5: the detention room

Avett is at a loss and a standstill.

A loss, because he isn’t sure whether he should back down and apologise to Lilith for lumping his shortcomings with her own poor decision making—he shouldn’t have shot the floor. She shouldn’t have pounced at him either. A standstill, because he’s genuinely mad. The only reason she’s even allowed to be considered as a viable crew candidate—and he’s sure of this—is because she’s a Human, and the IRC kisses the lips of any off-realm ship blessed with a Human crew member onboard. Put simply, it’s not an offer to pass up. Not even for Lilith.

But something tells Avett that, no matter what he’d chosen to do all those hours ago, the relic would’ve found another way to trap them inside the mall. He knows nothing about all of this airy, floaty, ethereal nonsense, but he knows the relic wants one thing and one thing only; Lilith. Now he’s not trained like her, nor is he ethereally inclined like Auren. But he does have experience working with relics, and even though retrieval missions are supposed to be easy—which they are—he’s heard enough disaster stories to know that when shit hits the fan, it hits the fan hard. He just didn’t expect it to happen to him. 

Avett just sighs, throws his head back, and narrows his eyes. Lilith should be discussing her childhood traumas in a therapist’s office, what with all of this constant apologising and weak posture—but instead, she’s on the field, and she’s gobbling down traumatic experiences like a starved kid at a buffet. It’s a surprise she hasn’t collapsed from the stress of it all. Which is good. 

He looks back at Lilith. Relic engagement protocol: if the relic goes rogue during retrieval, start off by introducing yourself and building a rapport with it. Since she seems to know the relic so well, he’s kindly allowed her to give it a few shots. Her eyes—blank, dark, rounded things, like a Gallian’s stare without the occasional flicker of light—are fixed to the relic. Her gloved hands tremble ever so slightly. 

“Feel anything, princess?” he asks. He likes the name he’s given her. In another world, the name would’ve been a romantic pet name, but in his hands, it’s a weaponised insult. The way Lilith hovers around instead of standing like a normal person, the way she’s simply afraid to do anything without asking a billion times if she’s doing it right—he’s seen her stutter like a teen on her first date before, except she’s far from being a teen, and that she was talking to a damn cashier. If she’s not some otherworldly princess from a higher plane of existence, then at the very least she’s sheltered. 

She shakes her head. “It doesn’t want to talk to me anymore.”

“Looks like this relic and I might have a lot of things in common.” 

Lilith visibly bristles. Her cheeks pink for the briefest of seconds before she forces her features behind a grey slate. “Good. That’s good. Wouldn’t want—” She cuts herself off with a discontent sound from the back of her throat. 

He raises his eyebrows and folds his arms. “I’m glad you share the sentiment.”

She falls silent. The snow inside the globe settles on the plastic lawn. It’s a cute, antique thing; the snowglobes in Therius are infinitely cooler with their tiny string lights and moving parts.

“It’s gone cold,” she says.

“Then bring it back.”

“I’ve been trying. It doesn’t like me.”

Ugh, what a hassle. Avett grabs the globe from Lilith and sits down on a nearby chunk of concrete. Fuck the protocol, and fuck the pleasantries. “Hey, shit head. We fucking need you to stop your weirdo fairy spell-glamour-magic or whatever so we can leave and trade you in for fifty-hundred currencies. Please.”

Surprisingly, the globe starts to glow again. It’s a nice, lukewarm feeling—despite the fact that he’s wearing gloves, he can still feel the heat of the glass against the pads of his fingers. It’s kind of like being pressed against someone’s body.  

Until it isn’t.

A hot wave zips through his fingers and up his spine like a feverish chill. The sensation isn’t unpleasant, but it isn’t entirely friendly either. Like a love tap two old friends might give each other upon meeting again, there’s a feeling of separation that he can’t quite place his finger on. It’s an awkward gesture; one meant for him, yet also meant for someone else. 

And then the feeling stops. No—it hasn’t stopped, rather it’s gone. Distant. Beckoning Avett elsewhere, down further into the shifting shadows of the department store with tendrils of fragrant mists. Lilith’s head jerks towards the same direction, and it becomes apparent that she’s having the same experience as himself. He blinks, tosses the globe into the air, and catches it again. A smirk graces his features. 

“Think it likes me,” he says. “Try not to be too jealous.”

“That’s not exactly a blessing…” She shuffles from foot to foot, her hands hidden behind her. “I—I feel like it could be a trap. I don’t trust this thing at all.”

