Binary Stars Collide - Chapter 11 - CursedSquirrel (2024)

Chapter Text

Tiarre and I are sitting in Belchero's office. They finally let us down from naked hanging and let us dress. Possibly because they'd gotten my Master, Doctor Mio to come over.

Tiarre got really pale and quiet when they said they'd tell his Master, Detchuanga. It's been awhile and he still hasn't finished tying back his hair. The tie just sits in his hand. I consider taking it when the heavy door slams open. Tiarre flinches.

My Master's embroidered pink robe and ornately braided red hair flow out behind her as she storms over to Belchero's desk, “What the f*ck is wrong with you?!"

Belchero, an older black whistle woman with sharp features made sharper by the black and white twists of her hair in 5th layer curls, was looking distinctly intimidated.

“I got Aki here so he could train as a cave raider, safely. Why would you think it's okay to sexually punish a child whose seen a lot, and I do mean a lot, of human trafficking!”, her features were soft leaving her age completely unclear. She was a well off traveling doctor, fine skin creams and oils were well within her budget.

Belchero actually stammered, “I-it's a very normal punishment here. We couldn't be expected to keep track of-"

“Just hit him with a belt or something, he won't complain. I'll sure have something to say to anyone who hits my kid but he'll be fine.”, she wasn't kidding, when I messed up as a sailor and got beat she was livid. Even if I'd have gotten hurt far worse messing up a knot and having it come undone and hit me.

I want to melt into the floor from shame. Tiarre is looking at her with absolute awe.

Belchero is failing to recover her composure, “Starting a fire is a fairly serious offense, we were trying to contact Detchuanga-"

Mio snaps back instantly, “Don't even think of bothering Detchuanga on a day like today. He's in the north district negotiating a massive import deal with the upscale restaurants there. Put someone as,”, her tone drops to disgust, "fickle.”, she wanted to say something much worse, "As him in a bad mood and you won't be seeing his donation this month.”

“Ah, well... Of course.”

With that she turns around and addresses me, “Come on, I'm not leaving you here tonight.", she takes my hands inspecting the rope marks, “Are you okay?" I flinch and pull back.

Tiarre looks startled when she tries to take his hand.

She recognizes something instantly, “You look as bed as I thought he would. Tiarre, move your hands to your wrists to your full range of motion.”

He looks confused. She moves her hand in a circular gesture and he's able to copy her.

“Probably just tense but you're coming with me anyway.", she rubs his head, messing up his long blonde hair. He finally notices his hair tie he's been holding all this time and fixes his usual bun.

She gets us both following her out of the office and is distracted the minute the door is closed. It's the two dark haired dark eyed teenagers she'd brought here some years ago, “Tourou, Misaka, I'm so sorry I missed your blue whistle ceremony!”, she hugs them both.

Misaka is pretty, always putting up her long hair in different styles. She's one of the better archers in the orphanage. My sister here Dorothea uses a bow she made. Touru has a reputation for being bossy and unbearable to raid with, unless you need someone overeager in a fight.

Misaka laughs sweetly, “Don't worry Mom."

Tourou shoves her, “Suck up."

Mio takes his shoulder and pushes him apart from Misaka. The motion is calm and fluid, going into taking off her small backpack. She hands Misaka a blue hairpin and a book, “They had another mythology book in your first language at the store."

She's overjoyed with this. Tourou's reaction to a couple manga volumes is more aloof but he actually seems happier than I've ever seen him. He would die within year from this day, devoured by corpse weapers.

“I'll take you out to eat instead, what do you want to eat?”

Misaka replies first, “Cake!"

Tourou's reply is “I want curry."

Mio sighs, “Right you'll never agree. That wouldn't be fair. We'll get curry for lunch with the stalls set up for returning cave raiders, the bakeries will still be open in early afternoon.”

That seems to completely sidestep any potential fight between the two. They were cousins or something. A plague had killed the rest of their family so they were just stuck together even if they'd never actually liked or known each other before.

Tiarre is blushing and hiding behind me and it isn't working. He's much taller, he's been growing again. Misaka confessed to him and he's terrified to have to talk to her after that.

When Mio was finished with the blue whistles she came back over to us, “We should bring your foster sister. After what happened and all. Where's Dorothea?",

Our group of 3 had been 4. Raul was a green haired boy, always running somewhere. He and Tiarre would get in trouble for wrestling around. On our first mission as red whistles he was startled by a primeval creature too close to a cliff. I was close enough to take his hand but far too light to help. Tiarre pulled me back up. We weren't often apart ever since.

“Not here today.", I reply.

Tiarre is better at talking than me, “She's out working on multi-night cave raiding with Jiruo and some other red whistles. We're exempt because we already lasted a week trapped in an unexplored area cornered by a massive albino horncrier. Even the black whistles who came to rescue us never saw one with horns as big as you are tall and-”

Mio sighs, “That thing gets bigger every time you tell the story.”

Tiarre's excitement at our story is not diminished at all. He seems back to normal.

Mio takes us along as she gathers some medicines in town to restock and puts them into my cave raider's pack. I'm still uneasy with crowds so she holds my hand. Before I left my island the village I was in had a single paved road. This place seemed to be entirely built by people, with stones shoved in every possible nook and corner.

Tiarre fidgets and wanders close by. He's usually the one I'm with out in town even if we get weird looks for being boys holding hands.

Mio notices a particular grocery, “Ah, Misaka meant the bakery that only uses chicken eggs instead of eggs from the abyss. Now I want chicken eggs.”

I gulp. I'm way too clumsy to get eggs down to the docks. It's been a total mess every time.

Mio tugs Tiarre's backpack strap, “Lets give you the fragile stuff. You don't have any bruises from falling in the abyss like Aki is always covered in.", it was pretty obvious through our threadbare orphanage uniform polo and shorts what injuries we had. We'd get help if we limped or something but it was generally assumed we'd teach each other wound care. It didn't really work, but Mio had taught me well enough.

It's late afternoon when the shopping is done. The daylight helps navigate the steep wooded trails from the top of the crater Orth is in to the docks. Light sparkles off the waves far bellow and the salt wind surrounds us.

Tiarre stretches and adjusts the chest strap of his pack. I watch a beat too long before he starts talking, “I love it up here, when the wind is just right it smells like the minerals in the mountain creek back home instead of just salt.", he notices my looking at him, “Ah, I wonder if you really understand, I never saw the ocean before Detchuanga bought me."

Green and brown odd eyes and soft sheltered light skin, Tiarre did look like he belonged tucked away in the mountains somewhere. I spend too much time watching him. The rare way his shoulders relax and his fluid balance on large gravel, he's this graceful cave raiding too.

I break away my glance. I do understand, I've known about the mainland since I was really little. I played with the nearby orchardist's children back on my island and merchant people talk about it all the time. I don't remember a time where I couldn't speak the common language. I've seen ports from all over with Mio's clinic boat, though we've never been that far inland.

My Master grumbles, “Not even anything wide enough for beasts of burden.", we start down the rocky trail, destabilized by recent rain. This would be entirely normal in my home island. There was little to export from the subsistence fishing villages like Mitty's, or isolated hunter gathers and cave dwellers like my kind. Except the people themselves. Orth had rather a lot of relics to export and a population many times larger, with a handful of trails like this or worse.

Tiarre finally speaks, “Master Detchuanga is trying to fund a road. But he wants lightstones put in it to travel at night and all this stuff so no one really listens.", that was an okay idea, but he was an insufferably grandiose person. He wore his fine linen dress shirt and gold jewelry even in the most appallingly inappropriate situations. “Uh. Doctor Mio. Thanks for that lie you told earlier. About my Master being busy.”

She laughs, rubbing some road dust from the openwork embroidery in her cloak, “That wasn't a lie. He invited me to be his plus one. To be around the kind of people who try to run a tourist steakhouse selling meat of creatures that eat the cave raiders who live here. He really thinks he can buy anything and anyone."

I heard places like that have all you can eat butter. Probably cut with ottobas tallow, but still.

“He didn't invite me?", Tiarre genuinely hated how Detchuanga tended to ignore him unless he had a chance to show off what a strong, clever child he'd raised. For like 2 years after buying him and taking him away from his family and everything he'd ever known. It was still the attention he could get.

We stop by a creek to take in the ocean view and wait for tablets to dissolve and make the drinking water safe from parasites. My Master is rather paranoid about that. Mio is exhausted, she only gets to come into Orth once a week or so from her clinic boat. Not nearly enough excersize to be used to the trip. Misaka, Tourou, and I trade off helping her restock like this when we can. It's a huge amount of work even with her staff.

Mio looked at her watch, looking even more worn out before turning to Tiarre, “I know he's been traveling for some time, what's your favorite place you've seen with Detchuanga?"

“The best place wasn't really traveling, for awhile he'd sell spices to a resort. Dealt with merchants from all across the world. No one but me could see how his relic necklace twinkled when he spoke all these languages. I got to go to school and everything. It was like he was just my dad for a bit.”, Tiarre knew Detchuanga saw him as his pet project that happened to be alive. He'd never be distracted for too long from his quest to add a white whistle to his relic collection. He tended to see people at best as tools and at worst as objects. Mio usually saw me as me and sometimes as a weird white cat she'd invited onboard.

“That necklace sounds like it's worth more than I've made in my entire life.", she said idly, looking at the clouds. The glare of the sun caught on her wire rim glasses, blocking some of her expression. If Mio was surprised Detchuanga would casually use a high grade relic, it didn't show. She gets a foreign candy bar out of her pack to gnaw on and gives me the richer peanut butter kind.

“He'd be so mad if I wasn't at the top of my class, or top of my team. But we moved around so much. He'd threaten to cut away parts of me and replace them with relics until I'm the best.”, he had pretty terrible nightmares. He was really angry at being ignored or he'd never reveal this and make Detchuanga look bad. He'd been getting more independence and confidence now that we'd been red whistles together for some time.

