16: the blunder

 Alexei doesn't ask for tea, but Auren serves him a special Gallian blend anyway. This is served with a plate of synthetic milk biscuits that Lili knows that Alexei knows are dry as hell. Alexei accepts them and puts one in his mouth without hesitation, because as he's already established during their first meeting he's either extremely polite, or a psychopath.

Lili doesn't mind which one he is. She knows, however, that Avett—who is currently bouncing his shoulder against the wall as he sulks in his corner—does mind. And she's sure that Avett has already made up his mind regarding which one Alexei is.

The way Alexei puts his teacup back onto the table brings Lili back to his attention quickly. He'd done it with enough force to rattle the plate, but not enough to spill his drink.

“I’m rather impressed with your aptitude for ethereal manipulation, Lili," he says.

A flush spreads across her cheeks. "Th-thank you."

Avett groans loudly, but makes no further comment. Alexei continues his gushing unabated: "Hard to believe you're self taught. Most Humans fail to display an aptitude for ether. You're a breath of fresh air."

Good for a Human, but pathetically useless when it comes to the times that had mattered. She shrugs off his compliment this time. What good is being good if none of it applies well on the field? Or when you've lost nearly all capability for it? she adds as an afterthought.

It's here that Auren chooses to butt in. "She has trained under my tutelage for a period of time."

This elicits a chuckle from Alexei. "Sounded tough. Is Gallian theory easy or difficult to work with?"

Lili shrugs again. All Auren has taught her is how to manifest an adequate shield, one that won't pop moments after impact. Gallian theory doesn't sound so bad when she thinks about it in hindsight, but she feels as if she's only scratched the surface of centuries worth of content.

Her mentor doesn’t give in quite so easily, instead choosing to strike where he wants to hit. "You referred to your existence as a 'Human-Hybrid.'" Auren leans forward, his eyes inquisitive. "What would you be a hybrid of, specifically?"

"Chinese and Russian." Alexei's smile is impeccable. Lili tries to hide her own smile.

Auren’s features remain unchanged. It’s the resident sulker that refreshes his throat. "You know damn well that's not what he meant."

“Ah, you were referring to this?” Alexei lifts his hand into the air, and a thread of blue smoke twists out of the air and into his palm where it eddies around for a bit. Then he flicks his wrist, and the smoke dissipates into a fine, scented mist. Strangely enough, it smells of burnt lavenders and smouldering charcoals—not of the fruity aromas she’d expected from such an elegant display.

Auren’s features narrow as he regards the mist with caution. “I suppose that this is the technique you used on Avett, allegedly.”  

“Yes, but I would prefer not to disclose my ‘mixed heritage’ at this time.”

"This isn't important." Ysh'vanna hasn't touched her tea at all. "What's important is that you explain to us exactly why we're not getting our pay, and why it's so important that you have to talk to all of us at once."

Right now, the room is divided between those who enjoy the idea of Avett getting the shit hit out of him, and those who are vehemently against that very same idea. Ysh'vanna is sided with the latter, Lili thinks. This is the kind of response that’s expected after witnessing such nonchalant violence from a man who only knows his way around a smile.

And crap, he's smiling right now. Right at Lili.

Alexei says, “You’re all let off."

It takes a moment for the words to actually do Alexei's bidding. It's like they've hit the surface of the water too hard, and it's taking a comically long while for anything to sink in.

He takes this moment to continue. "You can’t have a Human working onboard like this. IRC licenses don’t count as official personal identification, for one, and that’s not mentioning all of the legal loopholes you’ve jumped through just to have her on board.” His smile turns feral as he regards the blank look on Lili's face. “Cashing in on that 20% Human discount for ship facilities, I’d imagine, hm?”

It's almost comical how quickly Avett jumps at the chance to berate Auren. “You said you got all the legal shit out of the way—”

“We have.” Auren pushes away from his chair, meeting Alexei’s eyes with ease. “We intend to take her back to Therius during our month of sabbatical.”

Below him, Ysh’vanna claws into her stomach, her eyes wide and glazed over.

Alexei doesn’t buy into it and remains seated. “So in other words, you ‘intend’ for her to work without identification nor tax for over two months. An apt idea.”

“Tax fraud? You're accusing us of fax fraud? I implore you to take one good look at that man—” Avett jabs a finger at Auren, who holds his chin just a touch higher upon realising that he’s on the receiving end of his colleague’s insult. “—And tell me that we look like the type of people to commit tax fraud."  

“Appearances can be deceiving. I’m sure you’re already quite well acquainted with that fact, Mr—”

“Ironsturm. It’s Ironsturm.”  
 
Alexei’s smile falters. “...Mr Ironsturm.”

The act of kindness bounces right off Avett; he looks like he might start spitting into the man’s face at any moment.

With a low voice, Ysh’vanna starts to speak again. “You said you didn’t have the money. But now you’re saying that you’re an IRC official?”

“I suppose I withheld the specifics of my position back there. Your team simply no longer qualifies for your monetary reward. I lied because I couldn’t have you throwing an even bigger fit than you already were in public.”

Ysh’vanna visibly shrinks as she considers his words. Avett storms up to the man himself. “So you were lying—”

“For convenience.”

“—Liar, filthy, fucking, Human liar—”  

Auren takes this opportunity to push him aside.

“Suppose we take Lili off our team,” he suggests. “Will you reconsider your choice of action then?”

Lili's heart skips a beat, but Alexei shakes his head.

“Unlikely. What the IRC demands is final. And as of late, they've been demanding quite a bit from me." He shrugs. "I can only ask for you and your crew to make it easier for me."

What the IRC demands. Lili lets the words sink in for a bit before she really allows herself to comprehend what they mean. She’s fucked up so badly that the IRC wants her—and her team—to suffer for it. She doesn't know how it might impact them, whether or not it'll leave an irrevocable marr on their records. They'll be jobless, sure, but what about the future? And how easy would it be for them to find work again? Avett could work for his dad’s friend again, but what about Auren and Ysh'vanna? Hell, if they gave in and threw them all into detainment or whatever they had on Therius she wouldn't be surprised.

As if this wasn't enough, Alexei turns to Lili and says, "A shame, truly. Had your teammates exercised even an ounce of caution, you would've made a fine frontline caster. Alas, this was not the case, and now you are the cause of your very team's disbandment."

Avett folds his arms tightly across his chest, his mouth opening and closing like he has something he wants to say. From the way he's glaring daggers into the general vicinity, she's willing to bet that he's trying his hardest not to choke both her and Alexei out on the spot. She doesn't blame him—she's the one who had to make a nuisance of herself when she begged the team to let her onboard. She's the one who did this.

And yet she still manages to splutter out, "This isn't fair."

"Not many things are, Lili." Alexei looks to the ground, as if basking in his self-mockery. "Not every ending receives a neat little ribbon. You should understand this better than anyone else."

It takes a moment for Lili to recognise who he's referring to. How had he known? She doesn't quite care. The taste in her mouth curdles into a sour tang, and she clenches her fists in retaliation. The way her nails dig into her hands hurts her in a way that keeps all that rising bile and rage in check. And she needs that control right now.

"Lilith," Avett breathes. He's next to her in seconds, but she puts up a hand, signalling for him to stop. As if she needs support from the one guy who hates her the most on this fucking ship.

"Go," is all Lili has to offer to this absolute creep of a Human.

His features turn deadly, but Lili knows that she could be mistaken; all she can see right now is red. "I can see why she chose to leave you that day, Lili."

She strides up to him until he's less than a metre away and, most importantly, within punching distance. She's not thinking straight, but then again, she doesn't want to; her rage rushes through her veins unbridled, sweeps through her arms like liquid ice against metal, culminating, naturally, into something Avett would pull.

A punch.

Her knuckles stop against that same shield. No matter how hard her ether strains through her body, she can't make it through. She doesn't need to, she thinks; she just needs something to exert her strength upon, something to hit without repercussion.

But then she catches Alexei's hardening expression. He looks as if he could start desecrating Ava's legacy at any moment. That's when she realises that hitting his shield isn't enough—she needs to knock that grin right off his face and into the flooring.

Lili's hand shudders against the invisible force. There's something sinister about wishing ill will onto another person, or another Human for that matter, but she shoulders on anyway. In fact, she welcomes this newfound darkness with open arms. Let them see how angry she is.

Let them know.

The barrier shatters to bits under her knuckles. Her fist sails through the air, whistling like a foam dart as it does, and lands squarely against Alexei's jaw. Lili stumbles, but regains that footing easily. Her adversary, however, trips back onto his ass.

Everything after that plays out in blurry stop motion. Alexei is cradling his face, but he's not making any attempt to retaliate. When familiar arms latch onto her from behind she catches the barest hint of black smoke at the edges of her vision, as if she hasn't just punched a hole through Alexei's defenses, but burned through it. It smells like it too, like she's heating coals in a kiln. What she would do to punch him again.

She manages to regain focus. Avett is holding her by the armpits, and he's screaming all sorts of nasty things into her ear, like "calm down," and "are you fucking stupid?" Despite his tone, Lili does find his presence to be soothing somewhat, and soon her heart rate starts slowing into a steady rhythm again.

Alexei is in another world entirely. He blinks at her. He mutters something under his breath about sending the legal specifics of their dischargement from the forces, but it's clear that he's mentally somewhere else. As if he's stuck in an alcohol-induced dream, he hobbles out of the ship and down the fold-out stairs.

The doors slide shut. And Lili realises, with a pounding in her gut, that she's just punched what could be an IRC official, and made him leave not in shame—

 —But in god damn awe.

15: the name

“Hi, we purchased this by accident an hour ago, is it possible if we could return this?”

Too subordinate, too naive. Lili’s fingers go stiff, and her palms tingle with sweat. She curses under her breath and grits her teeth.

“We’d like to return this. With this card.”

No, too stilted, too tough—it's a fast way to land her on the wrong side of the Hive, that's for sure. She needs something assertively mundane, but no matter how many times she rehearses she can't help but notice how her tone is slightly off, or how she's started waffling away with soft platitudes like 'could we' and 'if it's possible.'

This isn’t working. She presses her back against the wall and leans around the corner, watching the general hub-bub of the supermarket come and go. Some of the shoppers give her curious glances—others hide their mouths with their hands and whisper fervently to each other.

A cough from the other side of the hall snaps her out of her reverie. Lili looks up and finds that a Palerian in what appears to be a uniform is staring right at her, his expression hard. She hides the bottle behind her back, but the damage has already been done. If she wants to get anything finished she has to do it now.

