fog just makes us move much slower through it.

Amaris found herself wondering why there were so many people buried here. Hundreds of names and stones going on and on and on… was this place important for some reason? Did a great battle happen here? Was there some kind of curse on the land that killed people and then carted them into perfect graves? If there was, how would it work on Jenny, if at all?

In the couple of weeks Jenny and Amaris had been traveling together, Amaris had witnessed the girl’s head explode, her body get torn in half, a spike shatter her spine, and a shoe-piranha eat both of her feet. Every time it was remarkably bloodless and bizarre, and at this point asking exactly how Jenny would regrow from the latest horror was a common thought in Amaris’ mind.

The immortal child was never careful. She never needed to be.

“Hey, look, a skeleton!” Pointing a short way off the path to a humanoid skeleton seated at a gravestone.

“Jenny, remember what we talked about…” Amaris cautioned.

“Amaris, it’s the first thing we’ve seen in an hour. Are you going to tell me we can’t check it out?”

Amaris looked over at the skeleton. It was hard to make out any details given the fog, a fact that tickled her curiosity. With a sigh, she waved a hand, indicating Jenny could investigate. “Just don’t, like, punch it or anything.”

“Can do!” Jenny pranced over, Amaris trailing shortly behind. As they got closer it was easy to see that it wasn’t a human skeleton—there was no hole for the nose. Given the angular hips and limb joints, Amaris surmised that it had once been a gari, but so old that the plastic portions had rotted away.

She leaned down, staring into the noseless skull’s eye sockets, finding nothing but a hollow skull inside. It occurred to her that she’d never actually seen a real skeleton, or even a dead body, before; not during this entire curse. The closest had been piles of ash… no skeletons.

“Amaris…?” Jenny asked. “You’ve got the creepy look again.”

Amaris reached out a hand and traced her finger around the skeleton’s jawline, feeling the old, dusty flecks of bone scratch under her touch. “It’s… so hollow. Empty.” Amaris tilted her head to the side, staring into the eye sockets once more. “This will be us, one day.”

“You, maybe.”

“You’ve easily left more than a full skeleton behind you this week alone.”

“….Good point.”

“I wonder…” Amaris held out a finger and poked it into the eye socket.

This prompted the skeleton to let out a cry of shock and jump to its feet in panic, holding a hand to its socket.

Amaris and Jenny let out a joint cry of panic and jumped back.

The skeleton pointed at them and screamed again.

Amaris and Jenny matched it, pointing at it and yelling.

“Didn’t your parents teach you it was rude to poke people’s eyes!?” he asked them.

Amaris whipped out her bow and Jenny readied her fists for a fight. It was at this point Amaris heard the sounds of clanking coming from all around them. Out of the fog, from every angle, approached a skeleton. Mostly humanoid, but of various sizes, shapes, and species—with a few cat skeletons thrown in for good measure.

“I’ll take all of you at once…” Jenny growled, fists brimming with white energy.

“Oh, please don’t,” a feminine voice said from a skeleton twice as tall as any of the others. “We don’t want to hurt you…”

Amaris didn’t lower her bow. “You… don’t?”

“Yes.” The extremely tall skeleton woman lowered herself to Amaris’ level, at clear discomfort to herself. When she spoke, her jaw didn’t move, the words just sounded from somewhere behind her teeth. “We just wanted you to pass through without knowing us… but…”

“Reginald had to ruin everything!” one of the cat skeletons shouted, pointing a leg at the gari skeleton who had jumped up.

“She poked my eye!” Reginald objected. “No man could be expected to remain still while that was happening!”

“You don’t have an eye!”

“I still see out of there don’t I?”

The cat let out an aggressive hiss. “That’s just an illusion!”

“Silence,” the woman said in a tone that indicated there would be consequences if she wasn’t heeded. Both the skeletons stopped their argument immediately. “Cory, you cannot expect everyone to ignore what our perceptions tell us. Reginald, you were not supposed to be this close to the road when travelers came through. I want you both to recognize your faults and resolve this—later. Right now…” She turned to the combat-ready Jenny and Amaris. “We have more pressing matters to deal with.”

Amaris narrowed her eyes. “Excuse me if I’m a little suspicious of the bones of the dead telling me they don’t want to tear me to pieces.”

The woman tapped one of her bony fingers on her opposite arm. “Well, think of it this way… if we wanted to tear you into those pieces you mentioned, there are more than enough of us to do it.”

“That’s what you think…” Jenny said with a sneer.

Amaris frowned—but finally lowered her bow. “That is what they think, Jenny. And even considering your whole… thing, they can still pin you.”

“No pile of bones can hold Jenny down!”

“That’s what you think,” Reginald said, prompting a look from the tall woman that shut him right up.

Amaris put a hand on Jenny’s shoulder, telling her to relax. “They really don’t want to hurt us.”

Jenny reluctantly lowered her fists. “I was hoping for a good brawl…”

“I’m sure some of us would be more than willing to engage in a friendly spar,” the woman said, standing back to her immense height. “Should you wish.”

Now that everyone was relaxing, Amaris asked a question. “Why didn’t you just come to meet us when we passed through?”

“Fear,” the woman said. “Imagine you came across a graveyard with skeletons walking around by the dozen, and a few of them were walking towards you. Would you not attack the monstrous creatures of death?”

“You were afraid of us?”

Jenny rolled her shoulders back. “Why shouldn’t they be?”

“Jenny, we just look like a couple of lost girls.”

“It’s less you and more people in general,” the woman explained, twirling her hand through the thick mist. “If you run away screaming from a graveyard filled with moving skeletons and tell your parents or the authorities… it is likely some sort of ‘holy’ purge would be arranged.”

“We won’t put you in danger,” Amaris said. “…Do you think we could tell Coleus?”

Jenny raised an incredulous eyebrow. “Amaris, I’ve never met Coleus.”

“But I’ve talked a lot about her!”

“And I mostly didn’t pay much attention.”

Amaris took in a sharp breath, putting a hand to the bridge of her nose. “Of course…”

Jenny nonchalantly turned to the woman, extending a hand. “Hi, guess we’re friends now. I’m Jenny. That’s Amaris. You are?”

