“Leave?” Peter repeated the word as if it were foreign to him. As if they weren’t camping out in the hellforest in the middle of the fucking night. “What the hell do you mean ‘leave’?”

 

“No time…” Pelos’ body was still ablaze, glowing bright with the circular runes that now seemed to dominate almost his entire body. He looked pained, worried, almost feral. “Shapeshifter.”

 

“Yes?” Seles yawned, rubbing her temples. “What do you want?”

 

“Do not let him die.”

 

Seles cocked her head. “What makes you think I will?”

 

“I do not trust you.”

 

Seles blinked across the campsite, standing before Pelos, who utterly dwarfed her. She stared up at him. “And who are you to tell me what to do?”

 

Pelos bore fanged teeth as he met her gaze. “I owe him a debt. If he dies from your negligence, then I will hunt you.”

 

“Am I supposed to be intimidated by that?” Seles chuckled, pressing a finger to Pelos’ chest. A sizzle hissed into the air, and she retracted her hand with a flinch. 

 

“Be whatever you like.” With that, he turned to Peter, who was still trying to keep up with what the hell was going on, and bowed to him. “I know what I promised you.” As if hastened by his mention, his body only burned brighter. “Forgive me. I will repay my debt to you in full when we next meet.”

 

“I… I don’t care about a stupid debt! Why are you trying to run off in the middle of the night? You could get hurt, you don’t even know where you’re going!” It was so sudden, so unexpected. Peter didn’t know what to make of it. Pelos looked as if he was going to explode.

 

Pelos ignored him, still looking down at Seles. “Move out of the way.”

 

“Move around me.”

 

With a sudden, bestial roar, Pelos leapt into the air, clearing her like a hurdle and making a dash towards the edge of the clearing, out into the forest.

 

He left a trail of smoke behind him, hands occasionally pressing against the ground as he switched to all-fours for a moment before finally tearing off into the distance at a full on sprint.

 

He left Peter only to question why, and Seles faintly chuckling to herself as she inspected her singed index finger.

 

“What the fuck was that?” Peter asked Seles, a tremor to his voice. “And why’d you antagonise him? All he’s done is be helpful!”

 

Seles rolled her eyes at him. She rubbed her finger against her thumb, the burn mark coming right off. “Please. I barely said anything. I think your strange new friend was a lot more concerned with whatever was setting him ablaze.” 

 

Peter scowled at her. “That's not the point. You didn’t need to square off with him like that. He was clearly distressed.”

 

Seles transformed into a small, blue hummingbird, flitting up to a nearby tree branch. “Be quiet. I don’t need to hear you scolding me, or whatever this is.”

 

“No, Seles, I mean it!” Peter was in a weird predicament; attempting to not shout as he didn’t wanna wake Mist up, who was likely having her most restful sleep in weeks, and also trying not to push too far and end up being eviscerated by the eldritch tweetybird. 

 

He couldn’t help but push a little, though.

 

When Seles didn’t answer OR try to electrocute him, Peter sighed, trying to modulate his tone. “Can you tell me why you act the way you do?”

 

Seles pecked at the air. “Listen, just because I don’t coddle you and deal with everything for you  doesn’t mean I don’t have your best interests in mind. I don’t like that being questioned.”

 

“You care about whether I live or die, then?” Peter couldn’t help himself. He’d been wondering as much ever since he was captured. “This isn’t just some kind of sick game to you, or a test, or something?”

 

For a few moments, Seles was quiet. Disarmed. She stood still as a stuffed parrot as the wind whispered to swaying leaves. “What do you want me to say? Of course it’s a test. You want to be able to survive, don’t you? Not to be a burden, not to be a hero in name with no power to speak of?”

 

Peter remembered the day he’d been chosen. The meeting with the angel. Chosen by God… to be granted powers that could save an entire world…

 

To work and sweat and bleed for his glory, his victory, to do something so meaningful with his life that it transcended any earthly desire he’d ever had before.

 

It’d sounded *so* much better than where he’d been at the time.

 

Then he remembered the difficulty. The turmoil. The struggle.

 

And he remembered the ache of the cart, emblazoned on his back from months upon months, years of not getting what he’d been promised. “I want to be a hero.” He scuffed his foot against nothing in particular. “Sometimes it feels like everyone is playing games with me.”

 

“That’s life. I’m not playing with you, though. I thought you deserved your chance at something more, that’s all.” She flitted further away, to the edge of the branch, facing away from him. “Why did you bring those two with you?”

