Why did I do that? Why did I do that? Why did I do that? Thera kept asking herself as she ran away, feeling all but horrified that she’d almost kissed Ben, only going to his cheek at the last minute, while being completely wrong about her reason for doing it.

It also wasn’t as if she didn’t know why she’d done it. Not really. As much as she wanted to deny the fact, she’d moved because whether she liked it or not, she wanted to kiss him, and it was growing harder and harder to tell herself she didn’t. As much as she hated it, it was growing all the harder to say she just wanted him as a friend.

Eventually, when she couldn’t run any longer she stopped, taking a seat on the steps of a church that had closed up for the day and placing her head in her arms as she caught her breath. She didn’t know what to do so she’d simply tried to escape from her problem, not wanting to face it, but she wasn’t given the peace as Steph came up beside her.

“Sorry, me and Amy didn’t think about how that might have sounded, we should have told you more,” She said as she took a seat beside her, waiting for a response that didn’t come.

"Um, do you want to talk at all? She asked, trying again and getting the same result before giving in to the question she really wanted to know. “You love Ben, don’t you?”

“I don’t want to love Ben!” Thera almost shouted, all of it coming out as if a dam had burst. “He makes me happy, and he’s kind, and he tries so hard for me Steph, but he’s going to die centuries before me! I don’t know how my dad or my aunt make it work, but I can’t. I can’t imagine watching someone I love slowly age and decay as I stay the same.”

No matter what her parents said, no matter what her aunt Lux said, it always came back to this, and she still didn’t know how she was supposed to handle the thought. Even after Ben had awakened his skill, the difference would be a blip in her lifespan, made all the worse if she awakened any of her own. While he got a few extra decades out of this, she was certain to get centuries, maybe millennia. Even if she stopped training her magic now, Ben could never come up to her level even if he managed to awaken a dozen skills because of the diminishing returns that would come with each one.

Steph just sat beside her calmly, listening to the outburst in silence as she took it all in, trying to listen and support the best she could until Thera fell silent again.

“I know that’s your big concern, but Thera, like it or not Ben isn’t going to age and die anyway. The only thing you can change is what you do while he’s around.”

“...I know that.”

It wasn’t a shocking revelation or anything. She didn’t want her lifespan to keep her from enjoying things like friendships, even if they were all destined to be comparatively brief, but bringing romance into the mix made it feel different. If she could just put her feelings to the side, she thought she’d be able to spend whatever years she had with him happily enough, able to see him off with a smile in the end, along with whatever family he’d made for himself in that time, but she hated that thought too. She didn’t want him growing old, and she definitely didn’t want him starting a family with someone else, but that just made her feel worse. She didn’t want to date him so she wouldn’t be hurt in the end, but she didn’t want him dating someone else because she couldn’t imagine herself being okay with that either.

I really am terrible. I just need him to find someone and deal with it without being weird. It will be fine eventually.

Even as she thought that though, she couldn’t keep one last thought from slipping out.

“Besides, It’s not like it’s guaranteed he’s interested.”

“No, he definitely is.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do because he told Will the other day.”

“...Should you have told me that?”

“I don’t know,” Steph shrugged. “But it seems like it would be better to have it out there for you to think about than not knowing for sure, no matter how obvious it might be.”

Just how happy hearing that made her made knowing what to do all the harder, but she knew she couldn’t just do nothing. It would be shocking if Ben didn’t want to know what was happening, but before anything else she wanted to clear her head.

“Alright, well I don’t think I’m going to be able to get out of this so I’ll talk to him in a bit, I just need to relax first. Want to take a walk with me?”

Steph happily agreed, and the two of them wandered down the darkened streets of the city, all the while both of them quietly wondered just how things would work out.

As she dropped Steph off at the gate she could feel from the effects of the bind skill they shared that Ben wasn’t at the embassy, but that was good news as far as she was concerned. Even after talking with Steph, she still didn’t have a clue as to what to do about it, so instead decided to sleep on it for the night, hoping some sort of choice would present itself in the morning.

Unfortunately, as she laid down to rest she found her thoughts were still a mess and left her unable to sleep as her mind spun in circles, with only two options coming to her thoughts no matter how much she struggled with it. Either she could try and push away any affection that was there, or she could give in to what she found herself wanting and tell him how she felt and see what would come of it, an uncomfortably tempting option despite her years of not wanting to get involved with such things, and all the more so for knowing he felt the same.

It was as the early rays of the sun began to sneak their way through the window and she realized she hadn’t slept a wink that she gave in and got up, off to find him after he didn’t return for the night.

I know he doesn’t sleep a ton as is, but he really should have come back eventually. What could he have spent all night doing?

A part of her wondered if he’d gone through the gate to somewhere else, it would have made more sense to her, but as she walked she found she was going in the wrong direction and continued on until a familiar tower filled her sight.

Okay, that makes sense. He didn’t get the chance to look at it as much as he’d originally planned, of course he’s using it to distract himself.

As she found herself at the dead god’s trial she felt him at the other side of it and started walking around after only a moment's hesitation, feeling the directions of their connection change as it did, leaving her wondering if he was moving to see her as well, but as she stopped so did he, leaving her to walk again.

Each time she moved she felt the direction he was going change too, and each time she stopped so did he. At first, it was a little annoying. She had spent all night worrying about what had happened, how to talk to him and what she should do about her feelings, but as time went on and she circled the building things clicked.

Wait, no that’s impossible! She thought in a panic before breaking into a run, going around the building multiple times and feeling something that couldn’t be happening. Her skill kept pointing her towards the other side of the building and even after awakening his skill, Ben wouldn’t be fast enough to keep that pace without her catching up, meaning that she wasn’t actually being pointed to the other side of the building. She was being pointed to its center.

It felt like her heart was being squeezed in a vice as she ran all the faster, growing more ragged and desperate by the second, hoping that she was wrong. That he’d made something that was letting him move faster and was playing some stupid joke as the few others who were up and around the city cast her curious looks, the guards stationed outside seeming more annoyed than anything until she broke down and screamed into the sky.

“MYRIAD! MYRIAD ANSWER ME YOU STUPID CUBE! WHY IS BEN IN THERE?”

She hadn’t forgotten what her uncle had said. It wasn’t just a trial, it was a trial nobody had survived. It didn’t matter how often Ben seemed to throw himself into danger, nor how curious he was about the magic on it, he wouldn’t have just gone inside.

It was only after a few moments of silence with no response from the god that she yelled out again, feeling panicked and desperate as she did. “MYRIAD I KNOW YOU DON’T HAVE ENOUGH BELIEVERS TO IGNORE ANYONE CALLING FOR YOU SO FUCKING ANSWER ME OR SO HELP ME I’LL BURN DOWN YOUR FOREST, DESTROY YOUR CHURCH, AND DEDICATE MYSELF TO MAKING YOU LOSE EVERY BELIEVER YOU HAVE! WHY IS BEN IN THERE?”

Said the voice of a very different god from the one she called for as Anailia spoke in her head, leaving her to try and fail to calm down.

“So you can get him out?” She asked, feeling only a moment of relief as the silence stretched on.

She thought she was going to be sick as she looked back at the tower with more and more eyes on her from her screams. Ben was trapped in there and there was nothing even the gods could do but leave him stuck in all but certain death.

“How did this happen?”

“Anailia, please just tell me,” She begged. “Please just let me know what happened.”