The woman shook her hand. “I am Kkithi, the leader of the Old Bones, voted into this position against my will.”

“You’re the only one who can do it,” Cory the cat said, jumping onto her ribs, using them as a ladder to climb onto her shoulder to rest. “Nobody else wants to.”

“So, who were you all when you were alive?” Amaris asked.

“Skeletons never know who they were.” Kkithi shook her head slowly. “We are born when reanimated, not reborn. Whoever owned these bones before is long gone. As for the graveyard itself… we do not know why people are drawn to bury their dead here, the fog is ever-present and there are not many settlements nearby. But come they do, adding to our number.”

“…Fascinating…” Amaris said. “Do you… mind if I draw some pictures of you? I usually draw pictures but you might want to be secret and…”

“You’re an artist?” Kkithi said.

“Not… really,” Amaris admitted. “I do diagrams, mostly.” She grabbed one of her notebooks and flipped to some drawings of the Predateor.

“What a foul-looking creature…”

“You have no idea.”

“Don’t listen to her,” Jenny said. “It’s not that bad.”

“You didn’t see it!”

“Yeah, but, really, all it did was stab you and reset time? Boring. More annoying than anything.”

Amaris once again felt the need to throttle Jenny, but she resisted the temptation. Besides, it’s not like it would do any good.

Kkithi finished her inspection of the drawing. “While you are not a traditional artist, I do believe one of our number would like to meet you. I’ll let her decide if pictures should be drawn or not.”

Amaris nodded, following Kkithi deeper into the graveyard without another word. Even though she believed the skeletons meant no harm, she didn’t let her guard down. Maybe they were being scouted to be turned into skeletons, or something the bony beings didn’t realize was nefarious. Yet, they weren’t openly hostile and were actually a little nervous, so Amaris decided to give them the benefit of the doubt they got so rudely robbed from them just for being skeletons.

Jenny suddenly raised her hand. “I’m not an artist, what will I do?”

“Well…” Kkithi pondered this as she walked among the graves, a gaggle of skeletons moving with her. “She may also wish to have a friendly spar, if you’re up to facing one of her size.”

“Oh, I’m up for it.”

“Ah, I see you have not yet learned to think before committing.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Amaris couldn’t help it this time. “It means you’re reckless, Jenny! Come on!”

Jenny put a hand on Amaris shoulder and looked her in the eyes. “I’m going to let you in on a little secret, Amaris. I know full well that I’m a reckless, impulsive, shortsighted monkey who hits the red button just because it’s there. Life’s just more fun this way.” She released the dumbfounded Amaris and turned forward, pointing a finger at the sky. “So bring on the massive skeleton that’s going to trounce me!”

“Okay,” a deep feminine voice called from above. Out of the fog descended a skull larger than most cars with an elongated snout, visible horns, and gaping eye sockets. It vaguely reminded Amaris of a lizard, and given the size, there was only one creature this could be. A dragon. Not just any dragon skeleton either, but one whose bones were covered in vibrant colors of paint arranged to look like plants growing all over its structure, both inside and out.

Amaris instinctually took a step back. Jenny whistled. “So, I challenge you to a duel!”

A bony claw came out of nowhere and pinned Jenny effortlessly to the ground. Jenny, absolutely trapped under a bone that couldn’t care less if her fists lit on fire, could only let out a delighted laugh. “Yep! That went about as well as expected! Nice one!”

The dragon removed the claw and nodded in respect toward Jenny. “You have no fear. Admirable.”

“I think her lack of fear might be due to brain damage,” Amaris deadpanned.

“In that case…” the dragon turned to Amaris, the motion of her skull audibly whistling through the air. “She has been gifted with an admirable trait.”

Amaris’ blank look remained for a few seconds before she let out a sigh. “Yeah… that sounds a lot like what my mom and dad told me. Bad things are just good things you aren’t looking at right.”

“They sound wise.”

Amaris only nodded slowly.

“Where are they now?”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out. We… think they’re somewhere to the East. But it’s a long journey.”

“And a long journey comes with many rest stops.” The dragon brought its claw out from the nearby fog, coming to Amaris with it. Despite knowing the dragon meant her no harm, Amaris still flinched back from the massive claw coming right at her—but she gained control of herself, allowing the dragon to gently run a bony claw through her hair. “You do not seek to harm us. Come, you may rest with me. I am Sy. Do you draw?”

“A bit…” Amaris said, taking out her notebook.

“Excuse me, it is so hard to see things that are much smaller than myself…” From somewhere in the fog she pulled out a massive set of silver-rimmed spectacles and placed them over her face. “Ah, you seek accuracy.”

“Yes. I… well, I want to put down what I see so others can see it. And so I can understand it better.”

“Are we not going to talk about the giant pair of glasses on the skeleton dragon?” Jenny asked.

Sy continued to address Amaris. “The principles of art can still hold, little one. Drawings of life still require clarity and composition. For instance, I have no doubt that these measurement lines are accurate, but it makes it difficult to visually determine the number of legs…”

“I’ll take that as a no…” Jenny tried to put her hands in her pockets, but then she remembered her dress didn’t have pockets. So she awkwardly linked her arms behind her back and kicked a rock.

Kkithi leaned down to Jenny. “Should I find a more suitable sparring partner while the art conversation continues?”

Jenny’s eyes grew wide with anticipation. “…Yes. Yes, please, yes.”

“Hey, Boro!”

Boro wasn’t so much a skeleton as the long-ago discarded exoskeleton of a giant spider. “What!?”

“This girl wants to spar!”

“Oh! In that case… Threetwoone GO!” He jumped at Jenny, hollow fangs bared. Jenny reacted quickly, punching him aside.

“I like you,” Jenny said, grin widening as she enhanced her first with a light green aura. “En garde!”

“You avoided my sneak attack, you shall avoid no more!” He jumped at her, initiating a fight that drew a somewhat decent crowd of bony people, all the while Amaris and a massive dragon discussed the finer details of art.