The birds chirped. The salt wind blew. Mio stood and rubbed back his bangs from his brown and green odd eyes, “Well he can't do that here, okay? You're free, the cave raiders guild made your id with your own passport and everything.”, she fishes around and gives him a chocolate bar.

Tiarre looked at her as if she'd given him solid gold, “You have chocolate from the mainland! Take me back there with you I miss it so much here!”

She just laughs, “They keep a long time and its a easy price for a happy crew.”, most of the foreign snack bars we have are so sweet they're painful. The main draw of them is how easy they are to eat while climbing.

He realizes something, “Ah, maybe finish Aki's paperwork first. And stuff...”

“Aki gets his citizenship when I find someone who can translate his birth certificate.”, many years later, this problem would be solved by Ozen. With bribes.

“Don't worry Master.", I knock the backs of my feet against the log I'm sitting on, “I can still become a white whistle like this."

Mio gets me up by lifting a top strap of my pack, “It's wrong, I only bought you so your parents would give me that birth certificate.”, she faced Tiarre idly scratching my hair, “He was the best interpreter I could hire. He's such a clever little guide. He was bound to bring me back great stories from the Abyss and he can hunt more interesting things to eat than I could buy here.”

I nod along contently.

“I...", Tiarre hesitates as we get over a particularly rocky patch, “I want to be a white whistle too! When I was young I was really sick and some of the medicine the Sovereign of Dawn developed saved my life. It's how Detchuanga found me.”, when his illness came back and he was scared and desperate, “So I'm gonna go thank him in person.”

Mio looks scared at that, “L-like I tell Aki about Ozen.”, she stammered slightly, "You really should temper your expectations.”

He grinned adjusting his pack, “I know the stories about him. But I bet not many people come thank him at the bottom of the 5th layer. I bet I could impress him.”

Mio is worrying at her cloak again, “Why don't you talk to Misaka and Tourou about the outbreak they survived. It might help you feel better about when that sort of thing happens.”

The tree cover breaks to reveal the docks and brightly shining sea. Far out Bondrewd's two huge ships cast the mirage where a mirror image of them floated just above the horizon.

Mio takes Tiarre's backpack with the groceries, “They were really great help around the clinic. Aki unpack your bag and let Tiarre put things where they go. It causes trouble when you put matching boxes together."

She's covering for me but Tiarre already knows I can't read well. I did my red whistle exam out loud. I nod along and lead him into the clinic boat. The medicine shelves latch closed so things don't fall off in the waves, but when supplies are low like this everything gets shuffled around. Tiarre takes awhile just organizing them before starting to pack in the new medicine.

I go on to the kitchen to get shooed back out while Mio cooks whatever she had in mind with the nice eggs.

Tiarre likes to read so I tug him along to Mio's bedroom and study. My hide hammock is over her bed still even though it blocks some of the light from the window. I climb over the neat pink striped quilt carefully to throw open the window. I point to the bookshelf, cords across the shelves keep them secure, “The top is the books from when the other two lived here. You'd probably be bored with mine."

He looks completely awed at her books, “This is incredible, she has mythology collections from places I've never even heard of.”

I shrug and pull out one of my books of abyss myths. Mio doesn't need to order me to work on it. She taught me to read when she had the time and there wasn't work for me with the other sailors.

Tiarre looked at me with the skinny leather child's book. He looks sort of sad, “Do you want me to read one of the harder ones with you? Maybe I'd have something to say to Misaka."

I don't want him to be friends with Misaka. She's smarter than me, she's prettier than me, “This is fine! I've been reading for almost a year now!”, this was a lie, I still didn't know enough of the older characters to read most things. I climbed up in my hammock with my little kids abyss book.

This was not a way to avoid Tiarre when he was tall enough to just peer over the edge of the hammock. I was smaller than everything around me, it was unsettling if I paid attention to it. He pushed the edge of the book down a bit so he could see. It loosely occurred to me he could understand what was on the entire bookshelf and maybe even read upside down. I grumbled.

“Lemme look at the pictures it's been forever since I read a book with illustrations."

“Kay.", I mumble. He takes a hold of the edge of my hammock. He was much heavier than me, “Hey wait do you-"

The hammock spun over throwing me off and into him so we were sprawled on Mio's hopelessly messed up quilt. The book loudly hit the floor loudly but seemed undamaged.

“Owww.", Tiarre whined, his blonde hair a complete mess. I had fallen like this enough times it didn't bother me.

Mio came in to find us in a heap like this. The orange sunset was reflecting off the water and casting the waves across the ceiling. Tiarre fixed his hair and ran up to her, talking in a random stream of questions about her book collection.

She just laughed, “I've been doing this a long time. It would be boring if I didn't go places where people could tell me new stories.”

The fold out dining table was too big for the three of us. The crew was on their weekend off in town, and the room was made to be converted to overflow from the clinic easily. She served us some kind of warm, salty, savory steamed custard and rice. It was nice in the winter chill that still came some nights. In a couple years living with her she'd given no hint where she was originally from.

She gave Tiarre and I warm water with milk powder to stir ourselves. It's nice and sweet. Tiarre is so excited we have something like this.

“I do best with emergencies and that sort of thing. I took him to a general doctor to see if there was any reason, other than his race, that he's so skinny. A nutrient deficiency. They suggested a bunch of nonsense frankly but the milk and snacks are nice to have around.”

She gives me another peanut butter bar to gnaw at before bed and Tiarre another chocolate bar. I would've tried to protest if it wasn't a good excuse to give Tiarre more candy.

After Tiarre had an appropriate number of her books packed in his bag she tried to get us to go to bed. Mio looked at the tiny bedroom and Tiarre the average sized 12 year old boy, “I assumed you'd just fit in the hammock with him but that's sort of..."

“How did you fit Tourou and Misaka in here?", he asked.

“They had a futon but they'd slide around in the waves so they'd just sleep with me half the time.”, She put a hand on her hip, "It was a lot... Come on Aki, you sleep in my bed enough when it's stormy.”

“I'm not a little kid." I grumble. I'm not afraid of lightning after my island had constant rain yet it never struck on land. Mio gets cold.

“Fine, Tiarre, get in the hammock first.", she's hesitating and letting me resist if I'm going to before touching my shoulder, “I'll lift you up okay?"

I nod and let her pick me up under my shoulders. I slide and get squished up to Tiarre instantly. This is normal from the orphanage if we're trying to fit us and Dorothea all in one bed.

“You want to pick a book Tiarre? We can trade off pages.”

He looked thoughtfully at the shelf while I arranged our green horncrier pelt over us, “I want to see the rarest thing you ever found! Something I could never find even in the college library in the capital.”

Mio grinned, “Thats easy.”, she went to her desk and handed him a large leather bound notebook. The pages are curled from humidity damage but its well cared for, “I've been trying to write down all of Aki's stories. Wild things, a super advanced civilization, a city under a volcano, people who always knew directions from a force inside themselves like birds.”

Tiarre is skimming, some pages are pencil rubbed over diagrams and writing carved into the walls of the caves back home. “This is extraordinary, an entire lost civilization but...”, he looked at me, “But then how are you here?”

“The people in the lava caves aren't a lost civilization. The people in the sun have always known we're there. They're the one's with the boats who came from far away. The merchant people and the sun people can't get around the caves and get scared of the sinkholes in our part of the rainforest.”

“We talked about this, what were the census numbers for the cave people and how many is that.”

“80 cave people. 80 is a lot of fish, not a lot of berries, as many fever pills come in a bottle...”

She poked my forehead so I'd stop, “This was over a decade ago, plus many have been taken by slavers. He's known or seen only 20 others like him in his life. Though since they like to live in the pitch black caves...”

“They're alright down there somewhere. It took years after the merchants started arriving for them to even realize we were there.”, I realize something I'd been wanting to ask, “Mio I need a new book of abyss stories. I haven't been able to find the people here yet.”

Tiarre realizes what I'm saying, “We found another praying skeleton. We've looked in every cave and crevice, even wound up in that unexplored area.”

Mio co*cks her head, “Oh you don't understand.”

Try me! Im so sick of hearing that!

“Aki things broke down very fast in the rainforest, a pig carcass would be bones in a few days, and even the bones would be broken down by the rain and insects in a week. The praying skeletons here are 2000 years old.”

I'm about as good at numbers as I am with reading, “Okay but it still takes effort to bury a body like that, there must be old homes like in the caves back on my island. I bet those people are just hard to find.”

Tiarre hugged me back against him, “They'll have to make us black whistles when we find them.”

Mio looked really sad, “Alright kiddo. Tell me, were the praying skeletons people with bodies like yours,”, she took my hand, so small the tops of her fingers could close over mine, “Or like mine and Tiarre's.”

Like hers and Tiarre's. My people were a quarter or even a third shorter and far more delicately built. I look at how small the bones in my hand are, “Mio you said there would be people like me here. That I wouldn't look so weird. But even the teachers say its not fair to string me up as a punishment if I'm lighter than all of the other red whistles. They've seen all of how weird my body is.”, I pull away from her, “Why am I the only one. Why can't I ever find them.”

Tiarre makes sure I'm safely squished up against his chest while he continues trying to read the notebook on top of my head. I can hear our heartbeats match up and it's making me flush, “Don't be lonely, I only knew other really sick kids at the college hospital in the capital for Bondrewd's treatment. Back home I never even knew another boy who couldn't ski into town with their dad in winter.”

Master scratched behind my ear so I'd relax against her touch, “It's alright if you can't find more like you. It's very precious that you're around, that you got the opportunity to speak common so well. Now I can publish this someday and everyone will know about the island with two races under the volcano.”