“Look, just because you’ve had a bad experience with this thing doesn’t mean I won’t.” The globe pulses warmly at that, as if encouraging him to go on. Avett obliges. “Besides, we’re not getting out of here without interacting with it—so what if it is a trap? You’d rather aimlessly wander around this old mall? Be my guest, Lilith.”

The person in front of him shakes—out of pure anger or hesitation, he’s not sure, nor does he care—but the frontliner stands her ground, her eyebrows crashing down onto her eyes. “No. We’re staying.”

“No, we’re going.”

“Staying.”

Avett leans in. “Going.”

“Avett—please.” Lilith takes a step back.

“Beg more, princess.”

She looks like she’s ready to throw herself to the ground and kiss his shoes until they’re squeaky-clean. And she probably would have.

Were it not for the solid thump of something hard and sharp piercing the concrete next to Avett’s feet. He looks down—there’s a small, see-through thorn embedded into the rock, about as long as his forearm and as wide as the bones inside of him. It’s hardly visible against the terrain. He looks up at the source, sees nothing—but manages to catch the blur of another arrow wizz past his face. Something of that size, of that shape, should have made some form of sound when it was travelling through the air. Avett shakes his head. He’s slipping. 

Another thing. Just standing around the thorns makes him dizzy, as if it’s actively sucking out the air and replacing it with carbon dioxide. Or like being in ammonium fumes for too long. His chest squeezes, his head gives a lurch like he’s losing air, but he isn’t—in fact, he’s fully able to breathe. He’s not sticking around to find out why though. He slings his crossbow over his shoulder and yells, “Move it, princess!”

“Always feels like we’re running.” Lilith is already way ahead of him. 

— 

It’s definitely been a while since they’ve last stopped running. The blue thorns—or arrows, considering their flared ends and tapered arrowheads—have been a constant pelting downpour. It’s safe to assume that it’s not someone that’s firing at them from behind, but something; Lili is willing to bet that it’s another extension of the relic’s reality-altering powers. 

She’s proven right when she realises just where the arrows are luring them—forward, into the yawning abyss of the mall. At least they won’t be ending up cornered anytime soon, but that’s about the least of their worries. The floor’s starting to get crumbly again, the ceramic tiles dislodging from their slots like someone’s slammed a fist onto a scrabble board, and there aren’t even any store fronts to hide in. No counters to crouch under either. 

Lili doesn’t want to slip, but at this rate she might as well be running on ice—everything her feet finds purchase on gives way immediately— 

The floor comes reeling in fast. Her forearm hits the ground first, followed by her thigh. It’s supposed to hurt—her disorientated head can figure that much out—but all she can think about are the arrows. And how there’s going to be rips in the gear that Auren’s just bought for her.

Mum’s voice floats through her head. “Of course you would waste such a nice gift.”

Grit embeds itself in her hands as she braces herself against the floor and rolls onto her front. A grunt comes up out of her throat. At least the pain’s finally catching up to her. 

“Fuck, Lilith—” 

Something strong hoists her up by the arm, nearly pulling it out of her shoulder socket. The only thing keeping her from teetering over again is Avett Ironsturm’s firm, Kattish grip. Disgust settles in her stomach, followed by shame, followed by the acute realisation that they’re still being chased from behind, and that there’s a blue spark of an arrow that’s aimed right for his back.

There’s not enough time to call out. Her ether roils through her arm, her core. It’s not enough to simply pull down on his mass, she soon realises—he’s far too strong, a testament to his hard-headedness, probably. But she’s seeing everything in slow motion right now, so with all of her pent up anger, she yanks his arm to the side, kicks his ankle— 

Avett’s eyes flash with anger, then knowing. The arrow whistles as it sails over him.

Then he faceplants into the ground next to her. He stays there, eating ceramic shavings for a hot second before rolling over, a light groan on his lips as he gives Lili one of the worst glares she’s ever had the pleasure of receiving.

“S-sorry.”

He scoffs. “Sure.”

She waits for the second arrow to go flying above their heads. Nothing comes. She doesn’t need to feel her pocket to know that the relic is burning away. Probably laughing at them while it’s at it. “What now?” she asks. 

“That relic,” he starts, “is the fucking bane of our existence right now. And I’m willing to bet that it’s because of you.”

Alright. Lili slumps back to the ground. “So we split up?”

“As much as I’d love to leave you in the dust, I’d hate to be the cause of your passing. Get up.”

She nibbles the inside of her cheeks with her molars. With her now stiffening muscles, she leaps to her feet and stays at a low crouch. She doesn’t dare breathe.

