First day on the trail after the Daffodil. Walking in a line, Dulcen, Ethel, and Athalie headed for Farander. The new traveler in the party wasn’t much given to talking, but when asked, he was surprisingly open.

“Show me, then,” he said, turning to Athalie.

She drew her blade, a long and even wobbly thing that still felt unnatural in her hand. She tried to hold it aloft with all the noble bearing that a knight’s sword deserved.

“And show me a strike?”

She hesitated. Then, moving like a kung-fu movie in molasses, she performed a jab.

“Well, that’s not good. You must go through ten swords a year striking like that—you take ‘em out and they break.”

“You don’t know that,” said Athalie. Then, thinking better of it, she added, “I always reinforce the sword with light energy. It counteracts my own—weakness, you might say.”

“That’s not the proper use of your—weakness,” he said, mimicking, mocking. “Up in the northwest they have a martial art for that, It’s not for swordfighting, but the techniques should...”

Suddenly the earth rent itself into yawning, shrieking fissures, and a swarm of locusts big as bats flooded out, turning the daylight vein-purple. The adventurers stumbled and scrambled for their weapons. Ethel sighed with relief.

***

“What you do,” cried Dulcen over the caws of circling birds, “is you use it to your advantage.”

Two hours of insect-whacking later, he was back at it. Metal-feathered condors, smelling the blood on them, now wondered if they couldn’t dive in and carve them up. They tried to walk on as if nothing was threatening them, but they did, of course, have dripping weapons drawn and ready. Ethel’s head throbbed.

“It’s not that you’re ‘small.’ Especially not compared to lots of humans and dwarves. It’s that you’re not heavy. The word you need to be using is ‘wiry.’”

Athalie said, “I see...”

“If you focus on speed, and make a slight jab at the tip with a point of light, you can focus on your maneuverability and get out of there fast.”

“Hm...” She took the blade two-handed and showed off a quick, low strike. A condor yelped.

“That’s it. Why don’t we spar later, like tomorrow?”

“I have wanted nothing more since I first saw you,” said Athalie with a slight smile.

A metal bird corkscrewed toward Ethel in a deadly flash. Hastily, almost dropping her telhorns, she threw up a fire spell to meet it. The little fireball burned through the heart, through the entire middle of the bird. When it hit her in the chest, reeking of rot and melted metal, it hurt and sliced her through her leather armor, but at least it was dead. It dropped to the road, and she kicked it away from the path.

“...Wait. Where’d the other bird go?” said Dulcen.

“Ethel took care of it,” Athalie tossed out. “What time tomorrow were you thinking of?”

“Early morning?”

“I accept.”

***

At night, Athalie and Ethel had privacy again. The groups weren’t sharing tents, after all. Actually, Dulcen didn’t even have a tent. He laid himself down outside, on his back, not far from the road, as if daring fate to take him and back problems to assail him. The capes were swished around to his front to act as blankets and flutter whenever a mild night wind hit him. Ethel thought he looked like a ridiculous toy or mummy out there.

“Nyx,” she said as she lowered the tent flap, “he looks like a ridiculous toy out there, or a mummy. Don’t you agree?”

Nyx was huddled inside of their sleeping bag, with only eyes and hands free. Ethel could hardly see them in the darkness, but she knew that Nyx could see everything.

“Yeah I do,” they said brusquely. “Of course I do. You know I’m using him, right? Milking him for whatever sword knowledge he claims to have?”

“Part of me does.”

Nyx softened. “I don’t want another Spencer in the group. I don’t think you do either.”

“Not really. But I wasn’t thinking just of Spencer, and it doesn’t seem...healthy to let that go on without acknowledging it. You know what I mean?”

As usual when faced with responsibility and consequences, Nyx wanted to close themself off and deal with it alone—alone, but piecemeal. But they stayed awake. “I know,” they sighed. “I get it. But he’s not Urrich. He’s just some different tall and mysterious guy. Hell, he isn’t even mysterious. We could paint his approximate backstory right now.”

“He’s...like an alternate Urrich, in a way,” said Ethel, staring at a place where the tent’s fabric met the dust. “Instead of taking advantage of you, he gives you...the chance to take advantage of him. Is it therapeutic, for you?” The words seemed accusatory, but the intention was not.

“If I had the power to crush Urrich and end his eternal demon life, I would.”

“Don’t take this encouragement too literally, but—maybe you do.”

Nyx allowed the words to settle on them, as if words alone had the power to make it true.

“Putting that aside,” Ethel went on, “I still don’t think it’s healthy to indulge...anything at all, with him...to invest him with any more meaning than what’s inevitable.”

“We’re both dungeon diving,” said Nyx. “We were going to meet eventually. I might as well try to have it as much on Athalie’s terms as possible.”

“There’s an alternate timeline where you somehow made Dulcen your devoted servant,” said Ethel.

“Way too uncanny. I don’t want any human servants besides you...and I don’t even want you. As a servant.”

Words like that usually didn’t hurt Ethel. This time, they did. Usually, she would admit things like this. She didn’t.

Lingering questions came back to her. Not technical questions with surefire answers, but things that could only be tested and tested, unsettleable. Was Ethel really “of service” to Nyx? Was she a good-enough friend? Did she tell enough jokes? Did she hit the right chords—and had she ever? When Nyx thanked her, was it genuine or strategic?

She was overthinking it, but it was in her nature to overthink.

“Do you want me to sleep with you again tonight?” she said.

“Yeah.”

“I mean in the literal sense.”

“Naturally. Can you just sleep with your back against mine? I didn’t expect to wake up wrapped around you...I know how sensitive you can get about that.”

“I don’t mind it as much anymore,” said Ethel. “Unexpected touch. In context.” Being more-or-less alone for the past two years, without knowing anyone she’d care to be friends with, had done that to her, and the longer she spent around Nyx these days, the more she realized it.

Nyx said, “That’s good to know.” But they didn’t change their directive.

Ethel shifted into place. “Good night,” she said.

Nyx replied, “Good night.”