With a sigh, she trudges over to the helpdesk and says, "I'd like to return this, please."

The worker leafs through her book and adjusts her glasses. By the looks of it, this off-lander might be a Draconian, though she's unlike any Draconian Lili's ever had the pleasure of scrutinizing—and by any Draconian, she means Ysh'vanna. The worker has the same tell-tale ear fins that Lili imagines most Draconians to have, but they're impossibly long, trailing down to her shoulders like a goldfish's tail. Ysh’vanna’s fins are either hidden really well or really short.

Lili coughs. The worker continues to leaf through her book.

"I'd like," Lili says again, making sure to punctuate each syllable with the tip of her tongue, "to return this. Please."

The worker doesn't look up. "What would you like to return."

Lili blushes—she'd forgotten to show her the bottle in question, and the worker can't possibly see what she's holding back there. She places the bottle on the counter. The clear liquid inside sloshes up against the sides.

Arching an eyebrow, the worker leans forward, keeping her eyes fixed on the bottle and its contents. She reaches over the counter, grabs it by the neck. Gives it a little rattle.

Lili gulps.

“And you would like to return this… to?”

“Right here.” She slides the card over the counter, pressing her middle and forefinger into the table as Auren had done to her.

No reaction.

“My ID’s right here, if you need that.” Lili starts to reach into her pocket, but the worker stops her with an open palm.

“This is water.”

Lili stops, her heart wavering between beats, her tongue on the verge of a tightly leashed lashing. She motions to the lid instead.

“It’s not water. Check the seal.”

“Ma’am, I don’t know what to tell you.” The worker grabs the lid and pops it off without effort. “Seal was broken from the start.”

The bottle cap clatters against the desk.

Lili slams her fists against the table. How had she not noticed? Avett must’ve taken a cautionary swig from the bottle before Auren had even thought to check the contents of the bag. Of course he would—why wouldn’t he? Now that the seal’s broken, all she can do is take it back to the ship, thoroughly defeated by the cruelties of racial profiling and extreme misfortune.

Even worse: when the worker passes the bottle back, Lili can’t smell a lick of vodka. It really is just water, meaning Avett’s taken extra precautions and transferred the contents to another container beforehand. Which is smart—Teeth-grindingly, frustratingly smart.

In her eagerness to leave the supermarket as soon as possible, she screws the lid back on quickly. It takes all of her energy not to thank the worker for her time, and even more to walk away without a word. The worker simply puts her legs on the counter and continues to read, but not without making a show of resting her other hand on her GlassLink. Just in case Lili decides that she wants to be another Saturday news headline back on Therius. The worker could've done it right away, but Lili supposes that inter-realm phone calls to the press must cost a lot of money. Lucky her.

She stalks away, her grip trembling. Avett is going to pay for this, she swears. To hell with alcohol; this stuff has caused her naught but trouble for the past week, and she hasn't even gotten drunk once.

Not that she wouldn't mind. As she storms through the sanctuary with her liquor bottle swinging between her fingers by the neck, she can feel the eyes of hundreds of wary off-landers on her. She'd love to be drunk right now; a shame that the gods have rescinded the blessing of inebriation from her a while ago. She hasn't really been able to properly get blackout smashed after Ava's death. She's not entirely sure that she can anymore.

Once she's walked sufficiently far enough from the market, she slumps down onto a bench. Fuck Avett. Fuck Avett. Why's he always so eager to get drunk? Does he intend to drink it by himself, or does he expect Auren and Ysh'vanna to join in with his debauchery? Does he expect Lili to join in? Would he even want that after how she'd acted while drunk last time, where she’d mentioned something about a hot-headed tall and dark love interest in the middle of her alcoholic stupor?

Her cheeks heat at the thought of him. No one's ever been that nice to her—sure, she's had nice teachers and mentors, but never someone who was her age. Never someone who wasn't obligated to be kind, yet showed affection anyway. She wonders where it'll start to go wrong. Avett can't seem to pick between being openly kind and being a bratty, smart mouthed, impatient mood swinging asshole. Surely if Lili keeps this all up, he'll realise what's good for him and stay away from her.

She toys with the bottle, picking at the corners of the label with her nails. Overthinking about Avett is the last thing she wants to do right now, but it's all she can do. Feeling parched, she uncaps the bottle and starts to drink deeply.

It really is just water.

As she comes to terms with the fact that Avett hadn't chosen to swindle her on purpose, and that she's got nowhere to direct her rage towards, she spots a familiar white-haired Draconian in the distance. Her movements are frantic and irrational. It looks like she might be locked in a heated battle of wits with the man standing next to her.

Lili has never seen this man in her life. This looks more like a captain's feud than anything; maybe they're arguing over who gets to keep the bounty, or maybe he’s the leader of the C ranked vessel Ysh'vanna had mentioned way earlier.  Whatever it is, Lili supposes that it's something she should stay out of or—at the very least—stick her nose into from a distance.

She squints at the duo, struggling to put body language into actual language. Ysh'vanna is small compared to the man, who stands at least two heads above her and wears a cloak with a bulky fur trim that accentuates the size of his shoulders. He's not like any off-lander Lili's ever seen. For one, an off-lander wouldn't be caught dead in an extravagant cloak like that, weird hood and all; for another, he looks… exactly like her.

No ear fins, no green skin, no horns or cat ears. This is a Human.

Lili squints at the man again, making sure to scrutinize every minute detail this time. When he turns to flash Ysh'vanna an easy grin, Lili catches the briefest sight of pale skin before his cloak falls over his arms again. She's about to start making assumptions about his ethnicity when the man reaches up… and removes his hood.

Like Lili's hair, his is long and black, reaching all the way to his elbows, though the comparisons end there; the tips of his locks have greyed into pearly whites.  Not dyed—greyed.

She wonders if she should at least say hello to her captain, or inform her that Avett's recovery went swimmingly. But then Ysh'vanna pulls back, her mouth open as she gawks at the man's sudden reveal. Her features turn narrow again in a heartbeat, and though Lili can't hear a lick of what they're saying, she knows it's not something she should be involving herself with.

Maybe she should hang back. The man's mouth moves quickly as he raises both hands in protest. This gives her an idea.

With a careful eye, she starts speaking over the silence, putting on her deepest voice for the man.

"No, it's not my fault." Lili coughs and uncaps the bottle again, preparing to drink from it. "It's not my fault I'm impossibly handsome and therefore entitled to being an impossibly annoying piece of shit."

Ysh'vanna jabs a finger into his face. Lili speaks over that too.

"Oh yeah? Explain why I caught you spending the rest of our savings account on a Dual Action Aurorean Syntax-plus 3000F e-reader instead of paying the bills—again?" She’s got no idea why she chose an e-reader, but if it’s a couple’s spat in public, she imagines that their choice of discourse would be pretty petty.

She drinks from the bottle, pauses, then takes another cautionary sniff at the lid. Maybe Avett hadn't emptied it entirely. Then she remembers that she's not quite able to get drunk, and that she's just this stupid normally.

The man cuts Ysh'vanna off. "Let's not forget who brings home those said bills—"

"Let's also not forget who warms the bed at night."

Lili grits her teeth as she watches the man snipe back. "You?"

"No, you, dear."

Lili puts down the bottle and screws the lid back on slowly.

Then she whirls it back by the neck like a makeshift club; it stops mid-swing behind her. When she cranes her neck back, she sees that Avett has caught her attack by the body of the bottle.

He snorts. "I thought you'd at least try to hit me a little harder than you normally would."

Lili narrows her eyes and pulls at the bottle. All she manages to succeed in doing is dragging Avett's arm with her, his grip not wavering in the slightest. It's his dumb catboy strength—all she can muster is a spark of ether now and then, maybe more if she’s properly motivated. If she wasn't still recovering from her previous exploits in the engine room, she would've yanked it clean out of his hands by now.

"Whatever happened to that affinity of yours?" His smile reminds Lili of an expression Auren would make while 'treating' her partner's wounds. Scary.

She scowls and lets go. Avett relents and plops down next to her.

"Stop following me," Lili mumbles.

"Auren said you'd gone out to return my 'liquor'. Naturally, I had to go out and save you, but it looks like you've already got it all figured out… and you've found a bit of popcorn entertainment on the side too."

Ysh'vanna has most definitely seen them by now. She continues to argue with the man by herself anyway.

Lili shrugs. "Who is that?"

"Beats me. He's not really that handsome."

Her cheeks heat. This whole situation is stupid. "I know, he's not."

"I'll be frank with you, though." Avett folds his arms over each other. "He's Human—but he's not from the other spires. Doesn't look like he's here to cause trouble, either… not in the, ahem, ‘traditional’ sense."

"How do you know?"

"His cape's fur trimmed—with B10 hairs. The cloak itself is definitely reptilian leather, though it's not immediately obvious to me what kind. It's not everyday you see a Human that's squared off with a high ranking dragon and lived to tell the tale. I'd imagine that there are even less of his kind from the Hive, maybe none at all. Wouldn't be surprised—they're all bark." He toys with a stray seam on his glove. "No bite. Dogs like him don’t need to cause trouble to bite."

She gulps. This is what a warrior is supposed to look like—or what she’ll end up looking like soon enough… allegedly. She can’t imagine herself turning into someone like that, because this guy is literally squaring off against Ysh’vanna, and she’s sure something like that takes at least an impressive amount of bravery.

Their captain puts her hands on her hips and lets out an eardrum-rattling groan. Lili can hear her from all the way over here. Ysh’vanna throws an arm up and beckons the two of them over a second later.

“Quit watching and get over here!”

“I’ll pass, actually,” Avett calls back.

Lili bites. With her eyes fixed onto the man, she walks forward. He doesn’t turn, not right away anyway; instead, he offers Ysh’vanna a reserved smile. He’s got that smug aura to him, but it’s hidden under several layers of diplomacy and chivalrous mannerisms that Lili almost misses it. This guy is definitely enjoying the fact that he’s won, one way or another.

She offers a greeting to her captain, but it’s the man that turns and waves back at her. Lili immediately dislikes the way he looks at her, because he’s a head taller than her, and that means that his eyes are downcast and judgy. Not in the way a kid from school might look at her, thankfully enough, but in the way a scientist might regard an ant farm, which is probably worse.

Lili straightens her back anyway. If she's going to die an ant, she might as well die standing.

“You’ll never believe who this guy claims he is.” The captain puts her hands on her hips. “Lili, meet the overseer."