They think I can't understand because I grew up in the rainforest and the caves. I get treated like I'm stupid because the last of my people who could read and write the stories on the walls deep in the smooth black stone caves died long ago. I don't need to say a word in common to understand extinction. The ocean the only sound at the entrance to a cave system that could support hundreds of people. The way the sun people who we'd helped in stories from longer ago than the praying skeletons outnumbered us by so many. Hiding from the heat of day lying on the floor of a pitch black cave on smooth pleasantly cool stone as water drips from roots onto my head. Alone.

The clouds scroll by far over the ocean from where I watch in a field of jagged volcanic stone. The shining lights of the capital far across the water at night. Kids must never travel to the capital, the slavers can dock in the deep port. If you hear one of the merchant people in our forest they're slavers and you need to run and hide. They're too heavy to climb out of sinkholes. In caves they get hurt because they're too tall and are blind and deaf in there. What kind of life was that waiting to be stolen or to die.

Extinction is a sound, a feeling, an absence, not a word. I didn't want to wait to join them in the bustling cities in our hazily remembered stories. I wanted to live. I wanted to keep going deeper.

…

I wake up alone, Mio is fast asleep below me. I can see clearly in the dark and even if I couldn't small sounds bounce off enclosed spaces like this. I jump to the wood at the end of Master's bed and down to the floor.

I find Tiarre by the railing in the moonlight. It's pretty bright, his tears seem to shimmer strangely before he rubs them away.

“Getting that candy bar was the first time I've felt like myself in years. I knew it was a bad offer. I made a deal with a devil, and I'm scared I'll become a demon.”

It's taking longer to understand him with the colloquial speech, I'm glad he's taking it as me just gathering my thoughts, “What do you mean? Becoming a white whistle won't make you a bad person."

“No it's... When I got sick again my world was so small. But I wasn't wishing for the world, I made peace with what was happening to me. I just wanted to be strong enough to play in the creek in the mountains again, and to see the wildflowers in summer on the path into town. When Detchuanga offered me a relic with enough power I could become a white whistle I knew it was dangerous.”, he's fidgeting with his hair tie.

He's been growing lately. It's the only thing left from his home he can use, like I have my chisel.

“My parents didn't want me sure, but I had tutors and nurses who came by and if not love, they appreciated that I was alive, and when I was gone that I had been alive. When Detchuanga bought me and forced me to take it... What he took from me wasn't my life in the mountains with my family. It was me.”, his phrasing is switching around. It's never been clear to me, or even maybe to him, how much he was forced or chose whatever mysterious relic gave him his life in Orth.

“You're not dead Tiarre. I'm right here.”, I start to move to take his hand but flush and back away.

He takes my shoulders, “For the first time since I've come to this place I could think about how desperately I want to take you and Dorothea and get back Raul and sail as far away as possible. To have some abandoned hunting cabin out in the mountains of my home country and just live somewhere without giant monsters everywhere and the curse. I could think how badly I want us all to be safe instead of how long it's taking me to reach the bottom of the 5th layer.”

My hand rests over his on one of my shoulders. I don't want to hide away ever again. It was better to hang around the docks and my awful parents village house half starved than hide like an animal from slavers in the forests where I'd set snares since I could talk, “That sounds fun.", I lie.

“This thing he gave me. I'm terrified it's going to drag me straight to the bottom of the abyss. I'm terrified I'd get you in danger or hurt you.", tears are running down his face pretty freely.

I shrug off his hands and hug him. His tears are cold in my hair in the night wind off the ocean, “Don't be afraid, I'm going there too."

He just clings to me sobbing. It would be a long time before I understood what he meant.

…

We finished the hike back to the orphanage at the same time Dorothea's group returned. It was gray and cold out but she couldn't be smiling any brighter. Her pink eyes and red hair shine in the gloom.

“Jiruo gave us so much money for getting through this safely, look what I got!”, she held up a rubber bottle of black dye, "If our cave raiding uniforms are dyed it won't show so much if Aki reinforces them with leather.”

Both of us agree it's a perfect idea, hug her and run off to get started. By the time she's out of the shower all our gear is in a big mop bucket of black dye to sit overnight. It smells like tar and our worn white uniform polos will be stained forever. The floor and our shoes too. Tiarre and I are rubbing the fur off my stash of weasel pelts to use for this.

“So I have even more money from being the trips top earner.", she said proudly, her wet braids flying around a bit in the wind from the rainstorm outside, “Even after getting stuff for more arrows."

I look slightly enviously at her white uniform dress. The ruffles at the chest hide how bare the fabric is and she didn't get any dye stains, “Wanna get more fashion magazines from the mainland to read together?", it was probably how she got the idea to modify our gear.

“Wanna get some metal so I can finally show you how to make a hatchet?", if Tiarre ever got his hands on money, it went into more stuff to make knives. My money went into new round gun barrels and the bare minimum of commercial gunpowder to stabilize the turret flower pollon I used.

“Orrrrr,", she drew out the word dramatically, “I have enough for an entire apple and cream pie from Laffi's!"

“No way she got cream powder!”, I was on my feet in an instant.

“Let's go already!", said Tiarre.

“You can't go out like that.", she pointed at our dye splattered polos.

“We need raincoats anyway.", Tiarre shrugged.

I pointed at my stained shorts, “My pink raincoat is long do I still need to wear this.”, it sucks wearing a lot of clothes in the rain.

“Yes, it's a crime or something.", said Tiarre.

“Oh I know!", Dorothea chirps. She climbs a few levels up to her bunk and throws a gray tiered skirt down to me, “My cousin made me that so I can't throw it out even if it's too short now.”, she had lived with her 20 year old blue whistle cousin before coming to the orphanage. The young woman in no way had the means to care for her, but Dorothea had already lived in 3 distant family members houses by age 10 after her parents died. When she was accepted into the orphanage, her cousin had been saving for the bribe money to get her a blue whistle. Have her earn money as a cave raider alongside her. A red whistle would've cost a fraction but if she'd been caught, a criminal child would never be accepted into Belchero.

I was relieved to wear something more like my old sarong and shoved my shoes in my backpack. Trailing after them kicking at the puddles with my bare feet I finally felt free. It's raining pretty hard, Dorothea is hiding how she shivers in her old worn raincoat. Tiarre and I have newer clothes and our spaces at the orphanage were guaranteed by who our masters are. Mostly the children of black whistles, legitimate or otherwise, wound up in the orphanage. Only a handful of street kids like Nat, or with family unable to care for them like Dorothea, were let in. There was too much need and too many were involved in petty crime or started cave raiding very young.

The rainwater is flowing down a street gutter outside Laffi's shop. It's deep enough to cover my whole foot and the current feels nice against my skin.

Tiarre tugs my hand to get me to quit playing in the water.

The cafe is empty on such a rainy day but the smell of fresh bread and cinnamon is inviting. Hanging in little nets from the ceiling some fluid filled 3rd layer lightstones cast mild light and long shadows. The low grade egg relics tended to burn out, but customers brought plenty to replace them and show off. Old photos of different raid teams clutter the walls. Dorothea is always so excited to look at the one of Lyza and Riku's dad in front of her team. She even forgot about pie for a bit.

The Immovable Sovereign avoids photos. They make it clear she hasn't aged over the decades. The other white whistle who comes to the surface, Wakuna the Chosen is well liked in Orth. His broad build makes the effect of water from the Fountain of Youth look less dramatic. The huge suit of relics he's never pictured without is in at least a dozen frames. Teams he's helped grin around him, his long white hair and beard are wild to match an energetic smile. His final dive team are mainly engineers, and cave raiders as a secondary skill. The two wind powered elevators in the 1st layer, and the suspended footbridges in the 2nd are credited to them. Wakuna's primary discovery was the Fountain of Youth several decades prior, making Orth and the Abyss known across the world.

Tiarre is bouncing around between different pictures of the Praying Hands. The Sovereign of Dawn's team all wear masks and dark robes conceal combat relics. There are dozens of them and no one has any idea how he recruits.

But Laffi understands where is most important to us. With our pie and some plates cluttered around we take turns with her telescope. On the walls of the backroom are the pictures of the underage delvers. Some were at least lead by a teenager, but usually those who bought red or blue whistles grouped together. A legitimate raider would be taking a large cut of their profit even being able to sell relics at better prices.

At the center, and some of the oldest of the children pictured at 12, Riku and Reg. They're in Orth in front of the abyss in the shining sun, the day Lyza's whistle was returned and she was pronounced dead. Riku is wearing a replica of her mother's keyhole white whistle and a hat that looked a bit like cat ears. It makes her look younger than she is, but it's how she'll always be remembered up here. Riku the Sovereign of Hope.

…

As red whistles, we still had one day of class a week on Saturdays. It was easy enough to say you were going raiding and ditch, but not every time. I was at the very top of our wall of desks in the classroom.

This was how I came to be sitting next to Dorothea looking with utter misery at the pop quiz in front of us. A short story of some kind, I couldn't even figure out the title. I couldn't do more than write my name. I was too embarrassed to think straight and the only thing keeping me calm enough not to break out crying was the smell of my sister's shampoo.

I'll get strung up naked for this for sure. It would almost be more comfortable than these itchy shorts they expect me to wear all the time. When I was a sailor at least Mio cared I had a nice fitting uniform even if I had to wear pants for safety instead of a sarong like on the island.

The sun isn't as bright as it was in the summer coming in from the window next to me. The wind gets really cold. Seasons are weird. I hate it here. Waiting to be punished is far worse than the actual punishment.

Why am I so stupid. I rested my head with my ear against the desk and tapped the pencil tip against the page. I kicked the heel of my shoe silently against the underside of the chair that stuck out from the wall.

I flinched when Jiruo rang a bell on his desk to signify class was over. At least in my high corner I had an excuse to stall a bit. I'm scared.