Nothing. No arrows, no sparks of blue in the distance. Maybe the relic’s given up. Even when she decides to fully stand up, there’s no sign of them. 

Avett still takes his sweet time getting back on his feet, dusting off his pants when he does. “Now that that’s out of the relic’s system…”

Lili flicks her hand, forming a small shield in front of her. Then she steps to the side, behind Avett— 

Her shield dissipates. The arrow sails right through. 

Sharp, blinding pain pulses through her shoulder. The arrow feels cold. She’s always read that the sensation of cold metal meeting hot blood was akin to a kiss—but now she knows that particular passage had been a large romanticisation. This shit stings. She’s been bitten, mauled, even singed, and for some reason nothing compares to this. It’s like she’s being eaten alive from the inside, her body being the catalyst to her own demise.

At least, it seems, that the arrows have stopped for good.

By the time Avett’s pushed her off and half-carried, half-dragged her elsewhere, Lili’s not quite there anymore. One minute she’s wobbling over the same tiles that had sent her flying a moment earlier, the next she’s slumped against an upturned chunk of painted asphalt. She finds that she has to lean on one side more than the other, because, well, she’s just realised that the arrow’s pierced all the way through. And even though she wants to stay awake, wants to just get this mission over and done with, she finds that each blink of her eyes sends her closer to that delectable release of unconsciousness. 

“No, no. Come on.” Avett is in front of her in seconds. “Don’t fucking close your eyes.”

Lili is… so tired. This is the perfect place to nap. Just for five seconds— 

A bright sting of pain on her cheek brings Avett’s face back into focus. His hand is red and outstretched. “Shove some ether into your body to keep yourself awake. Do literally anything that isn’t shutting your eyes while I bandage you up.”

She’d love to. But when she dives deep into that pool of personal ether, her arms outstretched as she readies herself for the resultant explosion of consciousness, she finds that it’s not there. Her wings aren’t responding to her either. It’s like she’s reaching out and grabbing at the air. And to top it all off—the suffocating air of dread is back. 

“I’ll have to wrap the bandage around the arrow, okay?” His voice is calm, soothing—a far cry from the aggressive asshole he enjoys painting himself out as on the daily. “Try not to move—FUCK me!”

It’s Avett that snatches his hand back, a hiss leaving his clenched teeth as he cradles his fingers. Lili can’t quite piece together what’s happened until Avett slips on his leather gloves again and gingerly reaches for the now vaguely glowing arrow.

“So that’s what they were. Ethereal weapons.” He narrows his eyes. “Saps your ether and severs your signal between the soul and the environment. Cruel and slow.” He glares at Lili. He doesn’t need words to ask, in no uncertain terms, what the fuck was she thinking when she took that arrow?

Lili’s breath comes in shuttered, broken parts. “You’re not trained. If you took the arrow,” she croaks, “you would have probably died. Before you hit the ground.”

Avett’s ears wiggle in obvious distaste.

“Bad decision on your part, but… thanks.”

Lili lets loose a breath. She squeezes her eyes shut until white flecks explode behind her eyelids. Anything is better than the dread. “You’ll take the arrow out though, right?” 

“I guess. I owe you now or something. Ugh.” He shakes his head, reaches down, and rips open a velcroed pocket on Lili’s leg. He looks like he’s about to throw up, or pass out. When he takes out one of her BluEther packets instead and knocks the entire bag back like a shot, she realises that it’s not the grotesquery of her wound that’s making him queasy—but rather, the thing that’s in it.  

With clenched teeth, Avett reaches then behind into his back pocket and pulls out a utility knife. He’s going to saw it off, bit by bit, then slide the rest out of her. Assuming that his knife can cut whatever material this is. It seems more crystalline than wood. 

The knife sinks into the arrow all the same. 

The first cut makes Lili groan. She’d thought herself numb to any further external pain by now, but the motion of Avett’s knife has her re-experiencing the whole initial injury. The arrow is a living, breathing, pulsing thing. It doesn’t want to leave her. It has to. It’ll eat her up if she does, and she’ll lose her mind in that swallowing, ever-empty pit of— 

“You know,” Avett starts, his eyes not leaving the arrow for a second, “I used to be a pretty rebellious kid back in middle school.”

Not surprising. Lili manages a weak laugh. Something at the back of her mind slips away, like she’s standing on soft sand and the wind’s just blowing it out from underneath her feet. 