She blinks—once at Ysh'vanna, once at the man. Then she asks, "What's an overseer?"

"Exactly, my point, exactly." Ysh'vanna throws her hands into the air. "Here he is, walking around, claiming to be some omnipotent underground force that's in charge of the sanctuary, but clearly his claim's got some meat to it because apparently he's the one who gave us our mission. Anyway, I did as you asked.”

“As he asked?” Lili echoes.

“He wanted to see you up close, but quite frankly I don’t think he’s worthy of our time at all.” Ysh’vanna leans close, and Lili bends down slightly to hear her. “We’re not getting our paycheck for our last mission. He says he doesn’t have the money. Never did.”

Lili's focus snaps back to the man again. He smiles and shrugs, unaffected by her captain's abrasive and secretive nature. "It's true," he replies. "I'm as poor as a peasant."

It's now or never, Lili supposes. Narrowing her eyes, she states the obvious: "You're a Human."

He withholds his response this time, instead choosing to circle around Lili with his hands behind his back. Now that she’s up close and personal, she can see that this man is Asian—probably. A little like her, a little entirely different. She can’t tell if this is because he’s an esteemed dragon hunter, or if she’s all too eager to look for camaraderie in a place where she’s not meant to. Then she remembers that even seeing a Human is a miracle in itself, and that what she’s doing is really stupid.

When he’s finally made his way around to her front, he nods at her, as if he’s gotten a hold of her character and insecurities and flaws and whatever makes her vulnerable enough to warrant a nod from this guy. He holds his head far too high for a Human standing among off-landers. It's natural he'd look down on her as well.

Her back feels a little too stiff at this point. Ysh’vanna looks like she might start wailing on him at any given moment, which probably isn’t the best for a situation as delicate as this; ergo, Lili should probably say something. She’s going to do just that.

But then the man rests his eyes upon hers. They’re a standard brown, but mantling his pupils is a ring of explosive molten gold. Seeing this has punched the air out of Lili’s lungs. Humans don’t have eyes like that. Is he blind? Is he even Human at all, or is he something else that’s merely assumed the shape of a Human for convenience?

She doesn’t get her chance to speak at all, let alone to draw judgement from what little she’s been given. With the ease of a well-mixed cocktail, he bows and says, “Lili Wang-Rosales. How comforting it is that we meet at last.”

—

There are no words for how fucking flabbergasted Avett is. He’d chosen to hang back during the initial encounter on purpose, remaining out of sight from the Human, though staying just close enough to eavesdrop on whatever the man had to say about his partner’s wet-sock attitude. As it turns out, he had a lot more to say than he’d originally expected. For starters, he’d dropped her name. Not her full, legal name, the name he so lovingly regifted to her during their first meeting—her real name. And he’d dropped it hard.

Avett folds his arms as he leans against the pole, making sure to keep his body straight and hidden. He can't see the action from where he's standing but he knows that even now, Lilith can't help but remain flustered against the onslaught of praise this stranger continues to shower onto her. It’s a little pathetic, really, kind of like watching an adult drop packets upon packets of freeze-dried sweets onto a starving kid. He’s asking things he shouldn’t know at all, like how she managed to free the villagers from the dragon’s ethereal hold, or how she managed to defeat the ‘mistress’ of the village, mistress no doubt referring to Mari herself. Because whatever arms specialist Avett Ironsturm did back in the village doesn't exist in this guy's eyes at all, nope, not at all. He feels his ear twitch in annoyance.

Ysh’vanna catches on fast. “Alright, alright. Just who are you, mister… mister…?”

“My apologies.” The man pulls back; Avett watches him do so from his pole with narrowed eyes, no longer giving a damn about staying hidden. “Alexei. Alexei Romanov. Human-hybrid overseer of the Hive.”

Lilith squints at him like he’s just told her his name’s something outrageous. Avett doesn't know what to make of his title. Human-hybrid? Overseer? None of these descriptors phase Lilith nor Ysh'vanna, so he assumes he's just missed an important chunk of their conversation from earlier. Or maybe they're just too preoccupied with parsing apart the exact reasons for why he's here.

He elaborates quickly. “My chosen name. Just like you, Lili.”

It takes all of Avett’s willpower not to immediately start spluttering behind the pole. He’s just rubbing in at this point, this Alexei Ro-whatever. Why does he know all of this? It’s not like Ysh’vanna would disclose to anyone of their exploits, not to someone like him anyway. At a bar with several pints of lager and a loose tongue, sure, but she’s mad as all hell here; she’s not imparting anything onto this creep anytime soon.

His captain latches onto Lilith’s sleeve like she wants to tug her away, but the latter stands firm. “How do you know all of this stuff about me?”

Alexei puts a finger to his lips. “A magician does not disclose the tools of his trade.”

Tools of his trade being your average modern computer and a good search engine. Ysh'vanna bristles visibly at this. "You mean you read the debrief."

"I don't remember anything about a relic being on the debrief," Lili says.

The man claps his hands together. "Right. Without further ado, I would like to meet with your fourth member. The Gallian male, hm?"

Avett chooses this point to step out from behind the pole and loudly proclaim what's on his mind. "And why should we listen to you? For all we know, our checks are already sitting nice and snugly in our accounts. You're clearly bluffing. What's your motive here?"

They hold eye contact for a bit. That bit extends to an uncomfortably long time, but Avett doesn’t yield, choosing to buckle down instead. “You’re not threatening.”

“I don’t intend to be.” Alexei offers him a warm smile. That warm smile, Avett thinks, is going right into the gutter if he keeps this up. “There’s no motive. I’m just interested in seeing the team behind the success of the mission we’ve been struggling with for the past year.”

Before Avett can even begin to retort away his dismissal, Lilith steps in front of the Human and stays there, her expression hard.

Yeah, no. He’s not taking this from Lilith of all people. This act of rebellion is coming from the same person who sniffs male deodorant for stimulus. “Just because you’ve decided to grow a backbone doesn’t mean I’m gonna start agreeing with whatever you’re about to say.”

“At least hear him out,” she replies. “He knew my name.”

At a loss, Avett looks to Ysh’vanna for assistance, staying hopeful that she’ll decline and take them all on their merry way. Lilith does the same.

His faith in her pays off. His captain grumbles and shakes her head, clearly annoyed by the whole conversation. “Sorry. You know how it is on the Hive.”

He watches Lilith visibly deflate in front of him. She looks like she’s either about to start punching the air or Avett, but then Ysh’vanna holds out a hand, signalling that she’s not quite done here.

“If we had some actual proof that you’re an overseer or whatever, however,” she starts, folding her arms against her body, “then maybe I’ll consider it, Romanov.”

Avett hisses, “You’re kidding.”

“Ah, I thought you would never ask.”

The stranger’s grin, Avett realises, is crooked to the side. When he turns to address Avett, he can’t help but feel like a pig fit for the spitroast, apple in the mouth and all. He’s not scared, but he does inch back a little and straighten his stance.

“And what the fuck do you want?” Avett asks. Because, like he’s already said, he’s not intimidated by this fox-like creep at all. He’ll sooner swallow a bag of bricks than indulge this guy in his superiority complex.

The response comes easily. “I’m musing over a way to prove myself that involves you.”

“Anyone who uses the word ‘musing’ in a sentence shouldn’t be allowed out in public.”

The man taps his finger against his chin in thought. Then his features, quite literally, light up.

“Your name is Avett Earlstone, am I correct?”

Avett’s ears flick upwards before he’s actually had the time to process his comment. The name hits him fully about a second later, like a sledgehammer to his cheekbone: he feels the impact of the floor before anything else, and the pain is secondary to the way his head won’t stop spinning, spinning—

He pushes Lilith aside on the way towards the stranger, his fist tense and taut against his side as he drives it right into Alexei’s smug face. He’s not thinking straight, but then again, he doesn’t want to. This guy has lost his right to civilised conversation.

But then his fist stops millimeters away from its target. It's pushing against something hard yet spongy, though as his mind clears he realises that it's more like there's an unseeable hand holding his entire punch back. It contrasts the sensation of punching one of Auren’s shields; at least he actually gets to experience the singing pain of feeling his knuckles crack against his colleague's shield.

Fight back, Ironsturm, Avett tells himself. Using the remainder of his brute Kattish strength, he lets loose a yell and shoulders onwards, his hand straining against the invisible barrier until he's sure that he'll pierce through it soon.

Alexei's smile doesn't waver. Even the way he raises his hand is graceful, and it takes a bit for Avett to register that he's finally threatening him. The Human's fingers curl in such a way that the tip of his index finger is touching the side of his thumb, forming an 'ok' sign that rests on Avett’s forehead. Wisps of blue and grey rise from the ground at his feet; these wisps spiral upwards and culminate into a ball of tightly packed light in his hand.

He offers Avett another comment: "I apologise, Avett."

Then he flicks his finger. From there, it's over in an instant—Avett is sent flying a good few metres away from Alexei. His back hits the ground first, and he goes skidding until he bumps into the same pole he'd been hiding behind. He can taste copper on his tongue, meaning that he must've whacked his head on something—ah, the pole. His eyes struggle to refocus as he stares upwards at the man, of whom makes no effort to walk towards him at first.

Being superior isn't just a fantasy for this guy. It's one step further than that; it's his reality.

Ysh'vanna comes running up to his limp body in no time flat, her expression the pure picture of panic as she lifts his back from the pole.

"I'm fine," he grits out. He bats away her hand and picks himself off the ground with little difficulty, save for the odd stumble when he's upright again. Lilith hasn't budged from her position at all. She's still staring at Alexei like he's descended from the heavens—like he's some blessed messiah carrying the forbidden scriptures in the fold of his robes, the scriptures being written proof that he'd beaten Avett to shit without effort.

He grits his teeth. What the fuck.

Alexei looks beyond his partner and actually has the gall to ask, "Will that suffice?"

"Yeah, yeah," Ysh'vanna replies. "We'll take you."

14.5:

Ysh'vanna is getting nervous.

Nervous, because she doesn't know where she's meant to hand in the test tube sample. IRC missions have never asked for samples before, let alone through an anonymous and ominous message left on their ship mid-mission. In fact, she's pretty sure that their most recent mission hadn't been an IRC regulated mission at all, meaning that they've been had—and that they've just lost thousands of credits in fuel with no income to make up for it.  

Guilt gnaws at her stomach, and she wraps an arm over her lower gut. What a time to be clinically anxious.

