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A fah its features were unfamiliar Even as it rose and stood still, its face was blurry, its figure hazy as it approached hiht he could old and emerald, a mouth stained with red

‘Lenk?’ it asked, its voice fe She had found his wound ‘Oh, damn it Was it too much to ask that you survive on your own for two days?’

Hands wrapping around his torso, ar dragged was not as visceral as it should be, but he was quickly learning to forget what it should be

‘Poetry,’ he gasped, breath wet and hot

‘What?’

‘If I had just died quickly after I realised I didn’t want to, that would be irony’

‘You’re not going to die,’ she snarled, tightening her grip He es behind him ‘Help!’ she cried to thehed on fading whi to die’

‘You’re not,’ she snarled as another pair of hands picked up his legs Green hands ‘I won’t let you’

He rode those words, off the stained earth and into oblivion

Fifteen

PREFERABLE DELUSIONS

‘That could have gone better’

‘Really? I thought it went rather well In hindsight, I suppose we should have killed the one with the bow, first’

‘Hindsight’

‘Yes I could have done with a bit ’

‘Look, if you’re just going to repeat everything I say, I can really have this conversation by myself’

‘There was no PLAN’ His head treainst bone ‘There was only you indulging yourus’

‘I’ is a corruption of theis e eradicate from ourselves before we eradicate whatever did this to us’

‘Whatever did this … to us?’

‘So with our duty,… we ’

‘Not just kill it Maim it Burn it Eviscerate it Rip it apart and press its meat between sharp rocks Cleanse it’

‘What is it?’

‘Unknown’

‘So … do I just start eviscerating and hope I get lucky?’

A frigid silence consu’

‘I didn’t row co in the tepidin your skull convince you that you are in control’

‘What do you--?’

‘I saved you from your suicidal madness I saved you from the demons I continue to preserve your life in the name of our duty’

‘But what is it? What is our duty?’

‘That you do not know is only further proof that you do not deserve the legs you are allowed to ith I save you only that we may fulfil our duties What I preserve, I can destroy’

‘That would seem a little contradictory, wouldn’t it? Destroy me and you die, too … don’t you?’

‘I did not say,’ a gentle breeze caressed his mind, ‘that I would destroy you’

‘What does that mean?’

The wind died

‘What does that mean?’

Warmth returned

‘What are you?’

‘I’ht here’

‘What? Where?’

‘Here, Lenk I’ht here’

A swift, erratic beat of a dru

It reached her as she pressed her ear against his chest, rising up from some deep place inside hi whispers, murmurs, the occasional frantic screa inside his body

And though she knew she should try to resist it, her sreith each beat

‘He’s alive,’ she whispered She let her head rest upon his chest, felt it rise and fall with each breath Her eyes closed ‘Damn’

It would have been easier if he had died, if he had stayed dead She could have shed a tear, said a feords of ain She looked to the bandages covering his wounds, sht now, she thought, and he would be dead and her problems would be solved It was another opportunity, another chance to prove herself And again, she couldn’t kill him

You couldn’t even watch him die, she scolded herself You couldn’t even have just sat back and let him die Why couldn’t you do at least that?

Kataria sighed in time with his heartbeat; it was never that easy

Her ears twitched as his an to flow unhindered; he aking up She pulled back, heard his eyelids flutter open and held her breath as they peeled back fully He groaned, turned his head and stared at her

Two blue eyes, brilliant with the moisture that flooded them, looked up Two blue eyes, she released her breath in a relieved exhale, with pupils in the up at her, and not whoever else dwelt inside hi

Lenk’s treo now, you know, she told herself You could run away and he would tell himself it was all a dream You could find another way off the island and never see hiain Then, at least, you could say you didn’t sit there and let him touch you It would be easy

She saw the bleariness clear froh the thatched roof She felt his fingers on her cheek, felt her sha to be heard as she pressed her face into his palrowing faster, and sighed