“Alright, smartass. I got into trouble with the teachers all the time—stellar grades though, so they never really had the option of expelling me. They did however—” he draws in a shaky breath and exhales hard enough to blow his hair out of his face, as if fighting back another wave of nausea, “—put me into the detention room on multiple occasions. I don’t know what kind of detention rooms you had on Earth, but we had this singular, one-by-one room for the worst of the worst. Like solitary confinement, but for shithead children instead of felons. It had one chair, one desk, and a shitty light that sometimes didn’t turn on. No windows. Really drove home the idea that school was pretty much prison for kids whose parents wanted them to learn long division.

“So I’m in the detention room for the fourth time that week for calling Ms Goldsbury a ‘morbidly overweight manticore’ for giving us way too much homework. I was thirteen, I was a shithead kid, and I wore detentions on my sleeve like badges of honor. Four times a week? That was like winning the fucking lottery. Naturally, I had a, uh, victory lap. In the detention room.”

The tip of the arrow comes off. She’s not sure if she’s finally getting used to having someone jostle around an arrow in her shoulder, or if Avett’s story is actually taking the edge off her mind, but the dread’s gone. Lifted, like a streak of sunlight breaking through a cover of mist. Lili gives Avett a curious glance. “Victory lap?”

He flattens his lips. With one hand on her uninjured shoulder, the other gripping the flared end of the arrow, he pulls it out in one, fluid motion. Then he stands up and throws them far over the asphalt chunk. Lili's hand rises to meet her wound, her teeth clacking down as the pain flares again. It's white-hot, it's like nothing she's ever felt—

Avett pries her hand away, his roll of bandages hovering at the ready. He leans in close, and then Lili feels the weight of his confession pounding against her head.

Her reaction is so violent that he has to hold her down. What a thing to admit. She can’t tell if she’s bucking because of the pain or because she’s in possession of a new fun fact about her partner.

“No fucking way,” she says. This isn't something she should know about at all.

“I was thirteen—alright?” He unbuttons her caster’s cape and tunic until she’s left in the standard military black tank. In her delirium, she finds it all exceedingly ironic that he’s discussing such a tasteless topic while undressing her, but she doesn’t bring it up. “Stars, I’m starting to regret telling you this story. Apparently thirteen-year-old me thought it was so great that he just did it again. And again. I was pretty much the only kid that ever got detention that often, so it wasn’t super weird for the other kids.”

“No, that’s… still just really weird,” Lili corrects him. She can feel her personal ether pumping through her body now so she sends a healthy amount of it up to her wound. It won’t accelerate her healing, but it will help staunch the blood if the bandages aren’t enough.

“…So anyway, I graduated top of my year and left for my specialist school of choice with plenty of scholarship money to fund my eventual downfall into alcohol and gold diggers. But I digress. Midway through my second year, they asked me to come back to the middle school to give a talk. They were holding some sort of top graduates session, though that shit never really matters in the long run. So I went in and filled this room full of early overachievers with hope that their future would yield riches and decadent mansions and hot chicks if they kept up their studies.”

He’s forming loops around her arm now after having fastened the bandage across her chest. Lili raises an eyebrow.

“…Heavily paraphrased. Out of curiosity, I visited the detention room, just to relive the good old days. After school, I snuck in, opened the door, and lo and behold—the same fucking singular chair, singular desk, shitty lamp. I don’t know why I even bothered. But I spent a good few minutes pacing around the room, wallowing in—”

“Wallowing,” she repeats.

“—In nostalgia, dick-for-brains,” he says, giving her bandages a particularly rough tug. “Was pretty good—until I turned to leave. Until I saw something above the door.”

Lili looks up at him. “What was it?”

For a second, Avett seems to pause, as if merely recalling the conclusion of his story unleashed an immense, indescribable deluge of regret. “A fucking camera.”

“Oh, god.”

“If I hadn’t deliberately looked upwards at that specific spot, I would’ve missed it. I don’t know if it was there back when I attended. The absolute sense of helpless dread I felt upon leaving that room…” He secures the bandage. “I did not sleep well that night.”

Lili has to sit there for a bit; she can feel her ether sputtering to life inside of her. It’s circulating, and it’s there, but she’ll need a moment for it to start adjusting again.

“Jesus,” is all she can say to his story. “That’s…”

She looks up at Avett. And then she collapses into chest heaving guffaws.

“Okay, it’s meant to get a chuckle out of you, not be the funniest thing you’ve heard.” He folds his arms. “Can you walk? Or consult the relic again, see if anything’s changed after we did what it—can you stop laughing?”

