"This is very wrong," Mimoza admitted while breathing heavy. Gaiana was practically carrying her now, walking her to their place as she limped across the streets. "I should've healed by now. That blade Pandora carried, it must've been... Some sort of poison for deviants."

Gaiana set her down at the edge of a boulder. She wanted to ask so many questions, but couldn't in her damaged state. "What can I do to help?"

Mimoza gave a small smile, "I'm bleeding, as you can see. The wounds aren't closing as fast as they're supposed to. You'll have to treat me like a mortal and stitch it to stop the bleeding."

Gaiana blinked at her. The phrase 'mortal' perturbed her. Was Mimoza not a mortal? Was she something beyond that? Either way, Gaiana followed instruction and stepped into the building to gather supplies.

Everything was still there. The stone tables, pillars, and foundation stones of her old home was all intact. But the wooden walls, rooftop, and interior possessions were burned down to soot and ash. Done with by her own two hands.

Gaiana stepped around the bodies of Sophus and Archos, not ready to truly look at them. She walked over to the intact storage room, aware that it was designed to survive potential fires. Inside between the shelves of handmade pottery she found a sewing kit with wool and needles. She picked it up and closed her eyes as she walked back to Mimoza.

Mimoza had passed out. Her mouth and eyebrows contorted as she breathed heavily in pain. Gaiana took a seat beside her and prepared the sewing kit.

Mimoza was badly wounded. She had to have been stabbed more than twenty times by that crystal-shaped dagger. It would've killed any normal man, and yet she still managed to breathe.

And yet Mimoza survived in a truly unnatural sense. The blood seeping from her flesh was purple. It had a strange brightness to it that natural red blood never had. Light also glowed out from the wound. Where blood should've gushed out from a gory black intestine, there was an ambient light shining out instead.

Gaiana wondered if her bodied carried a miniature sun.

Gaiana first covered the wounds with rags to stop the bleeding. "I'm guessing you'll run of purple blood if I don't seal this, right?" Mimoza couldn't answer. Her eyes furrowed while she dreamed in pain. Gaiana pulled out a needle from her sewing kit, "okay, let's hope I'm doing this right."

Gaiana removed the rags from each of the wounds and began sewing the cuts shut. The glows from Mimoza's wounds gradually disappeared as she closed each wound one by one. She brought more than enough wool to account for the twenty cuts that had slashed her body. Despite how wide the cuts were, her body connected together the same way as sewing a ripped rag doll would.

Seaming each wound stopped the light from flowing out. It was like encapsulating a lantern with flesh, preventing the light from coming out so that Mimoza could horde it all to herself. Gaiana finished the stitching once there was no more light coming out of her body.

Mimoza was asleep the whole time. She struggled less as the pain subsided. Gaiana didn't try waking her up. It was time for her to pull the charred bodies out of her destroyed home.

XXX

Astrin walked the rest of the way through town. The crystal was peculiarly strange. The aurora glow seemingly shifted like water inside glass. He knew how to follow it, but couldn't explain how it worked.

He reached the start of the countryside. There was a large plot of land that had probably once been a farm or garden. It had all the estate necessary to produce an agricultural business, but there were no plants to be found.

Only the smoldering remains were there. The building had to have been cleaved in half by a raging fire that burned most of the structure. It was a sad sight. Fires were common this time of year, and he could only wonder the toll this fire might've caused on the residents.

Looking around the rubble, a girl with red-brown hair was stepping out from the ashes. At first Astrin assumed it was some sort of scavenger looting through the remains, but then he realized it was a girl simply moving the bodies outside of the rubble.

He recognized her for having a bad reputation in the marketplace. Picking unnecessary fights and causing disturbances among the townfolk. But this time there was no rambunctiousness to her. There was only a solemn expression to her face, like all the anger was tucked away somewhere and hidden from plain view.

The freckled girl placed a second body at the center of the courtyard. She struggled hard. The bodies were so heavy she barely had to strength to move them. But when she reached the center of the courtyard, she let out a heavy breath.

Gaiana took a shovel, and began digging.

Astrin immediately knew what she was doing. He walked up to her and took the shovel from her hand. At first it seemed like she was going to argue, but his sympathetic eyes showed that he was only there to help.

Astrin digged while she prepared the ritual.