 

“Huh?”

 

“I know you could’ve just teleported away. You know it too. Why did you risk dying for two strangers? So much could’ve gone wrong.”

 

“What kind of question is that?” Peter was still staring out at the trail Pelos had blazed. Would he survive the night? 

 

Peter rubbed his shoulder.

 

“A serious one. You have all of these ambitions of heroics and power, of changing the world. You can’t help anyone if you die, Peter. Not ever again.” She ruffled her feathers, poking her beak between them. “You even gave up your hand, not knowing you could have another. Is it really justified to throw yourself blindly into harm’s way just because it’s the ‘right thing to do’, no matter what might go wrong?”

 

Peter tried to actually consider what she was saying, the weight of it, the logic behind her words. 

 

“I don’t think it matters if it’s justified. I did it because I could. I’ve spent a long time not being able to do anything, and now I can, and I wanted to help. It’s as simple as that. You may not understand what being powerless feels like, but you also don’t know how it feels to risk anything. It’s so strange to you because you don’t have to do it. You can wipe people out with a thought.”

 

“You’re presuming a lot. There’s tougher things in the universe than bandits and bears. I have some limits.” With a chirp, Seles transformed into a cat, sitting on the branch. Peter watched as her chest deflated and her hind legs hung limp. “You’re still in pain, aren’t you?”

 

It was as if her saying so made his aches come back into focus. He wished she’d not brought it up.

 

He nodded.

 

“Give me your grimoire.”

 

Peter hesitated for a second, but soon enough summoned the large book and floated it over to Seles. With a flick of her mind, she’d opened the book to a seemingly random, empty page. Suddenly, elegant, alien strokes began to appear over the page, penned by an invisible hand. 

 

“What are you—”

 

“It’ll translate to something you understand. Should be a cheaper alternative to however you usually medicate yourself. You can handle the soul cost yourself.”

 

“Thank you… is it expensive?”

 

“For you? Maybe.”

 

“These soul debts are racking up for me fast, huh?”

 

Seles gave him a long look. “The souls I use are precious. I don’t want to give them away.”

 

Peter arched an eyebrow. “I wasn’t asking you to. Besides, I thought souls were just batteries to you?”

 

Seles didn’t answer, transforming back into a bird and darting away.

 

//

 

Sleep wasn’t as difficult nor as fitful as Peter had expected it to be. His body had essentially collapsed once he’d clambered onto the bed of leaves and branches Seles had fashioned for him, and he was shocked to find that it wasn’t particularly uncomfortable. How she managed to do that with so little to work with was beyond him, but he didn’t get much time to contemplate it.

 

He’d planned to read over his new grimoire entry before he went to sleep, but he was out like a light within minutes.

 

When he awoke early the next morning, it was to a system notification telling him he’d received new soul credits in his inventory—his portion of the dead bandit kill, worth a nascent soul and 20 lessers.

 

I guess Seles transferred it to me while I was asleep. 

 

Peter sat up and took a look around, but he couldn’t see any obvious sign of her around their makeshift camp. Sunlight was beginning to glint through the opening overhead, the daytime rapidly approaching. It wouldn’t be long until Peter needed to rise, he knew, but if he could postpone it a few more moments, then he would.

 

Instead of getting straight up and attempting to tackle a day that’d be far more liable to knock him over instead, Peter chose to simply lay and think for a moment. It was something he felt he’d gotten less time to do in the last day than ever in his life until now.

 

That said, thinking didn’t mean so much when you had nothing new to consider and every day was functionally the same. When you were in a predicament like Peter was now, waking up in a place like this, it meant everything.

 

But his thoughts couldn’t stay anchored in anything besides Seles and her behaviour. He felt as if he didn’t understand her at all, which made sense, considering she was probably completely beyond his comprehension, but still bothered him. She was callous, she was selfish, and she seemed to have very little regard for him or anyone else.

 

Maybe she just likes watching me struggle.

 

But then, she did save his life. She gave him what he wanted, a class, and regardless of how aloof she might be, how reluctant she seemed to step in and remove dangerous obstacles, she still did things off her own back to make Peter’s life easier, and he was only now beginning to recognise that. 

 

She’d set up this camp, she’d given him a new spell to help with his chronic pains, and she’d even tried to encourage him in her own odd and abrasive way. She couldn’t be trying to hurt him, surely. Those weren’t behaviours of someone who wanted you to fail. I suppose I do trust her quite a bit, when I’m honest with myself. 