She can’t. Every laugh is wheezing through her like she’s coughing up her insides. With her limbs feeling like lead, she latches onto the upturned concrete, stumbles over to the other side, and throws up on the asphalt. Her hair sticks to her mouth in strands afterwards, but all she does is hold her hand out when Avett steps forward to help her. When she straightens back out, her face is perfectly still. 

“Lilith?” Avett quirks his head as he peeks over the chunk of asphalt. 

She slaps the other pocket on her pants with a hand, and her worst fears are confirmed.

“Relic must’ve fallen out.”

— 

“Wow. Wow! Relic must’ve fallen out.” Avett throws his hand out into the void. “Relic fell out! Where? How fucking far back did you drop it?” 

“Don’t worry,” Lili mumbles, “I’ll just wait for the dread to settle in.” 

“Fuck!” A fist-sized rock shoots past her ear, hits the wall ten metres in front of her, and smashes into a million pieces. “Incompetent. Literally useless! How do you do this—you do something impressive, you disappoint me, you compromise the mission, then you somehow impress me again. We’re supposed to get to know each other on the field, princess. Not go through every fucking stage of post marital counselling, dammit!”

Lili flinches at that. Marital. It takes all of her mental power to not recall that particularly pleasant dream. She knows she should be feeling a hot cloud of shame right now for dropping the relic, but the truth is she doesn’t care what he has to say at all. Her pockets were sealed—and are still sealed—shut. There is no physically feasible way that the relic could’ve even left her pocket. It had, quite literally, vanished into thin fucking air. But she digresses. Avett’s voice is a low buzz of white noise against the constant hum of—no, not dread, not anymore. The constant thrum of indignation. Of wanting to do something, anything, so badly that it starts to gnaw at your insides.  

She locks up her discomfort. Locks it all away into a tight, iron-padded box and swallows the key. She needs to focus on the relic, not what it wants her to feel. 

Maybe the key to getting out of the mall is figuring out exactly what the relic wants from them.

She glances back at Avett. He’s red faced, panting, clearly enraged despite Lili’s disengagement from the conversation. Precisely because of Lili’s disengagement. This is the same kid who whacked off in the detention room seven years ago. Who somehow got into enough trouble everyday to practically live in said room for an entire year. And now look at him—a hardass, unforgiving egotist. 

She liked the story. It pulled her out of that dark spot, made her experience actually bearable. Hell, she’s even willing to bet that the relic liked it, considering it immediately released its hold on her upon hearing the first part of his… 

Hm. 

Lili glances back at her own hands. The relic hates her. Or, at least, in comparison to its relationship with Avett. She remembers the immense disappointment it had felt when she broke out of her dream. How it had expected her to not only experience the euphoria of starting a family, but also to see its dream to its end. 

How it had flashed in Avett’s hands not a moment after, as if it had found a home and a long lost friend all at once. 

“I can’t believe it.” Avett grabs her shoulder, digs his fingers into her bones like he’s a grave robber and she’s a corpse. “That went in one ear and out the other, huh? You really just don’t give a—”

“Did you, by any chance, know any A or S rank dragons?”

Stunned into silence, it’s all Avett can do to keep his mouth from gaping like a dumb fish. It’s enough for Lili to wrench his hand off her shoulder and say, “Friend, interest, romantic intrigue—it doesn’t matter what type of relationship it was.”

He doubles down on the violence instead, gripping fistfuls of her cape in anger. “What, suggesting I fuck dragons now? Is that what we’re doing? Because I could deliver a whole damn cargo bay full of targeted insults before you even get one out.”

“The relic. It knows you. By extension, the dragon knows you as well.” 

She watches with bated breath as his hands ball tighter in her cape before he lets her go and paces back a few steps.

Then he immediately whirls on her again. “Let me get this straight. I’m a merc. We don’t talk to dragons—we kill them. I don’t know what you did out in the field for six years—mighta’ fucked with your head a little—but you don’t talk to dragons. That’s not a thing that happens.”   

Even then, there’s doubt in his eyes. The pieces are all falling into place, and it’s starting to make sense why the relic had given him such a knowing flash when he’d taken it in his hands. 

She’s not so eager about this next part, but she powers through all the same.

“Tell me another story about yourself,” Lili asks. “We might not be able to find the relic—maybe we can entice it back.” 

For a second, Lili worries that he’ll brush her off again. That he’ll call her idea rubbish and start walking off, relic scanner in one hand, the Therian equivalent of a middle finger in the other. 

But then he looks behind and below him, throws down his crossbow, and sits.