If it were any other day he never would have taken someone else's labor. But today wasn't a day he was willing to avoid a helping hand.

Any acquaintance they had to each other was indirect. Gaiana subverted the law but was closely acquainted with Mimoza. Mimoza enforced the law and helped to train Astrin. Despite them both of them living in the city their whole lives, they had never connected on an interpersonal level.

Yet here they were, sharing an experience of trauma from forces neither of them understood. They couldn't hope to understand each other but they could acknowledge each other's grief. Astrin shared the weight of her loss, as much for his own benefit as for her's.

Gaiana cleansed their bodies with water. Cleaning them felt hollow since their skin was so bleak from the fire. A few days ago she'd felt Sophu's warm skin, softly holding her hand while admitting his love. Now the corpse looked more like a mangled creature, indistinguishable to the boy she once knew.

"You're the girl from the docks," Astrin said softly to her. "The one who was trying to run away."

Gaiana would've escaped if it weren't for Granit's guard dog, Astrin was sleeping when she slipped past him. The weight of how close she was to leaving was uncanny. If I wasn't here, would they still be alive?

Gaiana furrowed her eyebrows as she looked down at them. "Yeah... But I came back."

Gaiana anointed their bodies in olive oils. She worked slowly because she was so exhausted. Her hands moved steadily without thought, like her body was present but her mind was elsewhere. Gaiana felt guilty for the sense of weightlessness she had as she finished cleansing Archos' body. Despite all the headaches he gave them while growing up, he was solely responsible for the chance at life she'd received.

The graves were now deep enough. Astrin put the spade to the side and then nodded to Gaiana. Gaiana placed a silver coin into both of their mouths to guarantee them safe passage to the afterlife by the ferryman of the dead. Together, Astrin and Gaiana carefully placed their bodies in the holes, and Astrin returned to covering dirt over their disfigured bodies.

"I'd have put nicer clothes on you, but that was the nicest thing you had before you died."

Gaiana said it in so soft of a whisper that Astrin could barely hear her. It was fine though, the words were meant for Sophus and not for him. Astrin finished filling the holes. Their bodies completely hidden from view.

"Well," Astrin said, "aren't you going to cry?"

Gaiana's eyes widened. They were gone forever. The rite was over. Their souls would pass on and they'd never play a part in her life again. Gaiana dropped to her knees and screamed with tears pouring out of her eyes.

XXX

Mimoza looked forward and the enormous giant towering in front of her. He was hunched back. A body so broad it seemed like a mountain. Hair and beard around his head falling to the floor from centuries of growth.

"I can carry that for you, if you'd like," Mimoza said to the giant man.

Atlas slowly opened his eyes. It was like hearing an ant ask to carry a boulder.

"No," Atlas said. His voice was booming. It stretched over the horizon like the entire world needed to hear it.

"Why not?" Mimoza asked kindly. "You look tired, I could help you."

"Never," Atlas answered in firmness. "You've never carried the burdens you've promised to hold. Trusting the sky and earth on your shoulders is assured Armageddon."

Mimoza frowned. She stayed quiet at the feet of the titan.

Atlas told her, "you are shame. You are disgrace. You are nothing more than a false idol pretensing to be hero. My shoulders are tired, but I won't yield from the burdens I carry. You are unsuited for oaths. The burdens you carry are doomed to collapse. That is why the ones who trust you are doomed to be destroyed."

Mimoza tried saying something to him, but she couldn't hear her own voice. The world around her faded into white and Mimoza woke up at the boulder she was left to rest at.

She glanced around to see bandages soaked in purple blood. Drips of it had leaked around her, but all of her wounds were now stitched shut. Looking up, Astrin and Gaiana were staring down at her. Gaiana asked, "are you okay?"

Mimoza glanced down at her stitches, "I am now, thanks to you."

Astrin was leaning with his arms crossed on the trunk of a tree bark. "What happened?" He asked it in a stern tone. His tone stemmed from a morbid curiosity.

Mimoza let out a sigh, "I guess I owe you an explanation too." Mimoza stood up. Her body still hurt in a way she'd never felt before. But she would endure through the pain to do what was needed to be done. "I have a lot of things to tell you both. First, let's get a ride to Thebes. We're going to Olympus, the city of Gods."