We remain in the weed-ridden, thorny garden for a few minutes longer. She doesn’t ask me to, but since we’re both in this mess, I tell her about my conversation with Holly. During the entire thing, I feel like a kid confessing to stealing from the cookie jar. Of course, this is much more serious than that. What I said, what I did… Compared to everything else I’ve done, it’s less than a drop in the bucket, but since it now affects the both of us, it feels worse. Don’t I have a responsibility to keep her out of my mess? The way she looks at me, after I’ve finished saying everything… Yeah, I messed up. Royally.

I grit my teeth. I really should be looking her in the eyes while saying this. Looking down at the grass and the weeds like this is cowardly, but… I can’t. “I’m sorry,” I say, knowing I’ve said it too much already. Or maybe not enough? “I understand if you want to leave. I’m not sure I’ll go with you, but…”

“That was horrible!” she chastises.

I flinch. “Yeah, I know. I’m really—”

“She seriously said that? That she’d kill you if she could?”

…Huh?

I turn to look at her, squinting in confusion. “What?” But she looks serious, so she must be asking genuinely. Weird. “Well, sure, I guess. I don’t see how it matters, though. What I did…”

“Honestly, good on you for not retorting in kind. If someone told me that, I’d be fuming! Especially if it was someone I hardly know.” Crossing her arms, Rice huffs. “And all because some kid that she got all worked up was so scared of you she pissed herself? A kid you then proceeded to save?” She shakes her head, making her hair bob. “Horrible!”

My mouth is weirdly dry. I try to swallow, but can’t. “No, that is…” Haven’t I explained it right? Why doesn’t she understand? I deserve it. If anything, she went easy on me. At the tutournament… Rice didn’t understand why I was hated then, either. Everything went over her head. Is that happening again? Or is she blinded by her feelings for me? Why is she taking my side? I look down at the grass and the weeds and everything else beneath me. Easily, as easily as through flesh, one of my claws shears through the stem of a curly plant. It’s that easy. “You don’t get it,” I mutter. “You just don’t get it.”

A stray bit of wind strolls by, displacing the plant I killed. My hair gives a whip, and I tuck the strands that got loose back beneath my ear.

“Aw, geez,” Rice says, after a long pause. “You can’t seriously be agreeing with her?”

I twiddle a strand of hair between my thumb and forefinger. “Some of what she said was opinion, but the rest…”

“That the world would be better off without you?”

“Yeah.”

She visibly pales. “You… you think that’s true?”

Snip, and the strand of hair in my hand falls, brought away by a gust of wind. Gone, just like that. “A lot less people would be dead, that’s for sure.” A look of abject disgust passes across her face. Do I really need to explain myself on this? “Two cities would still be around, thousands of families left intact, and people like Simel, Coda, and…” His name gets stuck in my throat. “Heck, even my family would be happier. What did I ever bring them aside from negative publicity?”

“Do you really think that nobody is better off thanks to you?” she asks, her voice low enough to be brought away by the wind, too.

I look up. The sky is still gray. Heavy clouds hang down like wet velvet. Only a bit darker and it would rain. “If we put the lives I’ve made happier and the lives I’ve made worse on a scale…”

She smacks her hat against my chest. When I turn to look at her, I find that half of her face is covered by her windswept hair, all tumultuous. “There’s no scale,” she says. “There’s only yesterday, tomorrow, and now.” The wind shifts, and now I can see her eyes properly—clear, penetrating, and deeply, deeply sad. “Right now, you make me very happy.”

“You don’t look the part,” I mutter.

“But I am!” she says, puffing up. “Ever since the tournament, I’ve been waiting, all excited for the day you’d show up in purgatory. It’s a lonesome life, you know? Travelling all over the world… Exciting, yes. I’ve seen things and met people I never would have otherwise. But it leaves a hole in your heart.” She puts her hat back on, shadowing her face. “The second I saw the post in the forums that you’d been captured by the empire… I set out. There was nothing else for me.” Even hidden by the shadow, I can see her smile—light and true. “Although our journey has only just begun, you’ve already made me very happy, Prince. The thought that we’ll get to spend even more time like this, together… It makes the prospect of tomorrow a bright thing, no matter what weather might come.”

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

I sit up straighter and turn myself to face her fully.

Her smile falls. “Is that happiness worthless because you hurt someone else?”

The words churn in the pits of my skill, but whenever one bubbles to the top, I lose my grip on it. “I don’t know,” I say, finally. “It’s not like I didn’t hurt them.”

“You still made me happy.”

“I guess? And…” I remember Goss. Maybe Pain, too. Virgil, Lett… “I can’t say you’re the only one who’d say that, I suppose.” Her smile lights up the world. Infective as a viral disease, I mirror it, if only in part. “You don’t look too surprised.”

“I’m not,” she says, voice like silver bells. “I always knew I wasn’t alone.”

I feel my smile quiver. “Do you really have that much faith in me?”

“Of course I do. You’re my friend, aren’t you?”

Am I? Are we? Does she really see me as her friend? Her clear blue eyes disarm any suspicions and doubts I have.