 

Well, her intentions, at least. Peter trusted that Seles didn’t want him to fail, to die, to remain weak and frail. He wasn’t sure if he trusted anything else about her, though. Her reaction when he’d repeated the mana battery thing back to her was noticeable, and her entire rhetoric around souls and killing felt incredibly hardline for someone who was clearly capable of acts of kindness, even reciprocal ones.

 

Beyond that, Peter had no clue what she really wanted. She was here on Paragora as an outworlder, like he was, but why? Why was he worth sticking around?

 

I need to try to understand her more. She’s the reason I’m still here, and if I’m gonna be a Soulbound warrior, then I wanna work together with her. I want her to be glad she decided to help me.

 

Resolving to that, Peter opened his grimoire and finally took a look at the entry Seles had left behind. It was a short passage that detailed the magical generation of herbs that were able to soothe aches and pains brought about by chronic fatigue, likely of a similar composition as the elixirs that Peter often had to pay an arm or a leg for, which usually didn’t work as well as he’d like either.

 

He had no clue how effective this remedy might be, but at 20 lesser souls a dose, it was worth it to find out. Quickly, he checked his system to make sure he knew what he currently had left.

 

[You have consumed 14 lesser souls as per the terms of your pact. You have 21 lesser soul credits and 6 nascent soul credits.]

 

He’d consumed that many? He wasn’t sure if it was because his body had been so tired, or if sleeping had something to do with it. Either way, he had enough lesser souls to pay for the herbs, but what about after? Would the system break down a nascent soul into a hundred lessers?

 

He paid the soul cost, and when the resulting flash of light led to the herbs materialising in front of him, their entire composition procedurally generated before his eyes, he almost didn’t believe it.

 

Peter had never actually seen conjuration in effect. It was said to be very rare, and he wasn’t sure he’d even heard of organic material being made from nothing before. He almost wanted to believe it was another type of teleportation, but the text was very specific. He was creating these herbs from the ambient mana within the world. It was an extraordinary feeling.

 

Reaching out with a hand, he plucked the floating green flakes from the air, staring at them in his hand, marvelling at them, breathing their scent in if only to confirm they were truly real.

 

The grimoire had instructions for consumption too. Ideally they were to be crushed, placed into a warm drink and stirred, but they could also be chewed and swallowed for the same end result.

 

Peter didn’t have anything to boil with, so he had to settle for chewing on them. With one last glance for his own assuredness, he took the small flakes in his hand and brought them up to his lips, crushing them against his molars as an incredibly bitter taste began to invade his mouth, so powerful it shot through his sinuses and made him want to retch.

 

He persevered, prepared for an off flavour, and with some struggle, thoroughly chewed up and swallowed the nasty little leaves, feeling the burn in his mouth cessate as soon as the green flecks passed down his esophagus. 

 

Moments after that, he began to feel a buzz of sensation along his shoulder-blades. Peter gasped.

 

His back started to ache less, and his right hand opened and closed with more ease than he was used to. He stretched out, feeling previously stubborn bones give out and begin to pop from the pressure, a single series of motions resulting in so many clicks that it was like a full on chairopractic adjustment. 

 

In the places he’d previously felt pressure, there was almost none now. In the stiffest and most numb parts of his body, there was both feeling and fluidity of motion. He felt healthy, almost strong.

 

Peter launched himself to his feet, grinning despite himself, rolling his shoulders once more and turning to inspect his body.

 

He looked the same, he was sure, but he felt like a million bucks, missing hand or no. The elixirs he bought definitely weren’t this potent, and the pervasiveness of this synaptic sensation was so pleasant that he almost wondered at how people unaffected by his conditions didn’t constantly exist in a state of bliss.

 

He almost wanted to cry from the relief. He walked a few steps and felt no impact, no jagged vibrations travelling up his legs and bounding against his spine. He twisted and turned without his torso roaring in protest. He touched his thumb to each finger on his right hand, and recognised the sensation in each one of them, all outrageously ordinary.

 

Yesterday had been a hard day. It had been a painful one. He’d had to kill a person, but he’d always considered that an eventuality as a hero. It’d been shocking, and he hadn’t enjoyed it, but he wouldn’t take it back if he could. It was necessary, and it was his burden to live with. 

 

There had been positives to yesterday, though. Maybe he didn’t truly understand what being a Soulbound warrior meant, and maybe he didn’t understand Seles, but he knew that he didn’t have to treat this as a curse. Being Soulbound could be an opportunity for him, a way to bring good into the world and improve the lives of others.