Dorothea hugs me around my shoulders, “It's just a quiz they're not going to take your whistle away.”

Oh f*ck that can happen.

I'm so ashamed handing Jiruo the quiz. I got told as a sailor or with my parents to take pride in my work. I already know I'm shameful and sick looking.

Jiruo looks at the sheet and back at me. I'm so scared of what will happen it's hard to think.

It's hard to tell where I am.

“My Mom always said he was great at haggling with the foreigners. He must be lying.", my Mom talking to the local schoolhouse teacher.

“Well he's obviously retarded, look at him.", their coconut colored skin, either cave people or sun people. My near white skin and weird eyes, “We can't handle a child like him here.", I had only gone to school a couple months in my life before coming to Orth. It didn't take long for my parents to refuse to pay the fee.

Jiruo is talking and I'm trying to focus, “This was supposed to be a fun story, not a challenge to anyone here.”

I nod vacantly.

“If I talk to someone about you joining the young bells' classes for phonics will you actually go? I'd prefer it if you didn't teach them to play with dead things as well, but you can work on sanding your pelts."

I just look terrified at him. When he reaches a hand towards me I flinch and get back a step. A hazy memory of someone with a belt.

He sighs, “Fine whatever, don't come to class anymore. You know enough to cave raid.”

I nod.

“You're not dumb.", he snaps, “Answer me.”

I'd like to try the little kids class. I don't want to get hit, “Y-yes. I'll work on my cave raiding.”, I clench my fist in the hem of my polo.

I back away further and when it's clear he's not going to dismiss me further I bolt away.

I really don't want to remember.

“How disgusting, we're not going to send you to school if you won't even try."

“You wouldn't even write your own name.", I have no idea whatsoever of the written characters for my first language. My grandma never read or wrote before her death.

I threw up in the bathroom and curled up in a ball next to the toilet. It's clean here. Clean enough to wedge between the toilet and wall. That's somewhat reassuring. I hate modern toilets though. I was only ever around them at that school on the island. It's hard to tell what the tile looks like. It looks like back then. Hiding from the one who beat me.

I hide my head, pressing one of my knees into my eye. The weird pressure is sort of nice. I can't really tell where I am and every muscle in my body is stiff.

I hear footsteps. The brown one of Tiarre's eyes looking through the edge of the stall.

“Found you.", he said, “Jiruo figured you got on the roof again and didn't want to have to punish you for it."

I stand unsteadily and open the stall latch. I feel like puking again but press it back like the curse sensation. The pattern in the tiles still looks like it's shifting between the worn out island school and the orphanage where half of everyone had scrubbed this floor at least once. I realize he expects me to say something, “He said I don't have to go to class.”, I'm too stupid anyway.

Tiarre's grin registers through my fear, “Really? Awesome I'm gonna talk to him then. It's so boring.”, Tiarre's parents were teachers or something. It must have been humiliating to have a kid too sickly to attend school. My parents found me humiliating for less.

His hand on my shoulder makes me actually look up at his eyes rather than downward at nothing.

“Did something happen?", he pauses, “Something not today."

I hug him and hide under his chin. My eyes are finally level with his nose. If I get as tall as he is I bet no one will hit me anymore, “I hate it here. I can't do anything right.", I don't even care if I get hit I want to live somewhere I'm not hated. My tears are getting on his polo I hate it.

Tiarre rubbed my hair, “I still haven't beat you as the top earning red whistle. You're going to get so much money once you're done paying back that desk you burnt. He said we'll be ready to become blue whistles soon.”

I sighed and looked up at him, “But why are we waiting?"

...

In Tiarre's bed at the 4th layer of bunks by the ceiling he's trying to calm me down.

A merchant from the far north wanted to buy me from Mio. I was a talented hunter and tanner. Their indentured servant for such things who'd grown up with their sons had passed from flu. Adoption actually existed there but was impossible since I was basically stateless. It was a strange and affluent country with ice caves and volcanoes and public universities. Which were schools larger than any town on my island? It meant something to Mio who was educated, even if I could barely read. Even if I memorized more characters, harder books assumed you were a reader from a modern town, country, city, the mainland. nothing made any sense. Just that it was safer than cave raiding. Cave raiding was scary but I didn't want to leave Tiarre and Dorothea. I finally had friends.

But more than that I didn't want to know Mio's decision. I didn't want to hear that she didn't want me, “I talked to Detchuanga. He'll cover for us as long as we want, we bring back the head of that massive albino horncrier that attacked us in that unexplored area.”

Tiarre had his hands on my shoulders, “It'll be our first test of becoming white whistles together!”

“Yeah we can aim right for the bottom!”, in the moonlight getting around the edge of his curtain, safe in his bed at the orphanage... Our secret childish hope to become legends began to crystalize into a plan.

Dorothea's pink eyes reflecting moonlight from where she peeked under the curtain. We had to pull her up, “You're gonna leave me?”

Tiarre hugged her to pull her between us. I catch the flicker of conflict in his expression that she doesn't, “You can come too.” she's a much weaker cave raider, compared to both of us consistently placing at the top for how many relics we could gather among the red whistles.

“Yeah.” I said, “Stuff you get with your bow tastes way better than meat burned by my gun.”, she had to lay back against Tiarre to fit under his chin. He tugged me up against her and she giggled at my hair getting in her nose.

Our sister looked between us, “You guys know I want to catch up to Riku more than anything. But my cousin gave up so much so I could stay in school instead of start working. I got to wait for this orphanage slot and train as a cave raider more safely than becoming a bue whistle with her.”, she rubbed our hair at the same time, “So when I pass my blue whistle test at 15, I'll definitely catch up to you guys.”

She would in a way. About 6 months after my suicide attempt, my leg encased in my support boot to just over my knee, I did get to go to her blue whistle advancement ceremony. And begin to be truly glad I hadn't died.

…

Tiarre and I waited by the unexplored area we'd gotten stuck in for a breeze to pass. The forcefield above was brilliant and we were well packed for our journey in our black leather reinforced raiding gear. I struck a flint and sparks lit the small propane can on our mail ballon. Our last message to Dorothea saying we'd arrived safely and were ready to continue.

Past the cliffs, the Forest of Temptation was visible in the forcefield mist. Usually I hid behind him with my ranged weapon, but this was sort of rainforest. The 3rd layer was caves and the 4th was even wetter than the 2nd. I would be completely in my element.

I took Tiarre's hand. We were grinning, absolutely giddy as we crossed an arch over open air with the updraft in our hair. At the end, a cave with stairs down to the 2nd layer. I rubbed my hand over the dolphin carved into the stone at the entrance. These stairs, relatively safe from biting insects further down, were the work of The Sovereign of Guidance and his team.

Coming to the caves exit light poured in. As we left, the towering forest of the 2nd layer spread before us. Densely packed roots held up patches soil with brilliant red flowers filled with black seeds, abyssal poppy. The smells of moss and bark and drizzle filled my senses. I figured out what direction the wind was blowing and we followed it so predators couldn't catch us off guard.

Tiarre pulled away to crawl to the edge of a clearing. He quickly pulled some gas spores, blue flowers like dandelion fluff. Being tied to the top of his backpack shook some of the seeds loose. They could fly unnaturally far on curse currents making what they were attached to much lighter. Dorothea had thin arms and was very proud to have taught him the trick.

“So hows it feel Aki?”, Tiarre laughed, “We're a proper suicide pact now.”

I was gnawing on some shamrocks winding around a sapling, “Don't be morbid,”, I'm still smiling with him, “We're a final dive team.”

The mist around us got much heavier as we descended to the Corpse Weaper Den. Following a string of lightstone lanterns we came into a downpour. It was harder to gauge elevation in the rocky forest. A couple times Tiarre would fall to his knees spitting up saliva. I was shorter and accumulating less of the curse so far.

At the edge of a sheer cliff face we watched a corpse weaper glide over the tall narrow plateaus. We didn't want to deal with it when it circled around to see us. We tied a rope to a twisting dead tree and descended as quickly as we could.

The trail of lanterns continued and we followed. How oddly inviting. The rain was chilly but I welcomed it. If it wouldn't have gotten me scolded by Tiarre I would've taken off my shoes.

In Hell's Crossing a hammerbeak the size of our entire bedroom at the orphanage swooped under the suspended footbridge. A few inbyo threw rocks but they were harmless as long as we moved quickly out of their territory.

It had gotten late as we traveled. When we came to stand bellow Seeker Camp some of the windows were lit up. It was several stories up. The rolling storm clouds frequently blocked our view of it entirely.

“You always wanted to meet the Immovable Sovereign. We could use a flare.”

I shook my head, “If the storm is providing cover for us we should take it. The 3rd layer is more sheltered.”, I just really like caves.

Was it worth missing a once in a lifetime chance to meet my hero? Well if we were going all the way to the bottom of the abyss, eventually the Immovable Sovereign would descend as well.

She was an adult. She'd never understand. If she forced us to go back then Mio would get rid of me for sure.

Reaching the end of the suspended footbridges the terrain became sharp craggy stone. The path marked by the lanterns was narrow and sheltered as the hail began. It wound further into the hills instead of going up to the spectacular waterfall pouring out of the 3rd layer.

The Updraft Wasteland spread before us. Thunderstorms dumped freezing rain from above and below with fist sized hail flying unpredictably. Out by the edge of the 3rd layer a crimson splitjaw was loudly tearing and chewing a frog the size of a grown man. Safely ignored by the creature we followed the lights to a slender stone. It marked a sheer drop from flat ground that was otherwise invisible until you were right next to it.

Down the cliff face through the torrential rain, the lip of a cave into the 3rd layer was visible.

Tiarre had wandered from me again, “Check this out Aki, the hail is shaped like seashells!”, he held one out to show me, “I never thought I'd get to see boat shells again.”