Ysh'vanna looks up at the screen, watching the boxes flicker and flash in and out of existence. The anonymous message had told her to wait at the mission board, but there's no one else here. She should've known to call everyone back from the moment she'd received that notification, but they'd been separated for five days without contact—five days! For nothing!

Maybe it's time she handed over her captain's qualifications over to Auren and called it a day. At least he's got everything under control. No, scratch that. Ysh'vanna shakes her head. That’s the problem: he's got so many things under that thumb of his to the point where he could be a control freak at best, or a slave driver at worst. Both variants make for shitty captains.

Take now, for instance. Auren's just sent her a text regarding Avett's auxiliary expenditures on hard liquor. She doesn't even care about liquor—on the contrary, she loves it. But they're not supposed to let Avett get drunk all that often anymore, because the last time they'd given him some leeway, he'd taken Lili drinking with him.

Which is… not the worst outcome. It's certainly not as bad as the ten thousand other scenarios that she'd mused and ruminated over a mug of hot water back in her seat in navigation. Ysh'vanna would kill to see someone like Lili drunk. The problem lied in the fact that he'd taken her to a bar during her most important hours prior to the frontliner exam. They're lucky that Lili had managed to pull through, though maybe this is a given; they seem to be more lucky than skillful these days anyway.

It's been ten minutes and there's still no sign of anyone. Thoroughly defeated, she makes for the door. What should she tell Auren? What type of insurance applies to a situation such as this one? Fraud? Self-inflicted stupidity? Neither? And what should she do with this sample now that she's got it?

She raises the tube to the fluorescent light strips. The liquid inside stays black, neither reflecting nor accepting the light. They can't dispose of this normally. There's no way they can just dump this in any old bin. Stars, what a waste of their time.

And then she stops in her tracks. There’s a figure in the doorway. He’s not too tall—nothing on the ears either, and his skin has a noticeably peachy undertone to it that marks him as plainfully Human.

He reaches forward, his hand pushing away the edges of his tattered cloak and turning his wrist so that his palm faces the ceiling. The entire process of movement is methodical, slow, and not entirely Human at all. He's requesting for something. Her sample.

With a tone that reminds Ysh'vanna of the sound of gravel on gravel, he says, "You would be handing that over to me, Captain O'Raal."

14: the shopping trip

MISSION LOG: 20XX

CONDITION: SUCCESS

DEBRIEFING:

Target successfully neutralised after four days of non-contact from frontline team. Required additional support from backline caster Auren Draksparrow. Frontliner Avett Ironsturm sustained minor to medium injuries and is currently awaiting non-urgent treatment from the onboard crew. Medical recompense not required.

TOTAL EARNINGS: 1—

Lili winces as her partner lets out another howl, shaking the ship's foundations to its core. She looks up from the mission log and meets her captain's downcast grin.

"He's like that all of the time." Ysh'vanna rolls her eyes before returning to her ship's interface. "Auren says it's got something to do with how out-of-shape his ether circulation is, but I haven't had a problem with receiving healing at all."

"And you get healed often?" asks Lili.

She shrugs. "Just minor things. I burn the roof of my mouth often when it's my turn to cook. So not too often."

And they're thankful for that. Lili's had enough burnt toast and sunny-side-fucked eggs to know that it's no coincidence that her captain doesn't cook often. She abstains from the task, not by choice, but by force—courtesy of Auren, who Lili often finds hogging the kitchen counters as early as four.

Avett chooses that moment to plead mercy to his stone-cold provider, proving Ysh'vanna's theory right. It's very strange for Lili to hear his voice peaking like that, especially when she's used to hearing him loudly berate her on a good day. If she isn't careful, she'll actually start to enjoy witnessing his weaker side, and that's not a part of her personality that she's willing to entertain just yet.

In dire need of a distraction, she swipes away the mission log and stands up from her seat. Ysh'vanna hums as she swivels idly on her wheeled chair, one leg crossed over the other. She looks like she wants to say something, but she reaches out and opens a video player instead, finding contentment in watching kittens trip over themselves on her ten-thousand credit navigation panel.

Ironic.

Avett yelps again; his voice trails off into a half-hearted sob this time, and it actually manages to draw a pang of guilt from Lili's heart. She briefly wonders if she should check on him or if her interests lie elsewhere for today.

She slips past the entrance foyer and into the corridor, making sure to keep her steps light. Not like Avett can hear her anyway—Lili is willing to bet that he's far too preoccupied with his own predicament to catch her footsteps outside. Auren, on the other hand, is another story entirely. When she stops in front of the infirmary, the first thing she hears is his bored, superior hum: "Enter, Lili."

Ether signatures, she supposes, speak far louder than any footstep.

She opens the door and peers around the corner. Regret storms her innards when she does. A hot flush takes over her body and she presses her back to the door, keeping her eyes fixed forward and into the corridor.

At least now she's aware that he's more leanly muscular than svelte.

Lili knows it shouldn't be that big of a deal, but it feels like she's just seen something she shouldn't have seen at all. She leans back around the door, making sure to look directly at Auren and only at Auren this time.

"She's here?" Avett shuffles around on his stomach. His ears flutter in annoyance a second after. "I don't want her here. Patient's discretion, or whatever it's called. Get her out."

Auren pays him no heed, keeping his palm flat against the back of Avett's shoulder blade. "I am glad that you have decided to join us. I have been meaning to resume our lessons, and our friendly frontline Kattish has provided us with an excellent opportunity to do so."

"I'm not your scapegoat," says Avett. He positions to roll himself onto his front, but the firm hand at his shoulder keeps him down. It's then that Lili realises his entire back is a brilliant mess of purpled skin, and that Auren has been at it for long that he knows exactly where it hurts. Her partner balls his hands into the sheets until his knuckles turn pearly. He smashes his face into the pillow shortly after.

This is where insubordination will get you, she guesses.

Even though he's likely giving Avett the time of his life with that hand of his, Auren keeps an insidiously deceptive smile on his face as he turns to Lili. "Would you like to give it a go?"

"I'm fine, thanks."

She turns to the door, holding her forearms and lowering her head. She wishes Avett a very pleasant recovery in the back of her mind.

"Actually, fine," Avett says as he raises his head and lets out a sigh of exasperation. "Give me Lilith."

Lili stops at the door. When she turns back to face Auren, she finds that his smile has melted into something more genuine, more kindly.

With a stutter in her step, she comes back to the bed. Caution strains her voice as she answers with, “Suuuure.”

She must be the lesser of two evils here. Auren lifts his hand from Avett’s back, and the latter actually lets out a quiet moan of relief. A respite from his punishment—but not for long. Lili is sure she’ll be just as bad, if not worse, than Auren.

Her mentor steps aside. “Have you healed before, Lili?

She shrugs. She’d used her power to accelerate her recovery back in the mall, but beyond that she’s never used her ether constructively before. No, scratch that; she’s never really had to. Ava had always provided for her, giving her snide remarks and healing wherever necessary.

“Not really,” Lili replies. “What do I have to do?”

“Place your hands onto his back.”

She glances down. His back is bruised, and badly at that. It must be from when Mari had thrown him into the wall, where he’d nearly passed out from the shock of it all. When she reaches for a particularly vicious lump, Avett flinches away from her fingers, his breath hitching for a split second before he manages to compose himself again.

He grins as he cranes his neck back, but his smile is tight-lipped. “Distracted, princess?”

Lili doesn’t have to look behind her to know that Auren is scowling as well. She starts slowly, letting the tips of her nails feather along the surface of his skin before pressing down the pads of her fingers, then her thumbs, then finally her palms.

It’s almost comical how quickly Avett gives up on her and starts feigning interest towards the posters on the wall. They’re his posters, Lili realises, because there are several infographics of dismantled firearms and another photo of a Kattish woman in a garage. Her hair is long and dark, and her features are softly feminine.

She’s pretty.

Auren places a hand on her shoulders, bringing her swiftly back to earth. “Healing and direct muscle manipulation are two experiences that can be likened to each other. Press down on his back—”

“Don’t do that,” Avett says.

“—and scope out the feel of his ether.” He circles around, his gaze unwavering. “Try to match it, then siphon that power into his circulation. The latter should not be hard for you.”

Lili keeps her hand on Avett, but there’s no thrum of ether to be felt when she searches through his body. It’s an eerie silence, one that reminds her of the world before dragons—before the existence of ether.

She looks at Auren. “What happens if I don’t match it?”

The Gallian's answer comes easily. A little too easily. “Immense pain. You will be channeling foreign ether directly into his body. You do not have to match it entirely—only to the best of your abilities. The closer you match, the less pain he will have to experience."

If Avett's pained shouts from earlier are anything to go by, Lili is going to need a lot more than the 'best of her abilities' to get him through a session unscathed. She presses her hands into his back a fraction lower, and his tail flicks in response. There's nothing there for her to feel out in the first place; it's like trying to see out of her elbow, or trying to taste from the pads of her thumbs. It feels so odd that she has to touch her fingers to her wrist just to check if it's not just a bout of sudden weakness. The gentle caress of ether at her skin informs Lili that it's not just her.

"There's nothing there," she says, defeated. "I've never seen anyone like this before."

Even the Humans from the village had hummed loudly with ether, and she hadn't needed to touch any of them. In fact, the air had been positively saturated with it, and it did Lili no favours during her time in the village. Avett, on the other hand, is completely silent.

Maybe constructively manipulating ether just isn't her thing.

"Avett is a Kattish. Biologically, they pride themselves on their physicality. As such, when their ether circuits are not in use, they become near dormant until their next usage." Auren folds his arms, his eyes narrowed as he assesses the healing he's done so far. "Most Kattish are not so indetectable as to cause technicalities during the healing process, but someone who has never once touched his ethereal capabilities—and by extension, has not developed his personal ether's scent—would more than likely prove to be a nuisance in this regard."

Avett glowers into his pillow. "It's a lifestyle choice, asshole."

"Abstinence from ether remains a religious practice of the past."

"Better untrained than loud. I'm the only one on this ship who even has a chance of sneaking up to Auren, and I'd like to keep it that way."

"Avett, your ether is plenty 'loud' to a trained individual such as myself. What you lack is a proper signature. I would have complications picking your scent from the crowd, but you should know that on this ship you stand out like a sore thumb."

"Go fuck yourself." Avett's ears droop to his head.

This is great, but it's not going to help Lili treat her partner at all. She wonders how he's faring with having to sleep on his front. It can't be that comfortable.

"So what should I do?" Lili asks.

"Try harder," says Auren.