The glasses were never mentioned again.

~~~

While it soon became clear that the Old Bones really were as friendly and lively as any properly living person, Amaris and Jenny did not stay long. It wasn’t because of the skeletons’ appearance—at least not mostly—but rather a desire not to spend the night in the middle of an excessively damp and fog-ridden graveyard. So, in the end, they only spent an hour or two among the graves before setting out. They weren’t far from the outer edge of the graveyard, so Kkithi walked with them.

“I would offer to feed you lunch, but we don’t exactly need food or have taste buds.”

“It’s fine.” Amaris did a little spin on the tips of her toes to liven up the otherwise boring trek through the graveyard. “Maybe you should invest in houses, though.”

“Some of us would like them, but houses in a graveyard… it attracts attention.”

“Maybe move to a different location?”

“Some of us have, but the majority stay. New skeletons need to be shown what to do.”

At this point, they passed the last gravestone. Almost immediately the fog started to lift, though it did so gradually. Furthermore, life began to return to the soil with the grasses becoming more frequent and much greener.

“It is nice, out of the fog…” Kkithi admitted as the light level increased.

“But you have to hide,” Jenny said, tilting her head to the side. “Yeah. Your situation sucks.”

Amaris elbowed Jenny. “I wish there was something we could do to help.”

Kkithi looked down at them. “You are helping, by keeping us secret. And, maybe, not attacking skeletons on sight from now on.”

Amaris gripped her backpack straps and nodded forcefully. “Skeletons are friends, not…” She searched her mind for the perfect word to complete the saying. “Not…”

“Foes?” Jenny suggested.

“Too predictable. Skeletons are friends, not…”

“Heathens!”

Amaris’ mind came up with a few reasons why that was a bad word to use before it registered that the word had not been suggested by Kkithi or Jenny, but by a loud, booming voice from the sky.

Kkithi immediately looked around for a place to hide, but found none—they were far from the graves and the fog wasn’t thick enough to provide cover. So she did the only thing she could think of—play dead. All of her bones collapsed into a heap between Jenny and Amaris.

Amaris put her hand to her eyes, looking up—seeing only fog. “Where did that come from?”

Jenny’s head whipped left and right, smacking Amaris both times with her side ponytail. “I got nothing besides ‘somewhere up.’ “

The voice boomed again, directly above them—but they still couldn’t see anything through the fog. “Corrupt sheep! You do not have the Blessed Eyes!”

“Come down here and fight like a man!” Jenny shouted, shaking her fist at the foggy sky.

Amaris, meanwhile, readied her bow without pointing it. She wondered how the voice in the sky could see them while the reverse was decidedly untrue. Pitch poked his head out and started licking the air, not giving Amaris any more information.

“Hey!” Jenny shouted. “You still up there? You deaf? Get down here ri—“

The voice had apparently listened, since a heavy creature plowed into the ground, leaving a crater a meter in front of Jenny, tossing clods of dirt all over her and into the bone-pile of Kkithi. Kkithi didn’t move.

The being himself was a little shorter than the average man, which meant he towered over the miniscule statures of the girls. While he was bipedal, he was decidedly non-humanoid, instead taking the form of a large bird with the beautiful black plumage of a crow filling his wings and beaked face. The beak itself was stark white, perfectly matching the full plate armor the bird wore. Such armor would have to be enchanted or augmented in some way to still allow for flight, a conclusion which its soft blue glow supported. A bow with pink arrowheads was slung on his back, and his eyes were covered by a pair of gold-rimmed goggles.

“You heathens could not face me like a man!” He boomed. “You are small an—“

Jenny burst out laughing, startling him into shutting him up. She tried to say something, but the heaving of her chest prevented her from doing anything. Holding up a finger, telling her opponent to wait a moment, she continued laughing.

Both Amaris and the bird-man stared at her as her laughs turned to wheezes and eventually to short gasps that allowed her to get words out. “Ah… this is a good joke.”

“I don’t get it,” Amaris said.

This brought on a round of snorts from Jenny. “You’ve never met a qorvid, have you?”

“A what?”

Jenny gestured at the bird-creature before them. “Behold, a qorvid, bird-men. They have the intelligence of a wall-nut and some kind of biological imperative to run after the shiny. Watch this.” She pulled out one of the coins Amaris had given her to use in case they got separated and threw it into the air.

It bounced off the qorvid’s helmet. He didn’t take his gaze off of the girls.

Jenny’s smile vanished. “Hey. Qorvid. That coin is a shiny. You blind?”

“You speak of the Instinct!” He boomed, much louder than he needed to this close to the two of them. “I have rejected the Instinct!”

Jenny raised an eyebrow. “The idea of a qorvid who won’t go for the shiny is about as ridiculous as the idea of a qorvid paladin. Your bones are hollow! Amaris could snap them!”

“You mock my path to holy service!” he shouted, throwing his wings wide—showing off the way the armor’s plates interwove with each other to accommodate his wings. “And you consort with the undead! Traitors to the living, you shall—“

“Uh, what undead?” Amaris asked.

The qorvid glared at her, clearly upset his speech was interrupted. “The pile of bones behind you.”

“Does that look undead to you?” Amaris fluttered her eyelashes.

“I saw it walking around as I was flying overhead, you can drop this game of lies right now.”

“I haven’t lied, I’ve just asked questions.”

“They were misleading questions!”

“Were they?”

“Of course they were, what kind of child doesn’t underst—“ This time, the qorvid stopped talking all on his own and calmly folded his wings to his sides. “I have no quarrel with you. Stand aside and let me purge the realm of the undead.”

Amaris shook her head. “Look, they’re really nice if you get to know them, maybe…”

“No more word games! I am Icarus, the Brilliant Shadow of Shining Judgment!” He armed his bow, prompting Amaris to do the same. “And my quest will continue!”

Amaris swallowed hard. Looks like talking is out of the question… She let an arrow fly, aiming for a wing. She hit dead-on, but her arrow snapped upon contact with the armor. Jenny moved to punch, but Icarus was faster—his pink-tipped arrow hit Jenny in the shoulder, knocking her back.

“Ow,” Jenny deadpanned, glancing lazily at her shoulder. The lazy look vanished immediately upon sight of blood flowing. “…Wait, you’re not supposed to be able to do that…”

“Holy arrows, heathen!”

“I’m not undead!”

He shot her with another arrow, this time in the stomach, prompting more blood to flow. Jenny growled, pulling her fist back—only for Icarus to shoot the fist, turning several fingers into a bloody twisted mess.

Jenny clearly wasn’t registering any of the pain, but the physical injuries were preventing her from moving as quickly. She had to hobble toward Icarus, this time readying her other fist. Icarus took aim…

Amaris jumped into the air, kicking Icarus’ bow—not hard enough to disarm him, but hard enough to throw his aim off. She twisted off the bulk of his wing, managing an impressive jump even with the entire weight of the backpack on her. It wasn’t going to help her get another attack, but she didn’t need one. There was an opening now, and Jenny only needed one.

The punch hit Icarus in the chest with an immense crunch sound, coming from both the buckling of the armor and the breaking of several weak ribs underneath. Icarus let out a wail, unable to take that much pain hitting him all at once. He tried to flap his wings and gain some distance, but the motion was too much for his injuries. Whatever he would have tried next was interrupted by another punch from Jenny—this one with magic power focused on electricity rather than raw impact damage. The thunder punch hit the side of his face and coursed through his armor and his flesh, making all of his muscles violently contract.

The poor qorvid fell to the ground with a wheezing cry, unconscious.

Amaris scrambled over to Jenny. “Are you okay!?”

“I’m great!” Jenny grinned, pumping her arm. Then she noticed the blood pouring down it. “Okay, how the frick did he do that?”

Kkithi stood up at this point. “Magic jamming arrows,” she explained. “Skeletons who traveled the world spoke of them. If one of those hits anything that cannot live under mundane means…”

Amaris shuddered. “So he really would have…?”

“Yes. He is well outfitted to ‘purge’ the undead.” Kkithi leaned down to the form of Icarus, removing the bow from his person. “Abominable weapon…”

Jenny violently yanked the arrow out of her hand, losing a few fingers in the process. With the arrow removed, however, they grew back just fine, glove and al—though her other injuries were still open. “This is annoying…” She plucked another arrow out.

Amaris, satisfied that Jenny was fine, looked to Kkithi and then to Icarus. “What… are you going to do with him?”

“I… have no idea,” Kkithi admitted.