Lightning struck close enough to him to make his hair stand on end. He scrambled back to me and our rope down. I hoped my clothes being soaked would hide that I peed a little.

As quickly as possible we descended and ran into the shelter of the cave. I knocked my gun against the wall and could hear enough for a loose sense of the path ahead. A boulder filled a small room before things opened up again.

Leading him we came to a massive room half filled by a cascading magma fall and half ice covered in narrow waterfalls. The dense hot steam caught the light of the magma in magnificent rainbows.

I stripped off my soaked top and sat at the cliffs edge, “This is incredible Tiarre, we truly are in the belly of a god!”

He looked less enthusiastic. The nausea from the curse hadn't worn away for him yet. It really was a lot worse than the 1st layer, but it lasted the same amount of time for me.

We tied a rope to a rock at the edge of the cliff and descended into the icy heat area. Stone paths and plateaus webbed across open lava. It wasn't too hard to feel the tremor before a steam eruption and avoid the superheated blast. Unafraid we pressed deeper. In two years crippled by sepsis I'd be burned horribly by one of these.

Through a dark cavern we come to the hexagon pillars. A pleasant medium warmth and the cool blue glow of the stone make the place inviting. A dozen mountain spinners quietly slept, the sound of rustling gravel in their breath. One came back from peeing off another sheer drop to doze on her clutch of large eggs.

I was easy enough to climb above them and be ignored.

We had a couple naritantan cooked to perfection with the awful sulfury taste of the lava. Cooking meat by dangling it close enough with a spare rope was the best idea we had. There was almost no vegetation here to use for a fire. There was plenty of ice cold water for the night and next day.

It had been a successful day. We curled together in our green horncrier pelt on a ledge and slept easily.

…

In the morning or whenever it was, Tiarre replaced the flowers on our backpacks making them light. We were relying on my sense of direction even though that was only so useful. The strongest breeze was from a dark path and I liked the scent of rain.

We were caught in an ascent immediately.

Things shifted. The light became whiter than the cool stone. The walls of this place were smooth man made white. A smell a bit like Mio's clinic boat.

“Is there anything you want for your 10th birthday Tiarre?”, his Mom asks from where she sits beside his extremely bulky hospital bed. A number of wires and machines track every detail of a defective body. He thinks at least he isn't so tired he only sleeps today.

“Can we go to the mall like last time?”, his long blonde hair gets into his eyes as he shifts the open book in his lap. I can't read this but his memory is spinning out a tale of a family living on a deserted island and how impossible it would be. I have no idea how someone would find this difficult.

“You were in here a month after that!”, her exasperation barely short of rage.

He guiltily fingers a page. His attention isn't on her face, he doesn't seem to remember that. The sun from the window shines in the warm blonde waves of her hair. What he actually wants. A hug. A day out somewhere with less germy people. I want to go on an adventure, “I want to see a shroombear pelt. I bet I could touch one in a museum it would be the best thing ever.”

Her irritated sigh, “You could at least try to be serious.”, she shakes her head. The conversation is over. She has to be at a conference at the university, couldn't visit long.

In the abyss we come to a cave exiting into the pit of white stone making up the middle of the 3rd layer. It seems to glow compared to the black volcanic stone we'd been travelling through.

The edges of Tiarre's memory are still bleeding into me. He wakes in his hospital bed with a shroombear's rough fur against him. In the armchair beside him, a mysterious lanky blonde man dozes. His hair is almost to his waist just a shade lighter than his gold jewelry. The smell of fine perfume instead of sterile hospital soap.

The huge musty book in his lap is a sharp contrast to his fine belongings. It's written entirely in old abyssal characters.

He rouses.

Tiarre startles from where he's leaning over the book, “Ah, you-. I mean. You found me this?” he hugs the stuffed shroombear as if it'll disappear at any moment.

“Yes. Its from my collection, I have a few more.”, he glances at his book as if only just realizing he'd lost his place, “But what is it you really want?”

Tiarre most wants to go to the big capital mall with his Mom. He wants to be able to hike to the mountain creek with his Dad again. These are still the things he most longs for even as one of the top earning red whistles at Belchero. Those things are impossible. Those things are horrible to say because it'll make their impossibility permeant, “I want to become a white whistle and help people like the Sovereign of Dawn.”

I clutch at my left eye as the brightness of the white stone walls of the pit making up most of the 3rd layer.

A relic sphere with sharp florets at both ends about the size of an eye. Like Tiarre's green eye.

Tiarre's wonder and joy at seeing the atrium of the mall again with Detchuanga. His left eye is patched. It's hidden as the relic lets him grow a new eye around it. A fountain is surrounded by grey stone smooth as glass. Water shoots to varying heights, matching music coming from speakers instead of radios. A wall of windows as tall as the entire orphanage looks down on a street filled with more cars than I've seen in my entire life.

Such a place must be completely impossible. I clutch my eye and press my back against the craggy rock face of the 3rd layer. Tiare is looking over the ledge we're stuck on, “Even in my dreams I didn't think it could be so beautiful here.”

I try to press the terrifying vision out of mind. There's forcefield white above us. Madokajacks, red reptilian birds the size of cars searched the walls of the pit for food. We had no hope of climbing back past them. Far bellow the craggy climbable walls of the 3rd layer became sharp spikes. They were eggs of some creature that lives further down. Finally the mist parted to show a tantalizing glimpse of the Goblets of Giants.

My head was spinning so I head into the shade of the cave. I face a boy my age with long sleek cobalt blue hair and warm coconut brown skin.

He smirks at me, “Are you proud, you've almost reached the 4th layer. Pretending to be a mainlander.”

Tiarre is looking between us confused, “Your brother? No is that supposed to be you? I forget you're not actually white.”, he shifts to stand somewhat between us.

I groan, “I'm not trying to look like them, Mio cut my hair so I'd be safe working with the sailing crew.”

The not broken looking version of me smirks and shrugs his shoulders casting a healthy sheen across his hair as it falls over his shoulders, “Keep telling yourself that. That you didn't run away because inbred scum like you can't survive on the island.”

I aim my gun at the vision. But he's gone. I sink to my knees overwhelmed by the isolation. By being so separate from everything about what I used to know growing up in the rainforest. There's no way I can do this. I'm scared, “I want Master Mio,”, I choked back a sob of guilt, “I wanna go back and tell her I'm sorry for all this.”

Tiarre crouches next to me and hugs me, “Don't be scared, this isn't the end we just have to backtrack a bit.”

I'm so homesick I could die. Tiarre is from a whole different world than me. I nod numbly. Trying a different branch of the cave we come to a cliff leading upwards. It's helpfully lit by numerous yellow salamanders whose bodies seem to be giving off sparks now and then.

I'm scared but it seems wrong to let Tiarre go first. The nausea cuts into me like a knife but my empty stomach only produces bile laced saliva. I remember my desperate hunger from before. Anything was better than a body trying to survive on just fruit. I didn't have my parents to teach me to spear fish well.

The light shifts and I'm climbing out of a sandy sinkhole back in the rainforest. My snares should be near, it was convenient to navigate through the lava tunnel network away from bugs. But through the din of insects and drizzle against the leaves are voices in the common language.

“This is incredible, if we catch a real proto-human with skills like this we'll be set for a decade!”

My last snares will be taken by them. sh*t. I might be able to get one back at least. Doctor Mio hasn't paid me yet so I can't buy more wire.

Wary of how my white hair and skin stand out, I quietly get closer.

This forest is the place where all life began. The near constant rain is shelter and comfort. The sensation of walking through warm water even when it's not raining that I've never felt anywhere else. There is no resistance between my body and the environment, no need for more clothing than a pink rag tied into a sarong.

The glint of a gun at a man's waist while another kneels to wind my snare wire. Their ridiculous long pants and tan shirts to hide from the insects are soaked and cling to bulky muscle.

I've been a hunter my entire life. I see the movement of the closest man's eye before he registers I'm there. I run.

There's cursing in common behind me. I'm light enough to run over the vines covering another sinkhole. The next pit of sand and dark stone is the one I need. I slide down on my butt. I pull aside woody vines with thorns the size of my thumb. Some of them leave red lines on my legs but it doesn't matter. Running in the pitch black cave system that winds under the island I can't be followed.

The noise of my footfalls bounces around enough to navigate by. Until I come to a boy curled up in a ball. His green – brown odd eyes reflect light that isn't here.

“What hell is this Aki? There were slavers just wandering your island?”, Tiarre asks.

“It's... My home.”, my island had surrendered to another country rather than face the horrific losses of a brief war against mainlanders with guns. But what did war mean to a child in the lava caves.

We're back in the hexagon pillars in the warmth and cool light. I try to press the vision to the end of the memory.

I meet Doctor Mio who waits just inside a cave entrance in a field of sharp volcanic stone. Her pink cardigan and tan dress somehow still have the sharp creases from being folded. I look more messy than usual.

“Aki you're hurt!”, her hand on my shoulder, her palms are so soft.

I hunch a bit but don't pull back when she takes my hand to keep me from scratching a cut along my arm, “But your stuff hurts.”

“Not as much as one of these getting infected, come here.”, she gives me one of the rice balls she made stuffed with the local fermented sweet potato. I let her tug me up to sit on her thigh, I'm only about as tall as her waist. The medicine she dabs at me with stings but she lets me count her freckles to try and ignore it.

I whine when she takes her arm back from counting.

She laughs and hugs me against her, “Soon you'll be tame enough to let me brush your hair.”.

My white hair is nearly at my waist when it's brushed, “Never, Doctor.”, I wonder if she'd teach me how to tie it in the fancy braids and loops she wears if I let her.

“Where are we going today, Guide?”, she's teasing how I'm too wary to just use her name yet.

I look warily at the tunnel I came from back towards the unstable rainforest, “Let's stay aboveground. I'll show you the old aquaduct that got built for the sun people centuries ago.”