There's nothing to ‘try’ in the first place. Avett doesn't even have a hint of ether in him, let alone an easily discernible signature that'll save him from another bout of suffering. Lili isn't like Auren; she hasn't lived with ether like the rest of Therius or wherever he comes from. She's a hack compared to them.

She's about to let the professional get back to his work when that said professional moves to the infirmary door and says, "I shall leave you two be while I prepare lunch. Try not to hurt him, Lili. If you cannot resist, then keep his injuries repairable at the very least."

It's obvious to Lili now why Auren had delegated such an impossible task to her. She supposes that it's a small tradeoff—free food to babysit a bristly frontliner isn't too high on the pyramid of shitty deals. It could be worse.

The door clicks shut, and all of a sudden it's Lili's cold hand against the expanse of Avett's silky-hot back. The thought settles into her head like she's sinking through icy water. Blood rushes to her cheeks not a second later.

A distracted princess indeed. Luckily for her, Avett either hasn't noticed or has decided to spare her the embarrassment by not bringing it up again.

She's about to start searching for his signature again when Avett releases a sigh. "Don't bother. Auren's been my healer for at least eight months now. I'm used to it… pretty much."

Yeah, 'used to it.' He might as well be passing kidney stones, what with all of that noise he makes behind closed doors. It's a miracle how his voice isn't hoarse yet. He's not used to anything at all.

To prove her point, she sends a spark of her ether down his back, but she's pretty sure in hindsight that she'd sent a lot more than she originally intended. Avett jerks upwards, bites back a shout, and thumps back onto the bed, defeated in form but not in mind.

“You didn’t even try!” he screeches.

A grin plays at the edges of Lili's lips; she stamps it down immediately. "Didn't have to. You're 'pretty much' used to it, aren't you?"

"Is psychopathy a by-effect or a requirement of being a caster?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

He's still giving her the stink eye as she moves to sit onto the bed directly opposite to his. If she's not getting anything out of this session at her current level, then she might as well take a break.

Avett doesn't get up from his disgruntled position, choosing to keep his cheek smushed against the pillow instead.

Lili motions to him. "Not getting up?"

His eyes wander off. His lips press and open, like he's trying to figure out what to say and the best way to say it. "Hurts to move. I'd rather not."

It's hard for Lili to not immediately think of their encounter with Mari, how she'd tossed him into the wall with a feral ferocity that had reminded Lili of a tiger lunging for its prey. She'd sent a tongue of fire down his side too—thankfully, there's no trace of that on Avett's body. Lili knows that it's fruitless to fret about it now, but during the time he'd needed her the most, she'd been useless. In fact, during their skirmishes with the two elders, she'd cemented her role as the side bench warmer. Had she encountered them on her own, she would've lost twice over.

The thought doesn't settle nicely with her. Fortunately, it doesn't have the chance to settle for long.

"Yeah, that's right." Avett's ears twitch in amusement. Lili is starting to wonder if it's a conscious thing that he does, or if it's something that just happens every time he's decided to be a nuisance. "You've mortally wounded me, Lilith. My back is positively burning from the torture you've forced upon me. I think—I think I might faint—"   

Lili tries not to laugh, but a chuckle tumbles from her mouth anyway. She brings a hand to her mouth and turns away. This guy's almost miraculously scrubbed any hint of guilt off her shoulders in one sentence, and that's a minor miracle in itself.

"I appreciate the thought," she says. "I know what you're trying to do. But I'm fine. Really."

He looks down to his pillow as he bites the insides of his cheeks in thought. He's clearly weighing some difficult words in his head, debating if he should bite the bullet and say them or if he's better off keeping his mouth shut.

"You're not," is his answer.

"I am.”

“You really aren’t.”

Lili picks herself up from the bed. “I think Auren might be done with lunch, I should go check—"

"It's really hard for me to un-notice this, but your eyes trail down and unfocus when you start spiralling."

She stops at the door, her heart as good as dead. He's seized control of the mood and yanked it around to his whim.

"And…" His voice falters, like he's trying to catch his breath. "You spiralled a lot. More than usual when you came into this room. I'm not trying to be your therapist, or anything like that. I just hate seeing it—seeing someone else go through the same beats as I did when I…"  

Lili stays at the door, her hand trembling at her side. She wishes they were joking around again.

He looks at his photo wall, and his ears sag again. "I know sorry won't cut it, but I really owe you an apology for the amount of shit I've given you for being me. It gets hard a lot of the time. Believe you me."

If it's clearly this difficult for him to spit it out, Lili doesn't get why he won't just forgo saying it at all.

"So if you need someone to lean on, I'm here. I talked to you about it. Let me do the same for you?"

Her heart feels like it's going to burst. She slams down on it, gritting her teeth against that tenderness in her chest before it flowers into something else, something she can't quite control. She feels like lashing out. She feels like thanking him. She feels like snapping and telling him to go back to being the same old smarmy asshole he's always been, because she can't envision being friends with someone who'd actually care about her.

She does none of those things.

The doors slide open. And maybe it makes her just as cruel as Ava, but Lili doesn't even offer him a second glance before the doors slide shut again.

—

And yet, it seems that no matter how much Lili tries to distance herself from her partner that day, fate—or her insistent crewmates—has other plans in mind. Circumstance had come in the form of a quaint little shopping trip the moment Avett was fully healed and sauntering about, much to the chagrin of both frontliners.

The moment Auren proposes that they’re a little low on root vegetables and milk, and that maybe they should head out to replenish those factors, Avett vehemently disagrees.

“Screw off, Auren.” He rests his knife and fork over his plate and crosses his arms over himself. Being bedridden and all had forced him into eating hours later after everyone had already left the dining table. “Hive’s off limits. I’m not going out there.”

“Perhaps you have already forgotten, but you are obligated to me now, no?” Auren’s grin is slight, but it infuriates Avett all the same.

"Ysh'vanna's clearly off somewhere already—why can't she do the groceries?"

"She is delivering the sample and running errands. There is no time for her to do the groceries as well."

“I could go by myself instead,” Lili pipes up.

Auren’s imposing attitude is on her in a matter of milliseconds, fixing her to the spot. “And I suppose that you are informed in the ways of navigating the Therian credit card?”

He tosses something onto the table. It’s his card.

"A rather intricate system, I must warn you." The way he leans back in his seat reminds Lili of a chess grandmaster. "You would best require the assistance of someone well-versed in the art of spending."

She takes the card in her hand. It can't be that hard to use, right? All she has to do is swipe… and then what? This card doesn't have Auren's name on it—instead, it has the word WINNOW grafted onto the side, and underneath that it reads BANK OF THERIUS. Surely if she's to authorise any sort of transaction, she's going to have to enter a pin or whatever.

Avett snatches the card from her and stands up, his features hard. He storms over to the exit but stops before he opens the doors to throw Auren a terrible glare.

Then he fixes his sights on Lili. "Coming, princess?"

The way he spits out her nickname here definitely makes it sound more like an insult than a compliment.

When she actually enters the convenience store, she's greeted with a disappointing sight. All she sees are rows upon rows of sorted groceries underneath cool-coloured strips of light. At least the contents of the shelves are interesting—she passes a row of what looks to be flash-dried candies—but even then, she’s still a bit let down. The venue is nigh-identical to all of the supermarkets she used to go to prior to the Immigration.

As she catches Avett eyeing a line of potatoes, she decides to break away from him and observe the other aisles. The signs that indicate the section are an LED display—easily adjustable at any time, should they require rearrangement. Then she remembers that she should probably stock up on some conditioner for her hair, considering the fact that no one on the ship had seemed to care about follicle care; this is ironic when she contemplates the average hair length of her crewmates. During the scant times she's actually been onboard, she's used their communal three-in-one body and hair wash. It’s better than what she had back in the wilds, but her seventeen year old self would be throwing a fit if she ever heard about this.

She'll have to pick up a bottle of actual shampoo while she's at it.

Lili turns the corner, passing a horned woman and her daughter. The woman gives her a double take before nudging her daughter along by the small of her back. She pretends not to notice, directing her attention over to the endless arrays of mandarin-infused hair gels and aromatherapy soaps instead. A bottle of regular shampoo costs roughly six credits.

Something else catches her eye; sticks of deodorant, their packaging separated into light, pinkish tones and dark, blue-and-grey hues. Targeted marketing exists here too, she supposes, and it exists as aggressively as ever. Lili vaguely remembers seeing a stick of "game console flavoured" male-marketed deodorant years before the world had gone to shit. Then she remembers that she probably smells like shit too, and that she'll have to pick out something for herself.

Immediately, her eyes fall onto the masculine side. She's never had male deodorant before. Every time she's been to the supermarket, her mother's always been there watching over her, judging her every purchase like a parent on the sidelines. The freedom she has right now is incredible.

With shaky hands, she reaches toward a tall, blue spray can. These bad boys used to set off fire alarms all the time back in high school. Or allegedly, at least. No one in the girls locker room actually used Lynx.

She flips over the can in her hands. This particular deodorant scent is called Antifreeze, and there's a snowflake on the label, which describes absolutely nothing of use to Lili when it comes to scent. What does antifreeze smell like? She brings the lid up to her nose and takes a long whiff.

...Wow. That's a familiar scent. Lili tilts her head back, sniffs the stale air of the supermarket to refresh her palette, and sniffs the lid again. It's definitely got that masculine edge to it, something a feminine deodorant wouldn't have. It really does remind her of something. She likes it. She can really imagine burying her face into her future lover's chest and scenting this on him—

Her stomach freezes over as she recalls, in no uncertain terms, exactly where she recognises this scent from. No, maybe she's made a mistake. Her nose isn't that great. She's prone to errors like how a certain arms specialist is prone to anger. She rubs her face with her free hand. Why'd she have to make that comparison? This situation is making her head down a rabbit hole she doesn't want anything to do with.

"I can excuse your depressive and self-sabotastical behavior, but I draw the line at… this. What the fuck are you doing?"

Lili jumps and nearly drops the can of Antifreeze. Her face heats up like she's a kid caught in a fat fucking fib as she catches Avett's judgmental gaze. He's holding a plastic casket of vegetables.

When she doesn't respond, he looks over to what's in her hand. "Did I seriously just catch you sniffing Antifreeze—twice!—before rubbing your face like you just regretted doing it?"

Yeah. Why? Because it smelled like him? "I was just testing it—I wanted to see what it'd make me smell like," she stammers. Like he'd ever believe that.