“Couldn’t hurt to try, I guess.”

Lili takes her spot next to him on the ground. He shuffles slightly to the side, gives her a scowl that wrinkles the markings at his eyes.

“I have had at least six exes,” he finally settles on saying. 

A solid beat of silence wafts through the air.

“No reaction. Ok.” He starts counting on his fingers. “First I had Eri. Middle school. Forgot why we broke up. Then right after I had Aoife. Broke up with her because she had the same name as my sister. Then I had Bel—forgot her full name, but we dated in merc school—pretty much a specialised high school for mercenaries—she broke up with me over… something. Had something to do with grades. She came out the next year.”

The list goes on and on. Lili has always thought that relationships—romantic and otherwise—were a heavy investment of emotion, a grand opening of one’s true person to the other. Avett burns through women like kindling. He’s forgotten the presence they’ve had in his life already. Or maybe it’s just easier to say you’ve forgotten.

“…And then there’s Jasmina.” Avett toys with the relic scanner in his hands. “My father and her mother were good friends; naturally, we got arranged together. I was nineteen—already two years into bounty hunting. We broke up because… I’m a merc. And I only ever got to visit home for a month every year.”

He rubs his mouth with a hand. 

Then he catches himself and shoots a glance at Lili. “That enough for you?”

She shrugs. “I dunno, never been in a relationship.”

He chokes. “The relic, smartass.”

Right. Right. She shuts her eyes, searching for that thread of injustice. At this point, it’s hardly there anymore—faded into an insignificant blip, a wisp of carefully bottled rage. Disappointment weighs down her stomach before molding itself into shame. She’d been wrong after all.

But when she turns to meet Avett’s no doubtedly smug gaze, she’s met with something else.

A hot, powerful surge of energy, similar to the relic’s own—and entirely different. To compare these two would be like putting a tsunami against a wave at low tide. Same concept, same idea, different magnitudes. They had been lured here, all for this. She clutches her head. It’s going to overwhelm her. What should she do about it?

Something stirs inside of Lili. Don’t let it find me, don’t let it find me, it whispers. It’s dark, sinister, burns like charcoal and warms her soul from the inside out.

For the second time that day, she’s hiding. She grabs at everything and anything she knows about herself and swirls it all behind a curtain, away from the relic, away from the world like she’s always done. 

And it works. The energy passes over her like a hawk that’s missed its prey. She’s safe.

Then she snaps her eyes open again. What about Avett? She scrambles over the rubble, trips over the ground on those same damn tiles. Where is he? If he’s not trained, he can’t hide his soul, and if he can’t hide himself then— 

A groan, and then the slow crunch of ceramic material against concrete. Lili whips around. He’s behind her, crumpled up and twitching in pain, but he’s there. She heaves a sigh of relief.

“Avett?” Lili leans down and touches his shoulder. He shifts, then bats her away like a fly.

“I’m fine, don’t touch me.” He rolls onto his back, hand massaging his forehead. “Wait, where…”

“Huh?”

It’s then that Lili realises that their surroundings have changed. Instead of dull, paint-faded storefronts, they’re surrounded by shelves and crates of weaponry and ammunition. The walls are a shiny, metallic grey, and they’re close enough to make merely being in this room an unpleasant squeeze. A ship’s storage room. 

Avett jumps to his feet and immediately stumbles into the nearest cluster of boxes. Lili reaches out to steady him before he turns this entire area inside out, but he pounds a fist into the wall before he trips over himself again. The fluorescent lights flicker to life above them. When he lets his arm fall to his side, Lili can’t see any indication of a button there. For all she knows, he’s just slammed a wall and hoped for the best.

“Have you…” Lili trails off. She wants to ask if Avett’s been here before, in this specific room, except he’s already tripping over himself towards the door, his breath quickening as he fumbles with the handle. 

“We can’t be here,” he mumbles. His voice is a low drone, as if he’s reciting a mantra to himself. “We can’t be here—fucking—open!” 

The door gives a few adamant clicks before swinging outwards and slamming against the other side of the wall. 

This time, it’s Lili’s turn to stagger backwards.

On the wall in front of them, in no uncertain terms, is a bright splatter of blood.

“Holy shit,” she ends up saying.

Avett crumples to his knees, his eyes wholly trained on the sight in front of him. She wonders if he can smell the lingering tang of iron because of his Kattish nose. Or if he’s too shellshocked to even perceive anything other than the sight of… even Lili has to look away. She can't even begin to quantify the amount of violence that had to have taken place for blood to be spilled like that.