She's looking thoughtfully at me, poking at a vein in my leg the way I poke her freckles, “Aki? If relations between your race and the ones who came on boats were always good, why is there such a taboo against interbreeding?”

She seems to find it an unbearably offensive topic to directly say my albinism and my grandma's epilepsy is the result of serious inbreeding. I'm closely related to every member of my race I've ever met, “There is no taboo. Just no babies happen. But my kind barely can have babies anyway so that's not weird.”

Doctor Mio's pink eyes and Tiarre's odd ones. Their voices mix, “Aki, are you... Human?”

The low breathing of the sleeping mountain spinners around us. The puzzling memory of a mall in a bustling capital city of a mountain nation I'd never seen. With my Master we'd been to countless port towns and there were some of the sun people in almost all, pink hair and coconut skin, robust build. There were only others like me, lean and petite with cobalt hair and the same skin, in the pages of Mio's notebook with all she could record of our fragmented oral history.

Tiarre and I were from different worlds, “What do I know about a mainlander idea.”, I lie, “I'm still a person.”

I still figured I was closer to an exotic endangered pet than a human at this point in my life. There were other branch species of humans, hiding in the other most remote parts of the world. At the peaks of the highest mountains and the remotest coastal caves they too watched the world hurtle onwards without them. Their stories mixed into myth until they disappeared.

Saying I was menehune was a slur, amounting to saying I was just fae, or a troll, or a spirit.

Mio would get the matts out of my long hair. Then coax me into cutting it short. She claimed I was a cousin out getting a custom sailors uniform for me. She'd still let me count her freckles while she bandaged my wounds. She'd try to teach me to read and never get angry at me for being hopeless at it. Every time I cried in my sleep from overwhelm. Every time I had nightmares about the slavers, or whirlpools, or a storm got rough I'd wake safe in her arms.

She had complete confidence I could survive in the bizarre world outside my island. That I was close enough to human.

Tiarre's eyes were widening in shock. His parents were teachers, he was brilliant. He'd spent a lot of time in hospitals and knew more about the human body than I would in my life. I could see the tiny differences I'd counted up for myself and more reflected in his eyes. I don't have the same number of ribs and they were angled outwards more than down. I had nearly stopped growing at 12, at about a meter and a half. My wrists were shaped a bit different. My arms were a bit too long, my proportions more like a younger childs. That my senses were sharp meant little, advanced cave raiders could often see well in the dark.

I was an albino from inbreeding and my parents and those around me sorely wanted to get rid of me so that they didn't have to know I and everyone currently alive of my race came from a lot of incest.

Tiarre backed away, and picked a path upwards.

I watched the seeds fly off the flower tied to his pack. I watched the dark cave ceiling become brilliant blue sky.

The grass was an impossibly bright green, more lush than the 1st layer and just as filled with wildflowers. In the distance rose a sharp peak. The sheer wall of it showed where layers of rock had crushed together to press it upwards. The curving ridges and organic shape looked like the naked form of some impossible being. Of the Earth itself.

By a creek bellow, Tiarre was hopping across stones. He held out his hand, knowing I was too small to make the jumps as gracefully, “Come on Aki, this place is just messing with our heads.”

The new wariness in his eyes scared me. I hesitate and he leaned against a large boulder with his other hand.

The thud of impact, Tiarre's shriek as the mountain spinner whipped its head into his chest. He crashed into a wall.

There was so much I was afraid of, lightning, cars, slavers, whirlpools, about half of f*cking everything. But I wasn't scared of a turtle just because it was bigger than me, everything was bigger than me.

I fired my gun at its head without hesitation. The flash bullet destroyed what was left of my night vision and didn't seem to do much damage. It didn't matter too much, I wasn't using my sight. I fished in my gunpowder pouch and realized it was too damp to use safely. A careless error, I hadn't spread it to dry before we slept the night before.

There was the grinding of stones as the turtle began to stand. If it rotated too much I wouldn't be able to aim. I took out my pickaxe and swung at its neck like my life depended on it. Tiarre's definitely did. The tip wedged into tough flesh and the creature swung its neck ripping it out of my grip.

I grabbed Tiarre's arm to pull him up. We're running awkwardly when I hear my red whistle pickaxe snap. But the primeval creature doesn't follow us back to the icy heat layer.

One side is pure blue ice and waterfalls, one side is magma falls hurtling bolders into the steam. Through a rainbow our rope from the day before is waiting for us. If we can get to Seeker Camp, we'll be able to survive this.

Tiarre is on his knees coughing up blood. I want to puke from fear and nerves but he grins exhausted at me. His eyes are streaked with tears that shimmer strangely, “It's just blood, I can regrow it.”, he's clutching his chest in clear agony though. The shining of his black raiding clothes. That blood soaked through the leather panels was alarming.

...

We tried to reach the bottom together as 12 year old red whistles. We were lonely, afraid, and felt like the world was against us. A northern man wanted to buy me from Master Mio. I wasn't a good kid like Misaka and Tourou. I probably was never going to call her mom, or adjust to modern life enough to stop being a complete burden on everyone. Tiarre's nightmares and insomnia was holding him back when we should've been able to move on to our blue whistle exam together.

We failed. We were just some sad kids after all. We didn't have an aubade or my relic guns. I didn't have Ozen's brutal but precisely intentional training.

Tiarre and I hide from the torrential downpour together in a cave by terminal pond. Watching the rain wash his blood from the suspended pathways, I began to understand with dread why Tiarre begged me not to go to Seeker Camp.

Warm by our hammerbeak feather fire, I pulled two of his ribs out of one of his lungs. We watched it knit back together and expand with his breath again.

Tiarre smiled sadly, looking pale in the firelight, “Do you understand? He didn't give me a life here. He took away my ability to die."

I nodded numbly. The horrible bird meat sat badly in my stomach. His relic made my body feel hot in a way I didn't quite understand. Erections hurt and even as an adult I couldn't get hard when I wanted half the time. I just wished it would go away and stop distracting me from being close to Tiarre in this terrifying but wonderful place. Curled up safe and warm in our green horncrier pelt I press my forehead into his chest and let him hold me protectively. His warm wet blood is soaking into my white hair.

“Is it disgusting Aki?"

My body feels hot with the energy of his relic, giddy to have survived our last dive attempt, “It's really beautiful. I can't wait to be this strong. I want to be immortal more than anything."

His quiet tired laugh and his forehead against my hair, “Then I can't wait to give this to you and reach the bottom with you."

I wish he'd had the courage then. To tell me he wanted to be my sacrifice and the truth about white whistles. It would've really helped me later, when I wanted to kill myself.

...

The force field is bright and clear today in the first layer. I'm a 15 year old moon whistle, still wearing my long lost friend's red whistle. I can see enormous birds in the distance. A blue one the size of Laffi's shop cartwheels, a dozen sparkling tails fanning out behind it. These are different birds than in the 2nd layer, I never bothered to learn their names. Now I never will, because I plan to die today.

I'd spent months randomly breaking out crying. Even when food tasted like anything it wasn't worth eating enough to counter the vomiting from the curse. The suffocating, fatiguing hopelessness that was slowing down my reactions had earned me more than a few beatings. What made it get this bad, was probably the shame that it hadn't gotten better. Two years since Tiarre's last dive and I had nothing to show for it and nothing to look forward to again.

Tiarre and I can be together at the bottom of the abyss right. I don't really believe that, it just hurts. It's hard to move or gather my thoughts. It's hard to know he really wanted to get away and if I hadn't resisted we could've made it off Orth. Safe. A life where no one would hit me so much. Day after day stuck at moon whistle. I've torn myself apart to be perfect for the Immovable Sovereign, but she'll only see a fragment of Lyza in a useless boy's body.

Having made this decision last week and found this cliff, I felt such extraordinary peace and love come over me. I had the energy to loosely plan a fur hunting trip in the corpse weaper den, let the team know, and disappear. With this bit of lightness at least I can watch the birds on this sunny day. I can't feel awe or excitement or maybe pride over the fact I could climb all the way around the edge of the Abyss and look closer. But I can still watch. It can still be a nice day.

“What the f*ck are you doing.”, it's Nat, someone unfamiliar wouldn't be able to approach me so closely without my notice. The lanky blonde raider grabs a strap of my backpack and sharply yanks me back towards him. He was still a red whistle having just turned 15, living all the way up on the surface in another world. Maybe a better world for some people.

Nat had known me since I was a red whistle, had known Tiarre. He knew this was a very good way to get punched.

Instead I looked at him blankly. He'll think I'm strange if I say anything. It'll cause trouble. I don't want anyone to stop me when I just started feeling better.

What could I be doing, standing on a cliff over a drop into sheer whiteness.

“Aki." his tone was a command. He really did have a grasp of my usual reaction to authority. He was trying fairly hard to get me to react.

Please just don't take this from me too. I want Tiarre back. I want to have listened to him and found a way to hide in the mountains together, “Just let me die.", tears are falling off my face.

He grabs my hand, “Alright.”, he says feigning complete confidence, the forcefield light reflecting in blue eyes under thick brows, “Later. Today we're going home together.", he said this as of it was the most normal thing in the world. The same as if he'd found me with a normal injury.

I was dazed enough to let him pull me along to the surface. I never quite knew if I would've gone through with it. I'm glad I didn't, it would've hurt people close to me so much. The role however small I had in saving Mitty. Or in hindsight my attempt meant absolutely nothing with the existence of the Curse Repelling Vessel.

But I left a part of me on that cliff, and I can never really explain what part of me is missing. That I understand one way or another, my friend probably can't return to the surface alive.

...

This memory isn't mine. I hardly remember this anyway. The pain and disorientation of the hours after I'd intended to disappear stretching into days. All I really recall is the dull empty ache and surprise that the harsh wind of the 2nd layer didn't blow right through me. That I still had my body at all.