This isn't working. She probably should've given herself a test spray with the deodorant instead of sniffing it, because Avett can smell her fear, and she knows he can because his ears are perking right up. He's actually titillated by whatever she's doing right now.

"Liar," he finally says. "You're lying. I don't know why, but you don't want to tell me the truth."

He circles around her. Lili feels like a rabbit about to get pounced on. "It is the truth."

"I knew. Instantly. Wanna know how?"

She tightens her grip around the can.

"You don't normally make eye contact when you talk. But you did just then. Might've worked on someone who didn't know you, but it totally backfired on me."

Observant. Critical. Avett is dismantling her like she's a junction box in the Winnow’s electrical room. She grips the can tighter. What she'd give for an exit right now.

"I'm so sorry that you think I have something to hide." She puts the Antifreeze back onto the shelf. "We have this on the ship already. Let's just go."

He stops circling. He's satiated now, Lili is sure of it.

Then he folds his arms as he looks at the can of Antifreeze. It's got her sweaty handprints all over it. "What do you mean by 'we have this on the ship already,' Lilith?"

Fuck! She swipes at a random feminine deodorant and throws it into his casket before turning away. "Because I smelt it on you, ok?! I smelt it and thought about you hugging me back in the ship and I wanted to put it back immediately."

Her face heats at the words she can't believe she's actually saying.

He doesn't say anything at first. Maybe her abhorrent confession has actually scared Avett into a round of stunned silence. Which is both a blessing and a curse.

Case in point: Avett doesn't even bother to explain how to use the Therian credit card. Lili watches him slap it against the pin pad once before fumbling around with his ID and slapping that against the screen as well. The machine doesn't prompt him for a pin code at all. He's free to dump the rest of groceries onto the steel platform from there, whereupon it scans everything and totals up his expenditures for him.

She releases a sigh of relief when he continues to hold his vow of silence until they're out of the market, hands full of reusable shopping bags and Lili’s head presumably brimming with cotton.

“You wanted to put it back immediately?”

They’ve only just made it to the entrance of the hangar when he starts talking again. He gives his sleeve a testing sniff as he swivels around, uncharacteristic insecurity painted on his features. “I didn’t think Antifreeze was a bad smell. Is it?”

Lili blinks. “I thought you guys were like… scent connoisseurs.”

“Everything smells like I’ve been shoved up someone’s asshole—means scents are more intense for me. Doesn’t mean I know what people like.” He takes a step towards Lili and turns up the insides of his jacket. “Give it to me straight, Lilith. How do I smell?”

She freezes. She could get something out of this if she wanted to.

“What do I smell like?” she blurts out.

The question comes out impulsively. Lili covers her mouth with her hands right after. What an insensitive question to ask, to even realise at all. Luckily for her, Avett actually doubles over in a laughing fit instead of getting angry.

“Stars—you’re—actually like an off-realm bumpkin or something—ah, fuck, holy—”

He slams his hand into the exterior wall of the Winnow as he catches his breath. She doesn’t know how people from other realms act, but given that Therius sounds like a melting pot of cultures, she’s starting to get a good idea of what being an ‘off-realm bumpkin’ might entail. She’s the opposite of a civilised, modern citizen. She’s just asked Avett to give her a good sniff.

“Alright. Right.” He inhales and wipes at his eyes with the back of his glove. “Mutual exchange. You tell me how I smell, and I’ll tell you how you smell.”

How he smells? Lili’s not sure how she’s meant to describe the scent of a generic masculine deodorant. Soapy? He’ll kill her for sure if she dares to describe him as soapy.

“It’s not unbearable,” she starts. “You put on a normal amount, so it smells fine by default. It’s a light, fresh scent. I can’t catch it on you if I’m not right up in your face.”

He leans against the wall. “And you smell like our three-in-one shampoo and ether.”

His answer is a bit disappointing. He heads up the stairs, pins the handles of one bag underneath his armpit, and draws out his ID card. She presses harder. “No, like, personalised scent? Nothing?”

“Couldn't smell it from here. And getting any closer would be pretty inappropriate. You'd have to really not be showering regularly for me to tell.” Then he turns. There’s a sly glint in his eye when he does. “Or be in heat. Are you in heat, Lilith?”

"What?" Lili looks up at him. He's giving her a downcast, mirthful smile. "What do you mean—say that last part again?"

He enters the ship.

Lili is left standing outside, two hefty bags of groceries in each hand, wondering what the fuck he means by being ‘in heat.’

—

“No, Lili.” Auren shakes his head. “Kattish women cannot enter heat. That is a myth. Who informed you of such deviance?”

It's 4:00PM, and they're having Gallian tea with rations in the navigation room. Though Auren had asked Avett to join on multiple occasions, he'd declined with a flat tone—a harsh contrast to his normally expressive exclamations—and left for the infirmary.  

“But Avett did,” she says. She’s making huge arm signals to really accentuate her point, some of which are far too exaggerated for the topic at hand. “He was telling me about how he smells things differently, and then the conversation changed to heat cycles really abruptly for some reason.”

His fist clenches. Tightly. So tightly that his green skin actually starts to whiten at his knuckles. “They do not have estrus cycles. They are fertile year-round—hence, they would have no biological incentive to have one. He is lying.”

A painfully blunt description. She runs his fingers through her hair. She doesn’t know why it matters so much to her.

Auren is quick to change the subject. "How are you faring, Lili?"

Confusion sweeps across her features. It’s not like she’s injured, not in the same way Avett is at least. "Well, I walked around the Hive earlier just fine."

He shakes his head. “Has mercenary work treated you well?”

Lili sits back in her chair and shrugs. "It's alright."

"Only alright?" It's his turn to be confused now. "I would imagine that mercenary work is a far cry from your previous lifestyle, no?"

She shrugs again. Explaining to your higher-ups that you feel incompetently outclassed on the field due to underlying mental issues doesn't feel like a good topic to have over a spot of afternoon tea.

Sensing that this conversation is a lost cause, Auren leans over and goes through the contents of their groceries bags. He nods every so often to himself, clearly impressed with their subordination.

Lili coughs. Her partner might make her feel weird as shit, but credit is due where credit is due. "Avett got most of it."

"Ah." He reaches into a bag and pulls out a tube of deep-treatment conditioner. "Most?"

Her cheeks flush. "I thought we could use some actual hair care onboard. I can pay you back out of my card if this is too—"

"On the contrary, it is quite alright." He puts it back into the bag. "Personal hygiene is what separates a B class mammalian from the ecology. This, however…"

Auren pulls out a long-necked bottle of what appears to be clear liquid. On closer inspection, it seems like someone's snuck in a litre of hard liquor into the expenditures.

"...is unacceptable," he finishes. "It would appear that Avett has used the communal card for his own whims."

"But we can afford it, right?" Lili presses.

“To afford and to need are two entirely separate matters.” He places the bottle on the table. “Perhaps you are not quite done with your grocery shopping excursion.”

Lili is about to ask what he means when Auren slides his card over the table again with two firm fingers.

"While inebriation can be a fine activity to indulge yourself in every one in a while, I find that our furred friend spends far too much time on alcohol." The look Auren gives her chills her to the bone. "You do understand how to use this card now, yes?"

She nods, already scared shitless at the thought of Auren finding out that she and Avett never trained that day in the Afflatus—and that they'd gone straight to the bars to drink themselves dead instead. Auren would not just kill her; he would also dismiss her from the Winnow. God have mercy on what he'd do to Avett.

He drops the bottle into an empty reusable bag. "Do Avett a favour and return this to the supermarket."

13.5 the aftermath

 (image for chadwick that i made on ms paint in ten seconds because i value him as a friend):

 

Auren makes quick work of the dragon, as expected of a skilled Gallian caster. He'd ended it in one bright spark of ether—as per Lili's request—and sent it tumbling into the trees.

The dragon raises its head, dazed and pleading, but Auren doesn't hesitate. He curls his fingers around an invisible handle in the air, and a blade of light extends from his hand. It's over in an instant.

There is little comfort to be found in the presence of a rapidly melting, inky corpse. Its limbs—or what remains of them—lie dormant against the ground as the rest of the dragon pools into the ground. The cloth-like body slowly deflates, reminding Lili of a pillow fort that’s just caved in.

There's so much that she should be feeling that it's easier to not think at all. She kneels down and watches the ink slowly seep through the grass. Her destruction is better observed; immersion feels like an ice-cold can of cola against her face. The puddle is so still that it looks like she could lower her hand into it like a hole.

With that same Gallian ease, Auren kneels down with her and dips a test tube into the dragon, disturbing the surface and leaving her reflection in pieces. It also serves as a reminder that this is—or was—a dragon, and it will stain her skin for sure if she tries to touch it.

Lili hurries back to Avett, of whom they've leaned against the base of a tree. She takes extra care with his body as she throws his arm over her shoulder once more. Auren tucks his vials into his pouch and tries to do the same, but Lili shakes her head.

"It's fine. We can handle ourselves," she says.

As Auren nods and shuffles on ahead to rendezvous with Ysh'vanna and her ship, Lili takes this moment to look back and up.

High above the blackening silhouettes of the forest cypresses is a glass dome of blue. It stands above the trees and reaches into the stars, casting an eerie glow over the canopies like a second sun.

She wonders how long it'll hold. If it'll last them through the night at all.

Ysh'vanna is waving to them from the cockpit, gesturing at them to hurry on up so they'll get to spend the night in the Hive's "hangar" instead of the New Zealand wilderness. Avett looks at the dome, his eyes weary, his body begging for respite.

His voice cracks mid-sentence, but he manages to power through his words regardless. "It'll hold, Lilith. It'll last them until they won't need it anymore. They'll be alright."

He closes his eyes. He's got no idea what he's talking about, but Lili appreciates the sentiment.

13: the fight

The desk doesn’t actually connect with Will. He drops to his side at the last second—the table collides with another, its individual pieces sent scattering across the floor. But it's enough of an opening for Avett to pounce straight for him, his blaster outstretched and ready to do some damage.

Lili's never been in a fight before, not a proper one anyway. Violence is something she's learned to avoid, not to use. Avett, however, is all too eager to face off with the larger man. He swings the barrel of his blaster at Will's head. A miss—Will counters with a heavy-set jab aimed for Avett's stomach.

Which leaves his side open.

Ducking to the left, Avett prepares his own counterattack, which Will avoids by skirting to the side. They scuffle like this for a bit, two bodies dancing in out of each other's reach, moving with the other's blows. Lili could never move like this, she thinks. There has to be something she can do to help. And yet here she is—helpless.