~~~

Amaris held up one of Icarus’ arrows to the air in an attempt to catch the light before she remembered there was mist everywhere. Still, it gave her a better look at the weapons. The shaft and tail were just like any other arrow, albeit clean and of high quality. The arrowhead, however, was carved entirely from a magenta crystal split down the middle, giving the arrowhead two distinct halves. A soft glow surrounded the crystals, and upon closer inspection Amaris noted that the glow’s strength alternated from one segment of the crystal to the other in a predictable cycle.

Fascinating… She bundled all the arrows up and put them with her others. These would most definitely be useful. However, she would have to wait to test them out, since there were other, more pressing matters; namely, the qorvid tied to one of the tombstones. The Old Bones had imprisoned him but also put his broken wing in a sling and a tight brace around his chest. If there was one thing skeletons knew how to treat, it was bones.

Not that Icarus was happy about it.

“I… am going… to k—aghghehahhhh…” Icaris let out a wheeze mixed with choking and coughing, falling silent.

“I dare say,” Reginald said with a tilt of his head. “I don’t think he would shut up if his body wasn’t forcing him to.”

“The downsides of lungs,” Jenny commented, examining her gloves—both still perfectly fine despite having lost several fingers earlier. One of the many mysteries of her ability. “I don’t even need my lungs, but they complain so much whenever I’m underwater for more than ten minutes. Then I pass out and that’s just awkward.”

Amaris walked up to Kkithi, who was standing a short distance from Icarus and the gaggle of skeletons surrounding him. “What are you going to do with him?”

“There is no solution,” Kkithi said, shaking her head. “We can’t let him go. He would bring actual paladins down on us. We can’t keep him here forever; people will eventually start to wonder. …The same problem arises with… getting rid of him.”

Amaris looked down at the ground, unable to bring herself to speak her mind. If he were just some random farmer you would probably do it, wouldn’t you? Nobody misses random farmers. You’d feel bad but you’d say it was for the safety of all the Old Bones.

“Amaris… I am sorry, I should have been more aware when I was seeing you out of the graveyard.”

“This is our fault too,” Amaris said.

“I do not blame you. You are still free to leave.”

“No.” Amaris crossed her arms. “We’re staying and… going to figure out some way to iron out this mess.”

Kkithi leaned down to place a hand on Amaris’ shoulder. “Your heart is good, but you don’t want to get messed up in this. Your family is waiting for you.”

“They’ve waited several months they can wait a few extra days.” She hefted up her backpack and clenched her jaw. “I’m helping. All we have to do is show Icarus that you aren’t evil monsters of death.”

“Death!” Icarus screamed before devolving into another whimpering wheeze.

“I’m open to suggestions,” Kkithi said.

“How about we just...” Amaris opened up her backpack and took a look at all of the food she had jumbled up in there. A mixture of sealed food, greens, and a few candies. “Does anyone know how to cook?”

~~~

“Ahuhu, yes!” The two-headed serpent-skeleton said with a shrill accent. “Behold, real food! Ah, I must thank you Amaris, I have had no reason to cook since I returned from my journeys: no stomachs to feed! But now… ah yes, this will do perfectly for our fine feathered friend!”

Jenny looked at the large pot of simmering soup, mouth watering. “Can… can I have some?”

“Oh, of course, there’s plenty to go around!” The snake lifted up his tail and poured the pot into three bowls. Amaris had no idea how he’d done it, but with the limited ingredients he’d made a broth that smelled heavenly and fresh.

Amaris took a sip, finding it tasted like chicken despite not having a single piece of chicken in it. “How did you do that?”

The skeleton let out a dual-toned chuckle. “Seasonings, powders, love, and very special mushrooms.”

Jenny stopped downing her bowl suddenly. “Um… any… side effects of those mushrooms?”

“Well you two are fine, aren’t you?”

Both of them fixed him with unamused glares.

He held up his two heads as if in surrender, the action almost knocking him over. “All right, all right, they’re harmless, okay? They just adapt to the pleasure centers of the customer’s tongue. You, a dragon, and a qorvid would all have a pleasant experience. Speaking of, it’s dinnertime for our friend!” Placing the third bowl atop his tail he slithered across the graveyard to Icarus, who had foregone shouting for glaring angrily at the tiny skeleton tending to his bandages.

“Dinner is served!” The snake placed the bowl in Icarus’ functional wing. “I spent the last few hours working on this thing of beauty, you have no idea how good it feels to cook for the living ag—“

Icarus kicked up his foot, throwing the soup all over both of the snake’s faces. “That… is my spit.” He let out a pained grunt but refused to break eye contact with the snake’s left head.

The snake raised up like he was taking two sharp breaths. Then he let out a haggard sound like a sigh mixed with a sob and turned to slither away.

“…I liked your soup, snake guy!” Jenny called. He paid her no mind, slithering away to brood. “Geez, two out of three ain’t bad, but if you were him you’d think it was the end of the world.”

“There’s a lot on the line here, Jenny,” Amaris said. “Let’s try something else…”