I'm regarding Jiruo suspiciously through Yelme's eyes as I lock the gondola in place to let him off, “My Sovereign hasn't mentioned you coming by. Your pack is light, did you at least bring something fun to make it worth our while to host you?”

Jiruo's eyebrow twitching in irritation as the gusts up into the inverted forest blow his silver hair, “No I didn't bring you drugs. It's about Aki."

Yelme isn't lowering his guard enough to show surprise around the older man. His black whistle is heavy compared to Jiruo's moon whistle blowing around.

For a white whistle's apprentice to never become a master delver was disgusting. It was a given those under the best in the abyss would make discoveries, recover high grade relics, and push the limits of cave raiding for all who made their living diving. Before turning 20 Yelme had earned a black whistle twice for discovering multiple inhabitable, minimal curse areas in the 4th layer. Obviously the more defensible ones were kept secret as potential new bases for the Subterranean Bandits.

For Jiruo to be just a highly educated and well liked career teacher and supervisor at the orphanage... Well, Lyza already had one child she didn't want to raise, she had picked the one most easily manipulated into being a permanent babysitter. In contrast Ozen had spent decades dealing with remarkably antisocial teenagers with no place on the surface and managed to earn their complete loyalty.

However much Yelme found Jiruo's lack of ambition distasteful, what Jiruo had said was the only thing that could've gotten through to him, “I'll get the Immovable Sovereign, wait in the kitchen.", always Ozen's apprentice, this was a transparent power move when Jiruo had spent plenty of nights drinking in her chamber.

In her bedroom, Ozen and Marulk were working on some forms to send to the surface. The daylight from the forcefield added just enough to the illumination from the curse repelling vessel. Nothing out of the ordinary, details of the recent deaths of some delvers to report to the guild. A new variety of plant with toxic pollon had emerged in the forest under the suspended footbridges. With luck, it would be investigated properly by the guild. What would actually happen was a moon whistle at a local bar would look into the story and be promoted accordingly for the discovery.

Jiruo's presence would save them a good chunk of time making copies for a few mail balloons to send up. Ozen turned over the rest of the task to Marulk. He was distracted by Yelme's announcement, scratching at the lacing of the blue corset over his dress. His discomfort looked unusual to Yelme. He was a good tailor, his clothes should be comfortable enough except for them being girls things. Aki behaved the same way if Marulk attempted to make him mens clothes, complaining endlessly they fit wrong on his small frame if he didn't refuse outright. His behavior was odd, but a potential flag for previous grooming that had made him a great choice to keep around.

The Immovable Sovereign's black cloak blew a bit behind her as she stands to face Jiruo in our common room. This one of her tunics fits a bit differently, her chest looks larger. Marulk's work, his boldness in the piece was reflecting his growing confidence. Ozen had always been a beautiful woman, albeit in an unnatural way. A natural beauty distorted by the 5th layer curse giving her the disproportionate height. If only she'd ever try to live as a normal woman, put on a turtleneck and gloves that actually concealed her relics. If only they could hold hands talking about nothing over apple rind tea as the sunset angled the light out of the crater Orth was in. Maybe she'd be happy with one of us instead of 3 guys and one Aki as her lovers.

I watch Sovereign's eyes widen at the news Jiruo delivers. An errant white bang flutters in front of her face, not as still as the rest of her course twisting hair. Yelme feels far away and his memory of Jiruo's actual words is hazy at best.

Then I arrive. The Aki in his memory is unusually gaunt even through black raiding gear. Dark circles under my eyes betray how I'd break out crying every couple of hours. A small body without the fat stores to tolerate this last growth spurt I'd ever had. It didn't bring me even up to the height of Jiruo's chest, “I'm home.", I say, looking stiff and anxious at Jiruo.

Ozen motions this me to her side, “Jiruo says Nat dragged you back from a cliff the other day. Looking like you were going to jump.”

“I-it was a misunderstanding." the stammer wasn't needed to reveal the lie.

She flicks my forehead. The Aki in Yelme's memory doesn't flinch even as the wound starts bruising immediately. One red eye and one purple, one red whistle and one purple, tears falling to the floor. I'm shaking, my memory recalls this much, the confusion and frustration of still being alive. I was finally happy and hopeful, I was finally going to stop being a burden. Why did I turn back, I don't understand what I'd done. No one was supposed to know. That ruined everything.

“You hate Jiruo, of course you won't be honest around him.", I watch as she tugs the silently sobbing underweight teenager roughly by his shoulder. The contact focuses his attention enough to start forcing the crying back under control.

Yelme waits anxiously outside her chamber. Marulk has gone off to attend to the guest. Jiruo knew his way around well enough, but Marulk excelled at keeping busy and keeping up a cheerful confident front in emergency situations. The upward wind sends leaves swirling into the domes of trees in the inverted canopy far above. I watch Yelme ignore his messed up bangs to adjust the bandages over his lower arm.

Our Sovereign said something inconsequential to Yelme. Her dark eyes were unreadable. Yelme is so anxious and out of it he's numbly watching the movement of her chest with her breathing in the fitted tunic. The movement of her bull white whistle.

He nods along absently.

Ozen realizes this, “He can't be left alone for a few days, take care of that.", having given the order she goes off to get something to drink.

The Aki of Yelme's memory is crying again, succeeding less at being silent with it. He looks at the wood floor, “I'm sorry. I'm sorry please don't hate me."

My memory fills in, everyone hates me, it's just a matter of how, if, and when they'll show it. I didn't want to leave you I just wanted it to stop hurting.

Yelme pulls me into a tight hug pressing me protectively under his chin. I smell like leaves from washing long hair with rainwater and my unscented soap. He thinks I'm not really that much bigger than when I'd arrived here at 13.

Or when he and Marulk had watched Tiarre and I pass by in the night when we were 12. Yelme regrets not catching up to us, but he regrets plenty of things. In the end he's always been chosing Marulk.

“Don't be sorry.", he coaxes, “You've been in pain a long time.", he's lightly tracing circles on my back that I can't feel though armor. My nails dig into his shoulder blades through his tunic.

Yelme's memory is a bit spaced out still, pulling me along by hand back to his room. He's relieved to shut the door behind us and glances at the window to briefly consider if it's a risk. Tying the suicidal teenager to something seemed needlessly mean spirited and would cause problems with the bathroom. It's easy enough to get me out of my armor and undersuit. In boxers I look even more gaunt, but at least I'm not carrying my hunting knife. Sovereign has only taken my gun. Yelme kicks my cave raiding gear under his bed to deal with later.

The Aki in his memory seems too fatigued to be a flight risk. I obediently lap poppy honey from his fingers. Even in this state I perk up a little bit as he kisses my forehead. The feeling of warm skin over my bony shoulder through the climbing calluses on Yelme's hand.

He recognizes the longing in my eyes for just anyone to just want me around and alive and not hurt me. I'm never good enough to replace Lyza for Ozen or to reach Tiarre. He knows that vulnerability.

My cheek under his fingers. My lips against his. The way I pull back, afraid,when he takes off his tunic.

“Shh.", he pulls me against his bare chest, “I'm not going to do anything, the skin contact should help you calm down.", his heartbeat is quick with the lie. It's as much to calm him down as anything. If he's going to be stuck with me for days on end I may as well be a warm reassuring body to be around.

I couldn't tell to what extent I'd already known this myself. That I was being used. But he was right and I soon relaxed in his arms.

It was harder to pull this off than with Marulk. He was people pleasing by nature and his Master had taught him well. Yelme knew I was more independent, and frankly aggressive. I had needed far more one on one attention than her other apprentices to bring down my boundaries. That wasn't to say it was actually hard.

Yelme couldn't get an actual girlfriend with his lifestyle. No one good would willingly uproot their life on the surface to live in a tree in the 2nd layer of the abyss. To say nothing of how little Ozen wanted to deal with women in her final dive team again. Women could get pregnant and leave, men weren't as likely to waste her time this way. Even when I joined at 13 my utter longing for attention had made me pretty cuddly if coaxed correctly.

That I was accustomed to being used as some kind of emotional surrogate by those much older than me was a given.

“You'll feel better Aki, don't worry.", I feel him twirling some of my long white hair slightly too tightly around his finger. I loosely recall falling asleep listening to his heartbeat like this. Secretly a bit relieved Marulk wasn't there to know a better way to deal with the situation.

Just bear it awhile longer, Yelme thinks. Bear it and be with me in the 6th layer. Century after century, I'll keep you by my side. It doesn't really matter how old we are now in the upper layers, or on the surface. Eventually you'll be my lover, until our very last dive.

For right then though, I was safe curled against him. White whistles weren't actually people. I hadn't f*cked up my leg.

Ozen had no aubade that brought back the dead. Yelme never found her secret collection of our baby teeth. A stash of the more addictive drugs one could buy on the surface ensured even if we tried to escape through death and were forced back we'd stop trying soon enough. No one could leave the Subterranean Bandits, but no one would chose to. Our Sovereign would protect us, all the way to the bottom of the abyss.

For just that night things were safe.

...

A family of shroombear scatter as Yelme and I leave the dark stone cave for the brilliant forcefield of the 4th layer. The suspended aqua pools of the goblets of giants spread out far into the mist. The steam forms wild shapes like clouds, dragons one minute, birds the next.

I catch up to an old shroombear and tuck it under an arm for dinner at Nanachi's later. They were excruciatingly gamey but Nanachi had a lot of herbs and I was in the mood for their ribs rendered spicy enough to cry, “One of the only happy stories Tiarre told me about Detchuanga was how he brought him a taxidermy shroombear in the hospital for his birthday. He was an evil man, sold relics to war torn countries, sold people. But he did try to win Tiarre's trust. Dorothea still has that thing.”