Will is the first to break off. He circles Avett slowly, his hands balled into fists and raised to his face. Not wanting to lose momentum either, Avett follows suit, holding his blaster at his side.

"Kitty's got claws." Will's breath comes evenly, as opposed to his opponent's.

"Monkey's got shit to fling.”

"Humans make do with what they've got. But I digress." Will keeps his eyes on Avett, shifting his feet every so often as he passes through another line of tables. Avett follows, equally focused. "I didn't amass the contents of this warehouse by flinging shit, and I certainly won't be slacking today."

He launches himself at Avett, fist outstretched, his side hopelessly open again, only this time Avett's cornered. Tables flank their sides, leaving Avett with one option: blocking.

Her colleague does so with a grimace, his blaster raised into the air as Will whirls and throws his entire weight into a punch.

No. Not a punch. His palm is open, his fingers splayed—a grab. Will swerves and reaches for Avett's head; by the time the latter's realised, he's already been slammed against the table twice and tossed to the floor.

But Will isn't done there. While Avett takes his sweet time recovering from his beating, Will takes the closest thing to him—a garbage can made of tin—and throws it over Avett's head. It rattles loudly when he does, like someone's waving a sheet of iron over his head.

It seems that Will’s plan is working as intended, because when he drives his foot into the bin, Avett lets out a muffled groan and stays down. It must be like an aural flashbang in there, the sounds exacerbated by his sensory advantages.

"Loud, isn't it? I can only imagine how rancid it must smell down there for an alien like you." Will's voice sends chills down Lili's spine. "Don't worry though—not for long."

And then he slides the gun from his hip and points it at the can.

Lili wastes no time scrambling forward and getting in the way, caging her arms over Avett like he's a volatile explosive so that it's her on the receiving end of his shot. If she looks down the barrel, she'll just catch the azure glow of the battery chamber. She's not scared; she's too angry, too full of reckless righteousness to cower away from the cold glint of the barrel.

Will only raises an eyebrow. "Always the sympathiser. Get off, Lili."

"No."

"He's an off-lander. An off-lander, Lili. They don't give a shit about the quality of your character, only where your ears are." The gun stays put. "They'll pillage your Human settlements without a second thought. They know no mercy, Lili. So get off."

Her eyes narrow; her fists clench into the ground. She stays right where she is, forever glaring into Will's bored, yet flickering gaze.

"I'm not moving." Lili feels Avett shift from underneath her. She needs time—and a distraction. "I don't know why those off-landers decided to do what they did, but Avett isn't like that. He's a good guy." As good as they come, anyway, she thinks, but she keeps that tidbit to herself.

There it is; Lili recognises that look from anywhere. When Will's eyes soften, she almost wants to throw up. He knows all of Ava's tricks, and like a seasoned dog owner, he's training her. Offering her a treat—respite and approval—at her most vulnerable, and expecting her to kneel for it. It wouldn't be so bad if he actually cared.

"Lili, come now." He actually lowers the barrel. "We've obviously gotten off on the wrong foot. Why don't you step away from the can? I could save you a seat in the elder's council—you'd like it quite a bit. You'd be a highly respected individual within the village, and you'd be surrounded by Humans." Will steps forward, his chest swelling. "Your kind, Lili. Your people. Be a good girl and do the right thing."

Unusual. Will bargaining with her is unusual. Gritting her teeth, she checks on Avett out of the corner of her eye—he's shuffling inside the bin, and from the way he's trying to keep his movements restrained, he must have some sort of plan.

Will continues, "We've got humanity's last stronghold, just waiting for you, right here." He flips the gun around so that he's holding it by the barrel. "All you have to do is say yes."

Disgust swarms through Lili like a hive of bees, and her upper lip curls. She doesn't know why registered mercenaries would attack such an unseeming village, and she doesn't stop to wonder why either. She's just a girl standing in front of a gun that'll go off at any second for someone who won't even thank her for it later. Powerless to stop Will physically—yet powerful enough to stop him entirely.

Her ether pounds through her at the thought, new and unbidden.  

"Go fuck yourself, Will."

Lili propels herself backwards, away from the can. Avett shakes free, his hands cupped together, his body bent low to the floor. In his hands is the standard battery chamber. The casing has been cut open, revealing its innards to the air.

Then—Lili doesn't even know what happens then. One minute, she's watching Will fumble with his blaster; the next, she's seeing red. Literal red—there's a bright, brief flash of hot-blue light, leaving Lili to hopelessly fumble around in this new, dark world.

She hears the sound of skin colliding with bone, then a grunt. The low pitch suggests that it's Will's grunt. Something heavy falls to the floor—another grunt, from Avett this time, as he presumably swings the hard end of his blaster into Will's cheekbone. Two clicks—one light rattle. Then the scuffling of cloth against skin stops altogether, and Avett stands back up, victorious, panting.

She still can't see jack—everything further than two steps away is a faint silhouette at best—but she can sure as hell smell him from where she is. The garbage can hadn't been empty at all. She's proven right when she hears the sound of hands slapping against a mouth, two tenuous steps taken backwards, then unceremonious retching a few moments after.

Oh, what she'd give to see Avett's cocky demeanor destroyed in mere seconds. "Wish I could've seen that," she offers. Hot bile splatters against the floor in response.

Will groans. "Trust me, you don't want to see it. I'd rather see a cat hurl up hairballs than this guy."

"Fuck both of you." Avett's voice is hoarse and absolutely dripping in vocal fry. By now, Lili's vision has returned to her, to an extent at least. Her partner is limping around, scrubbing at his face and hair to no avail, then doubling back into himself silently.

It's a sorry sight to behold, that's for sure. Sucks to be Kattish sometimes.

Lili turns her attention to Will, her gaze cold. The two clicks she'd heard earlier were handcuffs—and indeed, Will is handcuffed and face-down on the ground, his face the very picture of reluctant resignation.

Step by step, she makes her way towards him. She kneels down to meet his gaze, but stops just shy of a metre from him.

“Where’s Avett’s GlassLink?” she asks.

Will shrugs. “Not on me.”

It takes all of Lili’s willpower not to just step back and give up. She doesn’t like the way she’s got all of the leverage now—it’s too unfamiliar. All she wants to do is to sink back into the passive complacency that she’s known well and worn throughout her entire life.

So she prods again. “Liar.”

He shrugs again. “I’m telling you, not on me.”

Avett drops his blaster to the ground and kicks it over to Lili before coughing into whatever corner he’s managed to meander over to this time. She doesn’t pick it up. She doesn’t need it.

Gulping down an uncomfortable ball of air, she asks, “Then where is it?”

“The elders’ve got it now.” Will’s eyes are fixed on the blaster. “I never touched it, I swear. I took all of his weaponry, but I left his GlassLink for someone else to fiddle around with. Couldn’t give two shits about alien communication even if I tried.”

“Do you know which elder?”

“Fuck all of that.” Avett’s footsteps echo through the hall, staunch and heavy against the hollow silence of the warehouse. “What the fuck is wrong with this village?”

Lili’s back straightens. Here it is; the moment she’s been waiting for. She’s either wrong or hopelessly wrong, no two ways about it, because Will’s giving Avett an actually sincere look of pure innocence before it degrades into a scowl.

“Finding Human life a bit prehistoric for your tastes?”

“Hardly.” Avett folds his arms. “I was gonna say, I was actually starting to like it a bit before my ears just fell off mid-hallucination. That really turned me off.”

Will looks completely lost. Avett’s ears give an impatient twitch.

Deciding that awkward encounters are a beast best left for another day, Lili pitches in. “Will, the Equaliser has never attacked the village nor the villagers, am I right?"

He shrugs. "Yeah, yeah, whatever you call old gumboots. Hasn't happened in the six years we've been here. Your point?"

"Our point," Avett says, his gaze furnace-hot as he stares Will down, "is that you're a fucking menace. Someone's feeding herbs to the villagers, someone's keeping everyone complacent—someone's using this village to feed life to the Equaliser."

That's not quite what Lili had wanted to go for, but it's not like she can take back his words. It does seem plausible that there's a bug in the village—that there's a Human who's co-ordinated everything just to keep everyone else in check to create the perfect feeding ground. It's just that Will's expression right now screams anything but "criminal mastermind."  

Case in point: he throws them both a look of incredulity. "Excuse me? What the hell?"

"You heard me. Fuck you." Avett plants a foot into his back, forcing an airy grunt out of him. "Don't play dumb with us."

"I don't play dumb, I—"

"We know your game."

"—look, I'll be real for a second, I've got no idea what you're—"

"Spit it out already, Human, throw us a bone. Tell us how we're going to free the goddamn village."

As a last resort, Will turns to Lili, his voice strained, yet controlled. "You really had to go and get romantically involved with patient #84, huh?"

Lili looks back at Avett. "He doesn't know."

Her partner tosses up his arms and walks to the other side of the room, defeated. She follows him, her voice low as she asks, “What now?”

“It doesn’t matter if the villagers don’t know.” Avett is hunched over in thought, his arms folded once again. “We need Auren, and to get Auren, we need a damn phone.”

“It might be in the elder’s house.”

“It better be in the fucking elder’s house, else I’m going to throw a fit.”

Lili stops in the entrance, watching Avett stomp off by himself. He takes at least ten steps before deciding to turn around, gaze weary, yet abrasively confused.

He asks, “Going?”

She’s at a loss for words. Finally, after some silent seconds of popping her lips and sealing them shut, she settles on saying, “You wouldn’t just leave Will handcuffed there, right?”

He looks at her like she’s just spat on his shoes. “Yes, I would. He’d kill me if I didn’t, Lilith.”

And then, as if he wholly expected her to pad along behind him, he turns and continues on his merry way.

Asshole. But Lili ends up trailing him anyway. She just makes sure to keep her distance, knowing what’s good for her and all.

—

All initial intentions of keeping the house as they found it had gone out the window the moment Avett found himself face to face with a keyhole, as little as it mattered. But with the addition of each smashed nightstand, each punched-in cupboard—courtesy of Lili—all they managed to do was waste time. It’d taken the better half of the hour, but they’d ended up finding his phone in the infirmary cabinet, tucked between a bottle of expired pills and a pile of handmade bandages. No punching required, as Lili had soon realised. Her hands would be sore for days after anyway.

They’d been staring at the blank screen for far too long, expectant and nervous, when Avett brought up another problem; that it had to be charged.

Lili tries to hide the disappointment in her tone. It’s hard to even for her, with her flat tone and all. She poses one simple question: “How.”