~~~

“And now…” Jenny said, putting on her ‘announcer’ voice, which was every bit as cheesy as the name made it sound. “The first-ever Old Bones Art Show!” She and several skeletons clapped. These skeletons formed a sort of audience around Icarus, gaze directed forward at a little stage they’d set up by laying a wooden plank over several tombstones. Jenny hopped off the stage, allowing a short, stubby skeleton to walk up with a canvas larger than him and set it up. The beautiful painting showed a purple hill with shimmering light coming from below, giving the scene an ethereal feel.

The skeletons talked amongst themselves about the piece’s composition and arrangement. Icarus remained silent.

Jenny frowned—she’d told Amaris this wasn’t going to work, but she needed to see this through to the end. She waved for other skeleton artists to show their work, ranging from traditional canvases to painted animal skulls to ornate pottery and even an invention called a “tombstone redecorator.” None of it prompted anything from Icarus.

With a disgruntled sigh, Jenny picked up the last piece of art and marched onto stage with it herself, expecting nothing. However, the moment she was about to step down, Iracus pointed right at the canvas. “Who… drew that?”

Jenny looked down at the canvas, registering what it was for the first time. A surreal piece that depicted a dragon’s scales slowly dissolving into hundreds of distinct, smaller dragon skeletons, many of which were made of precious stones rather than bone. “Uh… pretty sure this was Sy.”

“Is Sy… a dragon?”

“Yeah!” Jenny smirked. “It’s why she can’t be here, she’d break the stage by standing on i—“

“The dragon of desolation must b—“ Icarus’ pain interrupted his sentence, but he resumed with a dark growl. “Must be vanquished… The losses… must be avenged…”

“I assure you that I am no dragon of desolation,” the voice of Sy came from somewhere above them, through the fog.

“Face me… beast!” Icarus all but wailed.

“…Your wish would be your destruction… no, I cannot do something so brazen.”

“C-coward!”

“…Such a sad, sad man…”

~~~

“…the history of the Old Bones is as, well, as old as the oldest of the bones!” Reginald said, leaning back and crossing his arms. “Now, if we are to get into the pre-modern era of the Old Bones, we begin to see a sharp increase in the—“

“I don’t care about your idiotic history…” Icarus seethed. “Every year… is a blemish…”

“But don’t you see how much it is like your own history?” Reginald asked. “We have wayward individuals, visionaries, artists, an—“

“Too long… you’ve existed… too long…” The qorvid actually started to cry. “How can such evil… be permitted to persist…? Why oh why oh why…?”

With a sigh, Reginald stood up and walked to Amaris, Jenny, and Kkithi. “I did my best, I’m afraid neither the entertaining nor the in-depth views of history can do anything for him.”

Amaris could only feel pity as she looked upon the distraught qorvid. “He’s… he’s so sad…”

“He’s a loon,” Jenny grumbled. “Instead of trying to turn him, we should be preparing for the worst. Battlements, drills, the works.”

“We would not win,” Kkithi said. “And if we left to find a new home… we would be spotted.”

“You can always win if you’ve got Jenny on your side!”

Amaris shook her head. “Jenny, no, we’re not punching people’s heads off.”

“Bu—“

“I said no.”

Jenny crossed her arms, but her defiant look quickly slipped away, replaced with one of concern. “…Fine. Then what?”

“I… I don’t know.” Amaris rubbed her eyes. “I need some sleep…”

“I’ll set up the tent on top of the stage,” Jenny said, taking the tent off Amaris’ back.

Amaris let her. Instead of helping Jenny, though, she found herself drawn back to Icarus. For the first time in a while, Pitch poked his head out of Amaris’ pack to lick her neck. The skeletons terrified him, clearly, but sometimes he needed Amaris just as much as she needed her. She pet his little head and smiled softly as she stood over Icarus.

“You…” Icarus said, raising his eyes. “You have been fooled.”

“I can’t help but think you’re the one who’s been fooled,” Amaris said. “Just… these people have gone out of their way to help you, serve you, be nice, and…”

Icarus hung his head and let out a series of short breaths. “They… really are. But it matters not at all.”

Amaris frowned. “Why not?”

“They are undead. To be undead is… blasphemy. Good hearts… mean nothing.”

Amaris couldn’t think of anything to say to that. Wordlessly, she turned around and walked to the tent, head swirling with thoughts she didn’t know how to parse. She climbed onto the makeshift stage and pressed herself into the sleeping bag. Jenny was already in there, snoring like an ox.

The tent was admittedly cramped with the both of them in there, but Amaris was honestly used to it at this point. Plus, she had more important things to think about than Jenny’s elbow in her back.

Icarus… She closed her eyes and tried not to cry. How can you see and yet be so blind? Why is everyone like this!?

No answer was forthcoming. The questions swirled around in her head until her mind gave up and she went to sleep.

~~~

It was impossible to tell if it was morning, midday, or afternoon when Amaris awoke: merely that it was sometime in the day. Despite the tent being closed, everything inside was damp and clammy, as expected. We knew this would happen…

With a grunt, Amaris got up, took a moment to make sure Pitch was okay in his enclosure and left the tent. Since Jenny was nowhere to be seen, Amaris packed up the tent and stored everything on her back once more. It felt unnaturally heavy today. Just another weight placed on her she didn’t know what to do with.