Yelme grins and scratches our dinner under its chin, “That's sweet, like you keep the naritantan from Riku.”

We walk into one of the shallow goblets. Tiny wriggling things come up to my support boot. Not fish, the baby form of some bug or another. We don't descend far before the cliff leading to the cave path to Nanachi's house. The curse is somewhat weak here so I jump a couple stories up to the top.

I sit with the writhing shroombear and whine as pain lances through my head and my nose and ears bleed. Still getting off pretty easy. Yelme is swearing in pain as he climbs over the cliff edge. He stays flat on the ground hesitating to stand and worsen the curse. I get up with my hiking pole and shoved the shroombear under that arm so I can hold out my hand. He accepts, grumbling and looking like he's regretting deciding to follow me down already.

I dearly love this place. The humidity of the 4th layer and to an extent of the 2nd, remind me of my old home. The force field casts quite a bit of light compared to the darkness of a surface cave though. The sound of dripping water from roots and smell of soil on a way too hot day. I could've survived back on that island, but in the abyss I'm free to live.

The moss becomes thicker as we get closer. A faint ringing in my ears before my prosthetic locks up. I take the shell whistle I'd carved Tiarre and blow it briefly.

Nanachi answers quickly with a grin. They hold themselves differently with a black whistle around their neck and dark cargo pants. The short silver hair on their head is the kind of clean and shiny that only comes from modern shampoo.

Walking into their small round house, I immediately notice there are no whistles left behind by the door. Where Mitty's stuffed animals took up space before, there's now another bookshelf behind Nanachi's futon. I excuse myself to set the shroombear smoking. The brain mixed with rice and root vegetables will be cooling compared to heavily spiced meat. I realize beside the house the brush has been cleared and a frame set up like for a tent cabin. I guess the place really would be small with a regular sized Mitty.

Yelme is stripped down to his boxers washing the blood from a minor cut in his thigh from an irritating part of his armor. If it were me. I'd need to rest and heal completely before moving on or I'd risk infection in the damaged leg. That his body could withstand such carelessness was a warm reassurance. With his thigh bandaged he yawns and lets his head lol against the railing of Nanachi's little porch, “Man I was really out of it when I found you down here. But I thought I was just high, not that you actually had a paradise back here with a creek full of demon fish and everything.”, there are hundreds of graves in the paradise.

Nanachi rubs a damp washcloth against a blood trail by his ear he missed, “So were those mushrooms you ate really a way to see where Aki was by seeing the curse or were you just high?"

He rubbed his forehead, “It's hard to remember. I think. I think someone showed me but I can't remember who.", we'd heard rumors from deep in the abyss at Seeker Camp, that real ghosts played in the mirages of the kudara. The primeval creatures could devour the dead as well as the living.

“Hey let's look for them sometime.", I say with complete confidence.

They're looking at me like I'm nuts.

“Before hitting the hot spring we should check out some leads I got for the fountain of youth. We should go back to the kudara grove."

“You're asking us to go for a casual hike in the marsh full of parasites that turned half your leg to relic stone just from entering your toe stubs?”

“I was lucky, if you drink them like Sovereign Wakuna did it's paralysis from the neck down.”, and he basically couldn't leave the Ido Front base because it took Bondrewd's strange laser relic to hack off the heavy twisting growths. He was so dependent on water from the fountain of youth he drank some that was contaminated. Prushka watched as he pushed his team to the brink going to gather it more and more frequently.

Nanachi's ears twitched in realization, “The Sovereign of Guidance wasn't paralyzed I saw him... In his relic cave raiding armor.", he was never photographed without it, going back decades.

“Prushka showed me one of the relic tumors Bondrewd hacked off him to keep him human shaped enough to use the suit. A hand twisting like a boat shell with the hole going deeper and deeper into the wrist. It's a miracle what he had left of his body by his last dive could breathe.”

Nanachi's ears flopped back sadly, “If anyone could do it, he definitely could. The stuff he showed Bondrewd in exchange for that kind of help though...", their gold eyes met mine, knowing how I looked up to the mysterious white whistle in a way, “Maybe it would've been better if he had died."

The cartridge experiments, the kidnappings, the pit of hollows under Ido Front Base. What was just the Sovereign of Dawn. What atrocities were only possible, or possible at the extraordinary scale they'd been committed... With the help of the mind of one of the most brilliant cave raiders who ever lived and was desperate to keep living. We'd never know the scope of the crimes committed by the most loved white whistle back in Orth, the hero, Wakuna The Sovereign of Guidance.

...

Just as I treasure falling asleep against his bare chest at the lowest point in my life, Yelme treasures watching me like that. The gentle sound of the drizzle on glass. The time before I broke apart again. The time before he confessed and got me to be his lover.

It was a warm humid night. It was natural we weren't wearing much curled together like this. Ozen still had ample reason for the flicker of disgust and concern in her dark eyes as she silently pushed open the door. It had been only a few days since my suicide attempt.

A cool gloved hand shakes Yelme awake by his shoulder. He's already awake, that's how he'd seen her look. He gets up without disturbing me. His gaze lingers on Tiarre's old red whistle. He thinks I'm getting old to still believe he's alive. Yelme thinks it's a point of fragility that Ozen has exploited to gain my trust. She does believe Tiarre is alive, same as she believes Lyza is alive. It doesn't mean she can ever hope to see or search for Lyza before the other woman's shorter lifespan runs out.

In the hall in boxers, Yelme warily meets Ozen's gaze. He's scratching his shoulder, sore from how he tends to hunch on himself. It's around the place he'll put in a thousand man wedge to help drag me home after my accident in the 3rd layer.

“He still hasn't said anything useful about why? What his actual plan was, how long this had been his plan?"

Yelme shakes his head, “He's not one for talking about his feelings.", he's anxiously scratching his arm, “It'll just hurt and humiliate him and make him less likely to talk if I press any more.”

“You've come to me a few times, whining to go easier on him. This was always a risk letting him on the team.”, she sighs and takes Yelme's cheek. He happily presses into the hot sensation of her relics through her glove. His gratitude, “This was a potential outcome for letting on someone to ease your loneliness, your lust.”, the price of his loyalty that had been so damaged when she'd failed to protect him in the 5th layer. My immortality in exchange for him staying on her team.

“He tried to reach the bottom at 12, I would've made him my apprentice if you refused.", Yelme's warm pride at my bravery in contrast to his terror of the 6th layer and our next goal as a final dive team.

She tugs him into a hug, her cloak around him like she would with Marulk and I when we were young, “Are you ready, Oasis Sovereign?"

Her breast is so soft even though her crisp tunic. Yelme looks up at her, “Of course Ozen.", he nuzzles her chest, “I love you.", he's so happy after spending so long being underwhelming to her.

They kiss lingeringly, she always did enjoy such morbid moments.

“If it's necessary, I'll gladly take away his pain and make him my white whistle.”, it's wonderful, even someone as worthless as me can save someone. I can keep all of him close to my heart, his soul tangled into mine. What bliss it would be to face the brilliant deserts, frozen forests, warped ruins, and terrifying iron rain past the point of no return having stolen his courage and yearning.

...

Yelme isn't holding back his memories like he usually does in this. My action, my pain had scared him. This is part of what he dearly wants me to know.

He's a 13 year old moon whistle.

Ozen's embrace like when he was a child still felt lovely to Yelme. Back when they'd lie together, their bodies still sticky. He was still scared, his heart still raced, his body felt hot but was relaxing into the hazy space after climax. He shivered at the damp cloth between his legs. He hated this part and wished it would stop. But it always did and he could cuddle up close to her breast.

The hazy memory of her smile. Her naked pleasure, pride, hope of a life outside Seeker Camp. He relished her attention when she wasn't interested in sex. He could suckle on her and hide in her embrace. The world was tiny and safe.

He actually liked himself then. Before he wanted to do those kinds of things. Her love was real in a world where he didn't belong. But Yelme doesn't want to die. As much as it terrifies him he wants to accept his immortality with grace.

Even as a child, he wondered if he could raise a partner to be with for that terrifying forever. He didn't have that much interest in boys beyond the young curiosity over Marulk. The only person around his age in his entire world. But Sovereign would only really tolerate boys so that would have to do. He was confident he could find a good enough boy, cute and delicate. At least easy to manipulate into this, their devotion was more useful than their beauty.

Yelme wondered if he could just find a relic to make him entirely gay so he would stop going along with Ozen's desires like this. That would be great.

None of this life was great. The edges of his memory as a 13 year old fade.

...

In the cool early morning, the feeling of Ozen's relics hot through her glove. She shakes me awake from my place safe in Yelme's arms. It hasn't been a week since I tried to kill myself. His room smells of wet wood and dew on the moss outside the windowsill.

Keep up with her going to check on Lyza's grave in the 4th layer and she'll give me her endorsem*nt for a black whistle mission.

What I didn't know then was it wasn't just a test of my will to live. If I succeeded, I would be at her right hand as we passed the point of no return, Sovereign of Mirages, Aki the Phantom. It didn't matter if it was Tiarre who became my white whistle as I yearned for, or Yelme. If I died and was brought back it would be painful for everyone, but it would be the next step for our team. I was too unstable to use the curse repelling vessel. I would be used as a sacrifice if that happened.

Maybe the Oasis Sovereign, Yelme the Thief could sober up and get the nerve to raise his own corpse weaper and keep making spectacular discoveries at the fringes of the 4th layer. Take his rightful place as one of the Immovable Sovereign's brilliant apprentices.

My place in our team would be at his neck as his white whistle. To see the spectacular sights and towering beasts of the 6th layer and deeper with his eyes. How wonderful it would be to face this next step with a body that could no longer feel pain. Permanently sealed safe in his embrace, my sacrifice and my new form an integral part of our journey to the bottom.

There are so many things now. That I can't go back and stop knowing.