She steps past Avett. He doesn’t need her support right now—he just needs a moment to himself. Besides, he’s been swatting her away all day. What’s he going to get out of her comfort?

When she enters the corridor, she finds that the location of each room is similar to the Winnow’s. None of the lights are on, but the navigation room is lit up. A low, warm glow against the dim walls. 

She gives one last glance to Avett.

“Look if you want, I guess.” He’s curled himself into a ball against the wall, his knees tucked into his chest. “Whatever… gets us out of here.”

She’s not sure what she’ll be looking at all, but she makes her way down the corridor anyway. Slumped against the walls are two bodies, though thankfully, their faces have been blurred into obscurity. There’s a man mumbling something, and strangely enough, the closer she gets to it the further he seems to go. Like he’s fading. Time is just not on his side anymore.

Then there’s a familiar, soft yet harsh-toned voice. “Please! I’ll do everything right next time, I-I’ll stay on the ship, just—fucking stay with me, I’m begging you—”

Lili whirls around, expecting Avett to be there, sobbing his eyes out and acting weirdly out-of-character. No, the sound came from in front of her. In navigation.

She sneaks up to the entrance and peeks around the corner.

Avett is kneeling over a bloodied figure. He’s wearing the full arms specialist uniform; a bright splash of yellow against the cold bite of steel. The whole scene, in fact, seems far too saturated for the scene that’s unfolding right in front of her. 

The man below him is wearing the backline caster’s uniform. The blood blends in perfectly with his tunic, making it look like his clothes have simply pooled around him. He’s got a shock of white, cropped hair, and he’s also got a pair of mobile, animalistic ears upon his head. Kattish. Might have graduated with Avett. They’re both so young, Lili thinks. She can’t look away. She’s clearly infringing on Avett’s privacy here, and yet the scene is so deeply tragic that she can’t help but stand and remember her own tragedies. 

“It’s ironic, isn’t it.” The man touches a bloody hand to Avett’s cheek, leaving three red strokes. “You compromised the entire mission. You are incompetent—useless, even. But you’re alive. You’re the last one standing on this bitching merc ship.”

Avett doesn’t say a word, only takes his hand in a shaky grip.

“Don’t look at me like that.” The caster manages a grin. “Don’t look at me like I haven't just slaughtered two of our crew members.”

The bloodstain on the walls. The bodies she’d found on her way here.

Lili feels her stomach drop as she watches Avett shake the stilled figure over and over, his shrill cries blending and fading into each other until the room is dark once more. 

The figures have vanished. 

Lili turns, and sees that another part of the ship is lit up. The small room in front of the ship’s entrance. Avett is sitting down on a bench, still wearing his yellow jumpsuit, the three lines of blood on his cheek having dried into a deep brown a while ago. When she turns the corner, she sees two masked figures in long cloaks. Judging from their heights, both are Gallian. New Order Gallians, from the way they’re talking.

“There’s just a kid on this ship,” one mumbles to the other. “One traumatised, scared kid. Looks like the majority of his crew died fighting each other over A4’s aura.”

“Talk like he’s actually in the room, alright?” The slightly taller Gallian leans down, his large hands gripping Avett’s shoulders easily. “You’re lucky you got out alive. You and your crew are C rankers—pitted against an A rank. One that’s been stumping the IRC’s dispatch team for a good damn year now precisely because of what happened here.” He gestures to the bloodstain. The sheets of cloth thrown over the lumps of dead bodies.

Avett doesn’t follow his gaze. The first Gallian sighs like he’s got a warm bed and a cold dinner waiting from him at home. “Need your name, age, race, specialisation…”

“My ID’s here,” Avett says, a hand in his pocket already.

“Nope. It’s protocol. State your details.”

He pauses for a second before responding with, “Avett Ironsturm, seventeen, Kattish, arms specialist and mechanic onboard the Steelian.”

Lili’s hands stiffen against her sides. He was nineteen when he first arrived on Earth, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it was also his first day working as a merc. This is something even Ysh’vanna, someone who seems far too aware of her crew’s private affairs, doesn’t know. 

“In what region did your crew encounter A4?”

“Eighth Quarter.” 

“Stars,” the taller Gallian says. “A4 overloaded the navigation panel the moment the Steelian came within a kilometre of it. He piloted this junker all the way to Central Therius manually.”

The shorter Gallian shoots him a glance. “What was that about talking to the kid, not at him?”