Here she was, once again in an impossible situation. The only difference here was that she could just… walk away. No one would resent her and, in fact, the people she was trying to help had encouraged her to do so. She only stayed here because she felt like she needed to.

It wouldn’t be right to leave them. I’m part of this now. She ground her teeth. What would I say to Mom? That I just… abandoned them?

She realized she had no idea where she was walking. “Um… hey.” She turned to a gari skeleton sheepishly. “Do you know where Kkithi is?”

The skeleton pointed her in the right direction, and she set off, almost running into Sy’s foot as she did so. Snaking her way forward, she found that the dragon was talking with Jenny and the others.

“Our options are… very limited,” Kkithi said. “No matter what we do, we’re going to be discovered.”

“Which is why you need to build walls and armaments,” Jenny continued. “Learn some fireball magic, make it so they wouldn’t dare tear you down. For all we know, bird-brain is a bit of a crazy and the other paladins won’t miss him for a loooooong time.”

“Can we take that risk?”

“I’m not sure you have a choice.” Jenny shrugged. “If they’re going to find out anyway… you just have to deal with it.”

Amaris let out a short gasp, drawing the attention of the entire group towards her.

“What is it, little one?” Sy asked.

“You’re right, they are going to find out,” Amaris said. “But fighting or preparing for a war will only make things worse. So… what if you had them find out about you on your terms?”

“…I don’t follow,” Reginald said, tilting his head.

“It’s simple, really.” Amaris took a step forward, a determined smile on her face. “Walk right up to them and introduce yourselves.”

Everyone stared at her like she was insane.

“I’m serious! If they find out about you through some paladin or people checking up on the paladin, they’ll assume the worst. But if you introduce yourselves and offer your unique skeletal skills directly… well, it might go badly, but at least you would have tried something that wasn’t just perpetuating the problem.”

“It would betray our position,” Sy said. “They could kill us all and we would have no time for preparation.”

“The other option is war,” Amaris said. “And I… don’t think you want that. At all. So just… put yourselves out there. Show some vulnerability.” I sound like Dad right now. “It’ll be a risk. You have to decide if it’s the risk you want to take.”

Kkithi tapped her fingers on her hips. “If it works… we wouldn’t have to hide at all.”

“Paladins are sworn to kill all of our kind,” Reginald pointed out. “Even if we can convince a town to work with us…”

“Paladins have a code,” Sy countered. “They would not dare to attack a town as a whole.”

Reginald began to nod slowly. “Yes… yes… oh, I think I’m already seeing the benefits. Skeletons can do many jobs that would be lethal or dangerous to the living. A skeleton workforce would be sure to line the pockets of any employers.”

“I will bring this to all the others,” Kkithi said. “But… I think they will take the risk. Few and far between are those of us who relish the idea of turning our home into a military compound.”

Jenny nodded slowly. “Yep, this plan is utterly bonkers. Amaris, you’re learning well.”

Amaris rolled her eyes. “Sure, this is definitely your influence, finding a solution that doesn’t involve punching.”

“I said you were learning, not graduated.”

~~~

Four individuals marched out of the mist that day. At the lead was Amaris with Pitch sitting on top of her head, sleeping. For once in her life, her hands weren’t tightly gripped around her backpack straps, but rather the front end of a stretcher that held the unconscious Icarus. On the other end of the stretcher was Jenny, who, despite not having the additional weight of a backpack, was struggling considerably to keep up the pace.

“We’ve only been going for an hour, Jenny,” Amaris called back. “We’ve walked a lot further than this before.”

“You can just… jump off a cliff…”

“And then you’d have to carry Icarus all by yourself.”

“You know what… I mean…” Jenny glanced back at the figure behind them, dressed in a black trench coat with a black wide-rimmed hat and visor-like sunglasses paired with an equally black bandanna that obscured all facial features. “Why can’t he swap in?”

“You know why.”

“I knowwww but he doesn’t have to carry anything…”

Amaris tilted her head back and took in a sharp breath. “Jenny, this trip is more important than your personal comfort so can you just suck it up for once and carry this bird?”

To Amaris’ shock, she felt Jenny straighten up and increase the pace without a single snide comment. They continued on, leaving the mist further and further behind, allowing the midday sun to beat down upon them. It actually felt warm, a sensation Amaris hadn’t felt the entire time she’d been in the graveyard. Despite the importance of the mission, she allowed herself to enjoy it; as nice as the Old Bones were, they were a constant reminder of death and the end. Out here, life dominated.

Of course, in many ways, it was this dominance of life that they were challenging. Amaris had high hopes, but it was going to be tricky getting this deal to work.

Icarus began to stir on the stretcher. “Mmmm pineapple… fear the screen… bunballs…”

“Aight, set him down, I’ve got this,” Jenny said with far too much glee. The girls set him down, revealing to Amaris that she had been overexerting her arms a bit. Despite all her training, carrying a qorvid was no laughing matter. Perhaps she should have been easier on Jenny.

Jenny, to her credit, had seemingly forgotten about her complaints and went to stand over the awakening Icarus’ face. When he opened his eyes, she grinned. “Hi.”

“Witch! I will… resi—“

Jenny’s hand glowed with a soft purple sparkle. She slapped him across the face and the magic dust went into him, forcing him back to sleep.

“You don’t need to slap that hard,” Amaris commented.

“It’s more fun this way.” Jenny took a moment to stretch her arms, ending with offering their black-suited companion a high-five. Getting nothing in return she quickly returned to Amaris, pretending that she had always intended to give the high-five to her.

Amaris placed a fist into Jenny’s palm, grinning.

Jenny stared at the fist that had met her high five. “…I can’t believe I’ve never thought of that. The high-five ruiner, the ultimate gotcha, the…”

Their tall black companion let out a grunt.

“Right, right…” Amaris took her position at the front of the stretcher and dusted off her hands. “Town’s only a half-hour away. I think I can see the smoke from here…”

“Still wonder why they bury their dead so far out,” Jenny commented. “Has to be very inconvenient.”

“Magic somethingorother.”

“Gee, how insightful.”