“Yeah, I… I guess I am.” Without having to think much, I turn away from her, and back to the sky. The endless sheet of thick, gray clouds drifts by listlessly. Sure, it’s gray now, and it might be gray for a long time. It might even rain, and storm, and snow and hail. But, up there, above those clouds… No matter what… The sun will always remain. And one day, whether it be tomorrow or in a year, it will peek out, and everything will be okay again. Despite the gray. I return my gaze to Rice, still smiling. “Thanks, Rice. Knowing you believe in me… It means a lot.”

“Anytime.”

“But…” I prop my chin against my palm. “I don’t think I can fully see your side. Not yet, at least.”

She pats my shoulder. “It takes time to change your mind,” she says. “Don’t rush it. And if you can’t be patient with yourself, then you can trust that I will be.”

“Even when I insult your singing?”

“Don’t push your luck, kid.” Her grin mellows out into a more serious expression. “I can’t say I’ll always support everything you do, or that I’ll always take your side in things. If you hurt someone needlessly, or if you hurt me, I’ll tell you, and not always in the prettiest words. Depending on what you do, I might not forgive you even if you say sorry.”

“How cruel of you,” I say, but I’m only teasing. Knowing that she has limits is reassuring. That means I can trust her when she says that I’m not fully at fault.

“With Holly…” she continues, not replying to my tease, “I can’t say I know the context behind why she would act that way. Maybe she has a really good reason. However, what I can say is that nothing you’ve done warrants being murdered and sent downstream to rot. Say what you want on that subject, but that’s what I believe, and you can’t change my mind on it. Got it?”

“Got it,” I say. “You think Holly’s a meanie-poopy-pants, I think she has a point…”

“Agree to disagree?”

I rub my chin. “Agree to disagree.” Then, I look back at the garden. “I should probably get started on this. If I finish de-weeding everything now, I’ll be able to ask the goddess about the rest tomorrow morning. Assuming I don’t get killed by ghosts in the middle of the night.”

“Of course,” Rice says, her gaze following mine to look at the garden. “Anything I can do to help?”

“You would…?” Huh. Why didn’t I think of that? The idea that she could help me with the garden didn’t even pass my mind. “You really don’t have to. It’s my ledge, so… I guess… Then again, I didn’t even ask the goddess if I could get help. But, surely, it must be allowed. Though, I can’t see why you would want to…”

She shrugs. “I’ve got nothing better to do,” she says. “Might as well help out a friend, right?”

“That’s true,” I say. “Things tend to be more fun if you do them together.” We share a smile, and I rise to my feet. Leaning down, I hold out a hand to her. She takes it, and I pull her to her feet. The garden stretches before us. It’s far from large, nothing like the park-sized gardens that speckled the city, but it’s still large enough to give me pause. Where does one begin? Wherever you look, grass and weeds reach at least two or three feet tall. In some places, bushes and trees that might at one point have been decorative now stand as monstrous heralds of the garden’s past glories. Mangled branches jutting out in every direction, bushes transformed into massive all-shading hulks, the odd dead tree or branch here and there…

The only thing the garden has that feels purposefully placed is a large tree in the centre, easily overshadowing the height of the trees in the forest around us. It actually seems to be a wholly different species, making its placement feel deliberate. The trunk is thick, twisting in odd ways and large enough to leave the mansion in shade. That is, had it had any leaves to speak of. I know it’s almost autumn and everything, but no other tree is even starting to go yellow, much less totally bare. Maybe this tree is a nudist?

I walk closer to it, Rice following. When I touch a hand to the trunk of the tree, a bit of bark comes loose. Apparently, it’s far less sturdy than I had hoped. The actual wood inside doesn’t have too much give though, so it isn’t doing that badly.

“Look, Prince! Thiefhands!”

Looking down, I find Rice sitting squat beside the trunk, pointing at what looks like a thin red hand emerging from between the roots. I’m almost startled, but the smell is wrong. So, instead, I hunch down next to her. Sniff sniff sniff. “This is…?”

She plucks the hand from where it was. “Delicious!” she says, waving the hand back and forth. Though, now that she’s moving it a bit, it appears very wobbly, kind of like… “A mushroom?”

“Yep! They’re parasitic, and make for an excellent soup base.”

“Parasitic…” I echo, my eyes moving up the tree. A few of the branches have snapped off here and there. Hmm. If it werent for that, it would have made an excellent tree. The size would be perfect for a rope swing or two. With a swing… Even Lett could play out here. And if the other kids play and swing together with him, they could all become friends! It’s a really good tree for swinging; it’s so tall that the kids would easily be able to swing right into one of the upper floor windows—not that we should encourage something like that. “It’s a nice tree,” I mumble.

“More thiefhands! Hehehe, jackpot…!” Rice says as she continues picking mushrooms.

Oh, yeah, that reminds me, isn’t it about time for lunch?

<11:43:20

Day 1 394>

16:12:17:40>

Yep, is certainly is about time. “Rice, how about we wait with the gardening until after lunch?”

“Hm? Oh, sure! Will you start the fire while I gather the rest of these? We’re about to eat like kings!”

“No problem,” I say. The most fireproof spot in the garden would be… Over here, I guess? Not much weeds, mainly barren group… Yep, suitable. As I set up the fire, pulling firewood and protective rocks from my inventory, I take the time to do the math on the amount of days I’ve been here. One thousand, three hundred and ninety-four… So, almost four years, huh? If I’m counting correctly, it should be mid-October now, which tracks.

…I really have been here for a while, huh?