Sometimes you just did what had to be done.

They had been out in the wastes for weeks now, supplies stretched thin enough that the way home would be a gamble. If they met with any trouble or couldn't trade enough to get provisions for the return trip it could be over for all of them.

The group consisted of Tala, the khiladri-scarred Hurstrom, a skinny, wiry man named Karal, and Rakthi. Rakthi was what Tala supposed she would call a friend, if she could be said to have such a thing. At the very least, Rakthi had been with Tala on her first expedition and had saved her life more than once. Tala had returned the favour as many times.

Medium-height with short-cropped black hair and dark skin, little stood out about Rakthi save for her emerald-green eyes, hinting at some ancestor's roots in distant lands. It was unusual to see anybody with eyes any colour except brown these days. Well, brown and...

Violet eyes didn't appear only in the dead. The inhabitants of this village tried to hide it well, but there were simply too many addicts.

"Where do you keep it?" Karal demanded, leaning in eyeball to eyeball with the village elder.

They were talking within the elder's small cottage, a single-floored wooden structure of rising damp and splintered frames. Velvety red moss grew over and between the cracks in the timbres, regrowing as fast as it could be cleared.

Karal glared at the elder, his tendons forming cables down his arm that belied his thin frame and caused the old man who functioned as the village head to tremble.

"I... I can't. If you take it they'll lose control," said the elder, voice trembling.

"They'll lose control if they do take it," growled Karal. "Just far more insidiously."

The blue leaves had been appearing more and more throughout the wastes, and now their evil tendrils had infiltrated even the city. This was their second priority, after collecting what supplies they could find to take back home. They needed to find out exactly how far this problem went, and how they could stop it.

"But the water..." the old man protested. "The water is killing them! The leaves bring them back to us."

Vivinder, it was called. Once unknown, the blue trees were blossoming throughout the mountains that ran far to the north, spread out regularly so that each one stood solitary yet another was always within a day's walking distance. The bright blue leaves, glowing even in the dark, brought lucidity back to those under the influence of the red water, stemmed the flame of irrational thought and cooled furious outbursts for a while.

This peace came at a heavy price, however. Firstly, the leaves were intensely addictive. Once someone began ingesting[1] the vivinder leaves it took only a few weeks for them to become dependent on the things. Withdrawals created something worse than the red death, created angry, desperate people who would turn on their own families for more. Those who ran out of vivinder and fell back into madness were worse than they had been before.

Secondly, and far more dangerous, there were those who managed to find a stable supply of the leaf. A trail of burnt-out hamlets, beast-ravaged towns and ruined areas that once offered safety attested to this. Those who used the leaves for a long time changed, remaining seemingly sane yet growing cooler, more distant from those they knew. Some were better at hiding it than others, especially once the effects became well-known, but all users of the blue leaves eventually betrayed their own kind. Sudden, unprovoked massacres were only the basest of such attacks. Far more subtle methods took far heavier tolls. Walls and fences would be undermined, food stores fired and medicines destroyed.[2] Rumours were spread to induce panic and false accusations tore people and communities apart.

The man whom Tala had exiled beyond the walls some months back was likely one such continuous user, though not a heavy one. She knew by the tell-tale sign that gradually appeared in anyone who took the leaf.

Their eyes turned violet.

Rakthi had spotted it first, amongst those villagers that gathered to usher their group through the makeshift wooden walls that protected this village. Clearly they did not realise what the glimmers of violet meant in the eyes of their fellows. The elder, though, definitely knew. City expeditions gave the same information to anyone they encountered.

"He's the one providing it," said Rakthi, looking from Karal to the elder and back.

Karal glanced over at Rakthi, then back to the man in front of him. His hand snatched out in a blur, grasping the elder by the arm as a warning not to try to run or raise the alarm to those waiting outside.

"You are not saving them," he hissed. "You are sentencing them to death."

Tala did not know, she didn't think anyone knew, what had happened to Karal to inspire such a vehement hatred of the blue leaves. Something terrible. He had appeared at the city walls a few years ago, wasted and bloodied, alone. He had quickly volunteered for dangerous expeditionary work, and all the while refused to speak of where he came from.

The elder must have seen it in his eyes. He folded, muscles sagging and falling back against his chair.

"Behind the storehouse," said the old man. He raised his head again. "But what will we do? More and more of us are becoming sick from the red water. I can't lose another..."

Karal's eyes softened.

"We will bring water. Next week, with the food," he said.

Afforded wide open spaces through depopulation and the only clean water for who-knew-how-far, the city had found its role reversed. Once a net importer, the gardens and vegetable patches now within the walls meant that it was the city that provided food to the areas around it. Outside, once fertile farmland grew only small, shrivelled crops, providing little sustenance to those who tilled it, and even this farmland was slowly diminishing in area, overrun by the persistent moss that leeched the soil of its nutrients. It was certain far fewer people would populate the wastes today were the city not there to provide the needed supplements.

"But can you bring enough?" the old man asked, knowing the answer already.

"Come back with us, to the city," said Hurmstrom suddenly, stepping away from the door he had been guarding.

Tala raised her eyebrows at him in caution.

The old man looked at him.

"Not yet. We can still live here. If things get any worse, though..."

Tala breathed a sigh of relief as Hurmstrom retreated back to the door. He should not be making such offers without discussion.

The sad fact was the city needed these outlying communities. They provided a buffer between them and the horrors beyond the wall, provided bases for expeditions to rest and resupply, and increased the likelihood that any threats to the city would be spotted before they drew close. Every town and village that attracted roaming bandits or beasts gained time for the city to identify and prepare for such dangers.

Furthermore, there were still things the city needed from the outside. Tools, materials, news, all these things depended on the extended network that was strung across and around the burnt-out lands surrounding the city.

Perhaps more than anything else, however, it was that they didn't want to be alone. It was important for those living inside the city walls to know the world still held together somehow, that they weren't the only island of light in a sea of darkness.

They found the vivinder leaves in a cooling shed behind the storehouse, cubes of it wrapped in fibrous cloth. The cooling shed was no more than a small shelter built around a deep hole, the coolness of the soil protecting whatever it contained from the worst of the weather. They left carrying the cubes under the silent gaze of the villagers. The elder must have spoken to them.

Tala was tense and prepared, but no one made a move to stop them; the addiction could not have yet taken hold. They had been forced to make far bloodier exits before.

They burned the leaves once they were clear of the town, and began the long journey home.

[1] or inhaling, Tala had heard.

[2] in the best case. In one town Tala had visited the medicine stores had been mixed and adulterated. It took numerous deaths before people realised what had happened.