“Bioelectricity conversion or something, I don’t know. Not my field of expertise. It’s why they advise you to sleep with it, as much of a privacy concern as it sounds.” Avett shakes his phone—sure enough, the screen goes from transparent to a matte black. “Look, it’s getting there. Give it a few minutes.”

“Minutes,” she echoes. “Surely it’ll charge faster if I hold it as well.”

He jerks it out of her reach, and for once, genuine fear flashes across his face. He composes himself a second later. “You’re not touching this.”

“Why not?”

Standing up, he pats down his thighs and makes for the exit. “A man guards his GlassLink with his pride and life, Lilith. You wouldn’t get it. You haven’t had a phone in years.”

“I’m trying my best.” She steps over a stray wood chip.

“We’re getting you one of these,” he says, waving the piece of foreign technology in the air like it’s a flag, “the moment we’re done with this job.”

Lili snorts. If it’ll help her to understand exactly why Avett’s so antsy about his phone, then sure.

The trek to the village’s gates is—unsurprisingly—uneventful, attributed to the fact that the majority of the villagers are still enjoying their dinners, or at least partaking in the activities that come attached to every evening meal. For the odd outlier that they find patrolling around in the light, Avett and Lili duck into the safety of the shadows.

The gates aren’t far. They’re pressed against the wall of the outmost hut, waiting for that last villager to meander by with bated breath. Only a few more seconds now until he turns the corner, out of sight, out of mind. Between them and freedom lies a dusty dirty path, a hut, and—

Avett leans ever so slightly to the left, pressing his cheek into the bend of the hut. He could’ve sworn that he’d seen something in the corner of his eye in front of him—a wisp, a dark silhouette in the night.

Whoever it was, they’d been fast. The villager at last is nowhere to be seen, and with that Lili starts forward, her eyes scanning the immediate area.

Avett grabs her wrist. It’s too late; behind him, grass blades rustle against each other, disturbed. Someone else is hunting them, and it seems that they’re not too far off. But distance is distance—and knowing Avett, he’ll take any chance he gets.

Lili steals a glance at his GlassLink. There’s a white icon on his screen; a canister with one, bright red, blinking bar. Maybe minutes had been an understatement.

An arrow of pure energy whizzes past Lili’s ear, heating her skin as it goes. It strikes the hut, fizzles into a speck. She looks up and sees a familiar figure. Large enough to protect, but not large enough to intimidate. Mari.

“You elders always have to shoot on sight?” Avett growls.

Lili can’t see her expression in this lighting, but she catches the slightest bob in Mari’s head when she regards the two.

With a swallow, she says, “You know.”

Lili can’t help but straighten her back at that.

“Ok, thank fuck. Maybe we can talk this one out instead.” Avett steps forward—and stops short when Mari points a finger at him, her nails glistening with that ethereal glow.

“You have two options,” she continues, her voice shaky. “You either stay, give into the dragon—or we fight.”

Avett finds himself thumbing the globe at his side. Realisation settles in as Lili watches Mari shift her gaze to hers. Her, the outlier. The one who had remained defiant against the wrath of the storm. Fear and apprehension at the gear that ticked the wrong way.

They can talk her out of this. Lili holds both of her hands in the air. Mari wobbles backwards at the sudden movement, but keeps her breath steady.

"We're not fighting," Lili says. A knot of nausea tangles itself in her stomach, but she wills it down, smooths it out. "Mari, you need to explain exactly what you've done here."

"Only what I've been doing for the past six years," she spits.

"This village is a feeding ground for the Equaliser," Lili continues. "You've been nurturing it for years, and if you don't stop, you'll—"

"We have no other fucking choice!" She slams her fist into the wall. "You think we want to be here, feeding the enemy, so far removed from the world we used to know? I know what I've done. I know that I've fucked up, I know, I know."

Lili falters. Then she holds her head a little higher. "You're the ringleader. You're the one behind all of…" She gestures behind her. "This."

Mari sighs, letting her hand drop from the wall. "It's… it's not that simple. I spent ages trying on my own time, trying to amend the ways I'd messed up, but it's no use. We're powerless without it—and it's powerless without us. Pretty soon, I'd forgotten all about it. Accepted it, in a way."

Avett shakes his head. "This isn't your fault. You're a victim."

A hoarse laugh. The figure holds the sides of her arms. "Do victims kill their parents?"

The words knock the breath out of their lungs. For a second, no one knows what to say.

Killed on a Saturday, not a Friday.

She continues, facing away from the two. "I told you earlier that their bodies had been buried under rubble. I lied. Their bodies are right here, and yes." Mari fixes Lili with a stone-cold stare. "They died on a Saturday. When I bought them here, when I first struck my deal with the Equaliser out of fear, I came back to two bodies. An initial tithe I was forced to pay—two half-lives to sate its hunger. A gorging to predate the slow feast it would have to itself soon enough.

"I couldn't stand being alone, and I knew it would kill me soon if I didn't bring more cattle to feed from. So I lured the lost with lanterns, kept them fed, taught them how to use the dragon's magic as it taught me. The villagers had no reason to leave—I don't know if you know this already, Lili, but there isn't a world for us out there anymore. But here, we're Humans. Not refugees, not survivors—Humans. We could fight back if we wanted to. Even if we could, why would we leave?"

Lili's hands shake at her sides. "Because the Equaliser gets stronger by the day, and soon, it'll be a problem for all of us."

"You think I don't know that? With the increase in mercenaries over the past months, they've all said the same thing. They come to eliminate the problem at the root, to free us from the dragon without killing us—" She takes in a shuddering breath. "—and then Will makes it violent."
 
Mari doubles over, practically coiling herself in a tight ball. She looks like a woman who's already imploded a thousand times before this night. Lili gets it; it's hard to seperate the catalyst from the cause sometimes, even harder to look upon your failures without loathing yourself.

With clear, steady affirmation, she says, "We're hunting down the Equaliser tonight."

Mari chokes. "You can't. So long as it feeds from us, you can't."

"Then sever your bond with the dragon." Lili keeps looking up, her chin tilted towards the stars. "You're a Human. You're strong enough on your own. So act like it."

“I—we can’t.”

“Please.”

The two don't move, don't flinch as they stare each other down, eyes meeting eyes, Human meeting Human. For a second, she thinks she might actually be getting through to her.

Until Mari yells, lunges, and swings her fist straight into Lili's face.

Her back hits the ground, the skin on her shoulders burning as fabric and dirt rubs her body raw. She lands face down, her bones aching, her jaw stiff with the bitter sting of iron and pain. When she pulls herself up again, she sees Avett standing in front of her. As she had done for him back in the warehouse.

However, unlike Will, it seems that Mari is entirely prepared to fight past Avett to get to Lili.

“You don’t understand,” she whispers. “We would be nothing without this power—nothing.”  

Desperation flickers in Avett’s stance, and he pulls up his blaster. The chamber is dull, unlit—empty. He curses before flipping his grip over to the barrel, brandishing it like a makeshift club again.

Fighting back a groan, Lili squints up at their adversary, calling her name, calling it over and over like it's a two-syllable mantra. She has to get through to her. If she can’t, who will? If she can’t, what would that make her? Where would this all leave her?

Mari only bares her teeth, her hands blazing with black fire. “Avett. Move.”

Her partner’s response is muffled. They’re no match for Mari, not together, certainly not apart, and most definitely not in the current state that Avett is in. Mari whirls, her fists coated in an inky darkness that would burn through even the lightest of days. Her flame licks up Avett’s side, and he screams, frozen—before she drives her fist into his stomach and sends him careening into the wall. The globe tumbles from his pocket as he slides to the earth, hardly conscious.

Then she’s in front of her, her eyes unblinking, stoic. Fire crawls through and up and over her limbs, but it doesn’t burn her.

Lili finds that her mouth is dry. So, so dry. Her tongue moves slowly, as if she’s holding a wad of cotton between her teeth and she has to speak around it. But when she tries, she finds that she’s stuck between begging for her life and begging for Mari to regain her senses. Neither proposal makes it out of her mouth.

Mari takes fistfuls of her collar, lifting her to her knees. Her hands are unbearably hot. She doesn’t say anything—her glassy orbs regard Lili in earnest curiosity instead. Watching. Waiting. A mountain god observing an anthill.

The globe prods into her thigh. It pulsates like a torn-out heart. Ideas and possibilities expand and contract in the blink of an eye, her inspiration unbridled, her vision becoming undone like a gift unwrapped on the brink of Christmas Eve. All she has to do is grab it.

Mustering the rest of her strength, she scrabbles over her attacker’s hands, her wrists. Her fingers claw into Mari’s skin, but it’s no use; the Equaliser’s power proves to be far too strong for her to handle, and her ether just isn’t enough—she isn’t enough.   

And then she falls onto her side.

Lili blinks. The grass spears into her cheeks, the dust settles like fine film against her skin. It takes a moment for her to realise that she’s still alive. It takes another for her to realise that Mari is screeching and clawing at her face, holding her palms to her bones like she’s been hit with a cold front. When she moves out of the way, Lili’s face nearly lights up at the sight of him.

Auren stands in the forest, his arms pointed at Mari like he’s drawing back a bowstring. How he'd found them, and why he was here, she has no idea. Lili takes this sweet opportunity to reach for the globe. She savours the hot touch of skin on soul and the cool bite of glass against her cheek.

Then she places it down, holds its base against the earth.

One dragon for another. Another aura for another.

The globe's light blossoms upwards, unfolding itself like an umbrella over the village. When Lili cranes her neck to see the spectacle, she catches a glimmer of blue streak across the sky, its line tracing along the edges of various geometrical shapes. Snow falls from the skies and fades before it hits the ground.

She's freed them, but not for long. The globe quivers in the ground, as if it might explode at any given moment. Mari lies against the earth, her fire extinguished, her grunts becoming feral.

Lili picks herself up. The snow is whirling, whirling—demanding her to leave, to act. She grits her teeth. Mari is dragging herself towards her, her nails stabbing into the dirt.

“Please don’t take it away,” she pleads. “Please—it’s our only leverage against this bitch of a world, please, please—”

Throwing Avett over her shoulder, Lili swallows, her mouth suddenly dry. She could teach them, show them how to harness ether, but Auren is rushing to her side and taking Avett’s other arm already. The Equaliser has been primed for the kill. She has to take this opportunity before it passes for good.

So she does what she does best. She apologises.

Over and over. Over and over.

Until the words crumble like dried spice in her hands.