Further exchanges are made, words passed but nothing seems to budge Avett. He just sits, head down, hands curled lightly on his knees, and answers every question they throw at him. Lili doesn’t even realise that the scene has faded entirely until she’s left standing in the dark hulls of the ship again, the figures—and bodies, thankfully—now blinked out of existence. 

She doesn’t know what to say. 

“Now you know,” a voice behind her croaks. “My dirty little secret.”

“I don’t understand.” Lili doesn’t turn to meet him, her eyes fixed to the ground. “Your crew… just collectively all lost it? Started murdering each other out of nowhere?”

She hears the awkward shifting of clothes, the all too attentive tug at the hem of his jacket. “That particular A rank… A04, had a particularly potent aura that reduced the inhibitions of every biological lifeform within a kilometre of it. Made us violent.” 

Hot blood splatters across the walls of her mind. “Did… did you?”

A sigh. Avett pushes past Lili and seats himself on the bench. “Could’ve approached the subject a little more tactfully, but no. I didn’t kill any of my crewmates. Figured out how to leave this place yet, princess? Because I’m really not interested in having you rifle through my memories like this.”

She falters. “I… this is all—” 

Something terrible snaps in Avett. Like a rubber band that’s been stretched for far, far too long.

“All what, princess?” He storms up to her, grabs her shoulders so tightly that she can feel his fingers stabbing into her skin. Her wound throbs. “You’re sorry this happened to me? You’re fucking giving me pity? You wouldn’t be the first—nor the last—fucker to do it.”

Lili blinks. Avett’s using her as an outlet for his rage again, and she’s doing fuck all about it. She’d always believed that being someone who existed, someone who swam with the current rather than against it, was easier than fighting back and making a place for yourself. But now she’s up against Avett, and she’s done everything to please him—but he’s still angry. It’s like he can tear right through all of those disinterested facades and guards and walls, and see her for who she really is. A nobody. A girl too afraid to care. 

Avett simply continues. "Know why it’s a secret? Know why this memory’s down here, instead of up here?” He stabs a finger into his head. ”To keep people like you, people who’d never fucking understand, from telling me just how sorry they are that something like this happened to poor old me, and how terrible everything is that I didn’t do anything to deserve it—”

She can’t stand it. Can’t stand being his punching bag. How had she endured eighteen years of all of this wall hugging? 

Avett is sent stumbling backwards until he hits the wall on the other side. Lili looks down at her hand.

It’s faintly stinging of ether and indignation. 

"You think I don't get it?" she shrills. Her hand splays against the wall, between his head and neck. "Everyone I knew is gone. Either they're dead, or I'll never see them again. My entire life before all of this—gone, gone, fucking gone."

He tries to push her back, but the pure, instinctual rage that's been boiling away at her insides ever since she met him is far, far too potent. Her ether flares as she holds him there. Forcing him to listen.

"That's not all, cunt—I spent three fucking years wallowing in my own filth after Ava died, and I watched it all happen in front of me. I was useless. She berated me every fucking minute she was struggling to stay awake, then after that she begged me to just end her sorry life. My childhood friend of eighteen years, someone who molded me into their perfect little bitch—and she's in a pool of her own blood, begging for a sweeter death while I'm trying in vain to save her. Everyday I ask myself if I care that I've lost her, and everyday I come up with another, totally different answer. I don't want to hear that, 'but you don't understand!' garbage. Because I do. More than you know."

For once, Avett is at a loss for words. Finally, he asks, “Did… you?”

Lili narrows her eyes and steels her jaw. Her arm falls to her side.

“S-stars.” He looks to the floor. “I’m… sorry that happened to you.”

Despite herself, she chuckles and folds her arms. 

Avett blushes. Hard. Even his tail starts wiggling out of discomfort. “Eating my own words, huh.”

“I was isolated for four years following Ava’s death, so nobody was around to ‘console’ me—but I don’t think there are words big enough to express sympathy at that level. But there are actions.” She folds her arms and leans against the wall next to him. “I’ll listen to you.”

Avett hesitates for the briefest of seconds, but it’s enough to make Lili’s breath catch in her throat. Maybe she’d been too hard on him, maybe what she’d said was absolutely irredeemable, and now he’s never, ever going to want anything to do with her again.

But then he bumps his shoulder against hers and whispers, “Thanks.” It’s a small gesture, and she almost mistakes it for something less than friendly. The mere brush of skin to skin contact, something she’d never taken as a necessity even in her isolated years, ripples through her body—makes her feel like she’s basking in the warmth of the sun in autumn.

And then he starts to talk.