 

It had made him new companions already, helped him to save them—even if one left in the night.

 

Explaining that to Mist was difficult. She was utterly confused when she awoke as to ‘why in the hell’ Pelos would leave the way he did, and why anyone would let him do so. Peter tried to explain that it wasn’t like any of them were in a position to stop him, but he wasn’t entirely sure of that fact. 

 

Most likely, the only person who could didn’t have any interest in doing so.

 

He talked her down alone, Seles having been missing from the camp throughout the early morning. Peter had accepted that she simply liked to fuck off randomly at any given moment, and didn’t give too much thought as to why. He assumed she had her reasons. 

 

But he didn’t want to head out without her, and when an uneasy silence settled over both Peter and Mist, who still seemed rather annoyed at Pelos’ sudden decision to vanish, Peter began to realise just how terrible Mist looked in the light, her blonde hair dirty and matted, a cut across her cheek, various tears and frays in her clothing…

 

“You gonna be okay heading back to Bellstrow with us soon?” he asked, watching the hollow rise and fall of her chest as he sat across from her.

 

“I’ll be fine!” she said, her voice a fascimile of the energy she’d exhibited the night before. Peter wasn’t sure how she was keeping it together.

 

He went back to his grimoire, surprised to find that in the last hour or so, his last lesser soul had been pulled away, leaving him only with the six nascent souls. Now was as good a time as ever to see if soul splitting was doable. 

 

Wasting no time, Peter flicked back to the page that the herb conjuration was recorded on, and wordlessly, he paid the soul cost. He hadn’t even thought about the fact he wasn’t speaking; it had been instantaneous and he hadn’t been looking at the page.

 

As the herbs were conjured up before him, Mist turned towards him and stared, mouth agape. “Wh-what the hell are you—”

 

“I’ll show you,” it wasn’t long until Peter had finished fashioning a new set of herbs from his spell, and as soon as he did so, he tried to place the new herbs in Mist’s hands, causing her to flinch back. “Relax. It’s medicine. It’ll help you feel better.”

 

“Hmm…” Mist took the small flecks from Peter, raising an eyebrow as she stared at them. “How do they work?”

 

“Simple. You chew them up and swallow them. They’re not very tasty, though.”

 

“And this will make me feel better?”

 

“Definitely. They’re way better than I expected.”

 

“How did you even—”

 

“Seles taught me. It’s difficult to really explain, but I promise they work.”

 

Mist spent maybe another ten seconds staring at the innocuous little leaves before finally giving a pronounced shrug. “Alright, screw it.”

 

With that, she consumed the herbs, chewing on them vigorously. As soon as the taste hit her, she nearly spat them out, lurching forwards. 

 

“Argh… you trying to poison me?”

 

“Just swallow.”

 

“Ugh…” She carried on chewing through the leaves, looking like she was munching on an infinity pepper until finally swallowing, her face pained, cheeks red and eyes watering.

 

Then, in a span of seconds, she launched up to her feet, turning and swivelling in place, twisting her body. “Whoa…” A beat, and she started pacing back and forth excitedly. “These are incredible! I feel like I’m not gonna keel over and die anymore!”

 

Peter’s contentment was swiftly skewered. He frowned. “You really felt that bad?”

 

“Not anymore!” Mist grinned, moving her neck from side to side with a look of sheer bliss on her face. “You know how stiff you get being chained to a wall sixteen hours a day? I don’t feel perfect, but this is such an improvement on when I woke up. I thought you were gonna have to drag me to Bellstrow, or leave me in a ditch, or something.”

 

Peter continued to stare at her, not sure whether to be relieved or concerned. “Why’d you tell me you were fine, then?”

 

“Because it was easier. I’m okay now, though. Thank you for this.”

 

With that, Mist smiled, walking a full lap around the camp, clearly adjusting to actually being able to enjoy her freedom for the first time since she got out of that horrible manor.

 

She circled back round to him seconds later, a spring to her step. “We’re gonna go get you your hand back, okay?” She nodded to herself, enthusiasm clear. “I wanna help you. You’ve done a lot for me, and whatever we need to do to make you better, I wanna be there to support you. Let’s carry on supporting each other, and get back on our feet together, okay?”

 

She held out a hand to Peter, before swiftly retracting it and offering her right instead. 

 

Peter leaned in and accepted the shake. Her hand was rough and calloused. “Okay. Sounds good to me.”

 

From above, a hummingbird chirped.