~~~

The town had the rather uncreative name of Homestead. It was on the smaller end of settlements, all things considered, and was inhabited almost entirely by humans. It wasn’t just a simple farming town, however, for it was built into the side of a mountain and as a consequence had a fairly decent mining operation going on. Unfortunately, Homestead was quite far from any other major settlements and so the mines were nowhere near as profitable as they should have been, and getting the goods to operate an effective mine was somewhat difficult. One might point out that there was a settlement on the other side of the graveyard that could prove to be a good trading partner, but anyone who had that idea was laughed out of the room.

Why cross the obviously haunted graveyard? That mist had to be full of ghostly curses and diseases. They only went to the graveyard to bury their dead and spent as little time there as possible. As to why they didn’t bury their dead elsewhere, they were of the opinion that making a new graveyard would just spread the haunt. They were, in the end, a very superstitious people.

Considering the fact that the graveyard was teeming with skeletons, they weren’t exactly wrong. This was going to make it a bit of an uphill battle for Amaris and company, but she had a plan. Granted, it lacked a lot of finer details, but it was a plan and Kkithi had signed off on it. Out of desperation, perhaps, but the chances of success were greater than zero, so here they were.

Amaris and Jenny carried the out-cold Icarus right into town, their shadowy companion trailing close behind them. A few of the farmers raised their heads to stare incredulously at the newcomers, a motion that their livestock (mostly llamas) mimicked. However, none of the hardworking people turned from their work to give any greetings, they simply nodded in the direction of the travelers whenever eye contact was made.

“…Wasn’t the plan to wait for them to talk to us?” Jenny asked.

“Yes, it still is,” Amaris whisper-hissed back. “Just… get to the center of town.”

As they left the surrounding farms, they approached the center of town with the mining district close by. Here, among the denser buildings, it was easy to pick out miners from the rest of the population due to their poor hygiene and aroma of coal. They were fortunate enough to witness a team of miners moving an entire minecart filled to the brim with red crystals—no doubt a major haul for a town such as this.

Here, amidst the majority of the people, someone finally came up and spoke to them—a middle-aged woman in an ugly brown dress. “Excuse me… why do you have a qorvid on a stretcher?”

“Simple, really,” Jenny said. “Poor guy got himself injured doing some real stupid things. Claimed he was a paladin!”

At the word paladin, the woman’s eyes widened. “Oh… is that Icarus?”

“That’s how he introduced himself,” Amaris said. “Is there someone in charge we can tell what happened?”

“Oh, yes, yes, of course, the Chief will want to hear everything. Come I’ll take you to the Doctor’s.” She whirled around and pointed at a girl passing by. “Regina! Get the Chief, tell him the dumb bird’s back and broken in more places than I can count!”

The girl nodded in mild fear. “I’ll send him right to you!”

They took Icarus to the Doctor’s—which was essentially nothing more than a residential house of slightly higher quality than the rest. Unfortunately, there was a sign on the door that said the doctor is out. The woman ground her teeth, lifted a rock up off the walkway, and pulled a key out of the rock. She quickly opened the door and guided Amaris and company in, where they were able to lay Icarus on one of the beds.

“The Doctor should be back shortly,” the woman grunted. “And the Chief…”

“Is right here.” A rather fat man with a square jaw walked into the Doctor’s, sitting down on a rickety wooden stool and fixing the two girls with a steely gaze—largely ignoring the black shape in the corner. Perhaps he thought their companion was just a coat rack. “Now… Icarus.”

“How do you know him?” Amaris asked.

“He’s a bit of a nuisance,” the Chief explained. “He was raised from an egg by a retired paladin. When the paladin died he took it upon himself to become a paladin as well, to vanquish the evil—especially the evil that we all told in stories. Somehow he managed to successfully get armor and skills and returned here to ‘slay’ the evil. Not that there was anything to slay in town, he just bothered people with his new code, constantly judging, critiquing every decision made as ‘impure’ and…” The Chief sighed. “I miss when he was just a little bird scrambling around for shiny objects.” He turned to Amaris. “How did you find him?”

“That… is a long story,” Amaris said. “So I’m going to tell it from the beginning. I’m Amaris and this is Jenny, and we were traveling through the graveyard…” And so she began to spin the tale of what happened over the last few days, trying her best to just stick to the facts and not embellish anything. She told them directly of the skeletons, her fear, how the skeletons reacted, and their discovery by Icarus. She also made sure to leave in their comedic attempts to appease Icarus.

At first, the Chief didn’t look like he believed anything Amaris was saying, but when she got to Icarus and started describing how he acted and his reactions, his uncertainty wavered considerably. And then she got to the dilemma.

“They didn’t know what to do. What could they do? Running was pointless, fighting was pointless and distasteful, and hiding was no longer an option. And so…” She looked deep into the Chief’s face. “They just want to live. They’re willing to offer a deal with you, in exchange for protection. That deal… is that you can put them to work in the mines, or anywhere else you see fit. Workers that don’t need to breathe, eat, or even sleep. They won’t even ask for much payment if any at all.”

The Chief frowned. “And who are you to speak for them?”

“I’m not, I’m just here to make sure you don’t crack skulls open.” Amaris gestured back at the shadowy figure. “Reginald here can speak for them.”

Suddenly, the Chief and the woman were visibly afraid. “You… brought one of them here?” the woman said with barely a whisper.

“Oh, don’t be afraid,” Reginald said with his jaw-clacking voice. “If we wanted to invade or destroy you or anything we could have by now. We just… want a chance.” He nodded his covered head toward Icarus. “We’ve brought your paladin back to you and have an offer that is exactly as Amaris stated it. We will work, and we will work hard, so long as we can still live. There are many benefits to skeleton workers: self-sustaining, economically feasible, and no small amount of novelty.”

The Chief stared wide-eyed at Reginald. “Are you… truly a skeleton?”

“Yes. Though I understand if you rather I kept my suit on.”

“I will need… some proof.”

The Chief tried to remain strong and manly, but all it took was the lifting of Reginald’s sunglasses to make him shiver involuntarily. Reginald lowered his sunglasses back down, making him once more a covered humanoid shape that rattled a bit whenever he made quick motions.

The Chief wiped his brow. “You… make a good offer. It… it will take time to implement, and I will have to talk to the mining companies, but they are already understaffed. They desperately need more people.”

“You can’t be considering this,” the woman said with a gasp. “What will the people think?”

“They will be scared. Terrified. But their children will stop dying in the mines. And, in time, we will no longer be afraid of the haunted graveyard.”

“It’s insane!”

“What else are you going to do?” Jenny asked, leaning nonchalantly against the wall. “If you don’t accept them, you will have to become enemies. And they’ve already gone so far out of their way to avoid war that to deny them would just be cruel.”

“W-war?” the woman stammered.

“We would not wage war,” Reginald huffed, making an attempt to glare at Jenny through the sunglasses. “Our people are not fighters.”

Jenny rolled her eyes. “Please, you and I both know there are enough skeletons who would get angry and consider this place an enemy.”

“Jenny, we aren’t making threats.”

Jenny shrugged, glancing lazily back to the Chief. “You see that? He doesn’t even like me stating the obvious. You’ve got yourself the deal of a lifetime here, Chief.”

“All you gotta do is hammer out the details,” Amaris said.

Slowly, the Chief approached Reginald. “…I’m willing to get started if you are.”

Reginald chuckled. “Chief, I literally have nothing else to do right now.”

~~~

And so a treaty was signed that allowed skeletons to live and work in the mines. For the first few weeks, they would be required to wear bundled clothing out among the people of Homestead to not cause panic—an idea that Reginald insisted on so that their presence could be gradually worked in. They would become part of the community bit by bit, piece by piece, serving as miners, guards, and even couriers. Some of the larger skeletons could be used as mounts or, in the case of Sy, emergency defense against legendary monstrous creatures that sometimes roamed the land.

Reginald was quickly introduced to the mining bosses and major tradesmen, where he dazzled them with talks of profit, economic boons, and efficiency. Surprisingly, the fact that he scared them actually improved his chances since they didn’t want to test him. Here was a monster from beyond the grave that didn’t outright want to kill them at the moment, and they were fairly sure that crossing him in any way might flip that switch. As such, he actually managed to secure a decent pay for skeleton workers—though he was careful to make it less than regular miner pay. A terrible thing for worker’s rights, to be sure, but it wasn’t like the Old Bones needed to buy food.

Everything seemed to be falling into place. Amaris only wished she could stick around to see how it went.

“You know we have to go, right?” Jenny asked her as they walked around the town of Homestead.

“Yeah…” Amaris said as she played with Pitch, weaving the snake through the gaps in her fingers. “It’ll take several weeks before this really gets to anything interesting. And there is still the risk that the paladins will try to get in sneakily.”

“They have more overtly evil fish to fry,” Jenny pointed out. “And something tells me Icarus isn’t going to be able to amass an army against his own hometown.”

“Probably not,” Amaris admitted. “Still, it would be nice to know how it turns out.”

“It’ll become one of life’s great mysteries,” Jenny said, waving her arms like she was some kind of ancient mystic. Amaris couldn’t help but chuckle.

Her good mood was cut short, as they were passing by the Doctor’s house, and through the window Amaris could see Icarus staring blankly at a wall. “…Poor guy, his entire worldview’s falling apart.”

“He’ll live,” Jenny said dismissively. “It’ll be good for him, in the end.”

“I’m not so sure about that.” Amaris shook her head. “We broke him. Literally.”

“Maybe he’ll realize that qorvids aren’t supposed to be paladins.”

Amaris felt like that was unfair, but she didn’t say anything further on the subject. Without really thinking, she kept walking, until they approached the far end of Homestead.

“So… getting on the road again?”

Amaris nodded. “Our work here is done. Why not?”

Jenny shrugged. “Seems rather sudden, is all.”

“Well, if we stick around they’re going to ask us to stay for dinner, the Old Bones will probably want to celebrate us as heroes, and…” Amaris wasn’t really sure why she was listing off these reasons; none of them were really why she was walking away right now. If she was being honest with herself she was just walking away because she wanted to be walking right now. It was just time to move on.

“I could get used to this,” Jenny said, nodding slowly. “We’re like the duo of mysterious heroes who show up to save the day and then vanish without a trace. The mysterious strangers, Amaris and Jenny!”

“Heh… heroes…” Amaris shook her head. “Jenny, I think you’re the hero. I’m just the one stuff happens to. Doesn’t have to be good or bad.”

“Aren’t you being a pessimistic downer.” Jenny put her hands behind her head and rolled her eyes. “Today you were the hero. Does it matter what happened before or will happen later?”

“I’m not an immortal child who can’t die.”

“Potato, po-tah-to.”

“Nobody says po-tah-to.”

“I just did. And you just did.”

“That’s just playing with words and you know it!”

“But I don’t know anything! Head empty, no thoughts.”

Amaris facepalmed. “Jenny, sometimes I wonder about you.”

“Only sometimes?” Jenny gave her an exaggerated wink.

“If I were in a state of perpetual wondering I would never get anything done. See, I w—“ Since she wasn’t watching where she was going, the low branch of a tree smacked Amaris in the head while Jenny was able to walk right under it. “Ow…”

“You’re getting taller,” Jenny observed, a scowl crawling up her face. “I don’t like it. Stop. Be short.”

Amaris stepped out from under the shade of the tree and stood on her tiptoes, fixing Jenny with the smuggest of smug grins. “I refuse. In fact, I shall keep growing, and growing, until I transform into an utter beanpole and reach for the clouds while you remain here as a tiny little bug!”

“Yeah, well, at least I don’t have to buy new clothes every few months.”

Amaris rocked back onto her heels. “Jenny, you tear your clothing beyond repair every time you lose an arm. You buy clothes a lot more than I do.”

“Touche.”

“Touche,” Amaris echoed, mockingly.

Jenny clasped her hands together and bowed extravagantly. “Touche.”

Amaris pretended to look aghast. “T-touche!”

“Touche!” Jenny jumped into the air and did a little dance.

Amaris nodded in approval. “Touche.”

Pitch poked his head out of the backpack at the right angle to lick Jenny across the face.

Jenny booped him on the nose. “Touche.”

They continued repeating the word over and over again in different ways until it proceeded to lose all meaning and the mere suggestion of its syllables could force the two of them into laughter.

Ah, the joys of childhood.