Emma’s mind was foggy. She wasn’t quite sure why her mind was foggy, at least not immediately, but she dreaded finding out, even as her weary mind started to assemble the pieces of what had happened. At first, her dread was born from a fear that she had never found Oliver, that it was all simply a dream and that she had fallen and hit her head because of starvation or something. Then, as her mind started to wake up properly, she began to feel a very real sense of nostalgia for the good old days when she was only lost. Because being alone in a gigantic forest, with either animals or weather harsh enough to damage those huge trees, all while starving and knowing that she would die, was by far preferable to her best friend probably being dead.

Emma sat up slowly, hearing the ever-present rustle of leaves closer to her than normal as they drifted down around her and fell from her body in an avalanche. For a moment she wished that it was Olivers' doing, that he had landed on a branch just below theirs and come back to cover her in leaves while she was out. But she couldn’t. She wasn’t Oliver, no matter how much she wished she could be in his place at the moment, wherever that was, she just didn’t have his stupid, endless ability to hope. What she wouldn’t give to have that hope for just a moment, to be able to convince herself that he was alive for just an instant, even if her hope would only melt like a child's hope for their snowman to survive melted before the harsh glare of the sun. Melt and sink down into the earth deep, deep below, where no one would ever see the snowman again.

“Why didn’t you let me help him?” Emma growled out, her voice hoarse, and her throat probably burning, even if she couldn’t feel it at the moment.

“Do you really think you could have helped Oliver even if I didn’t hold you back?” Aelin asked softly, his voice, while not holding a sliver of pity or sympathy, was smooth and velvety like never before. It seemed he finally stopped grinding out his words, almost like he had for once found a conversation he felt was worth having.

There was a long stretch of silence as neither of them spoke. Emma heard him softly blowing air, before the soft crackle of a new fire started to sound between the falling leaves. Emma didn’t really need to think about her answer. She knew from before she even asked her own question that he, as the clearly most ‘realistic’ person would ask her that question. She also knew her own answer before she even asked her own question, and she knew it was an answer that proved him right. So, all she truly needed was a moment to tamp her anger down from a vicious fury into quiet frustration.

“No, of course I don’t think so, I know I would have just died with him, I'm not Oliver... I can recognize a hopeless situation” she said her own voice soft now as she opened her eyes and looked to where Aelin sat. Oliver’s undershirt was tied around his savagely broken shin, clearly visible as he sat with his leg stretched out in front of him, a fire slowly sparking to life to his side. “But I would have still tried to help him, even if I would have died trying, even if it was more like throwing myself in the path of a mountain headed for him than a knife. I know it isn’t particularly smart, or whatever, but... You don’t leave friends to stand alone. Not against a mouse, not against a mountain” She continued to speak, a stubbornness in her voice.

They drifted into silence again after that. At least, Emma was largely sure they were silent after that, though there was a real chance that she wouldn’t notice even if he spoke to her. She was far too busy thinking over all the stupid mistakes she made that got Oliver killed. Like letting yet another argument between Oliver and one of their friends escalate until Aelin walked away just before Oliver figured out that the beast was there. This meant that if she just kept calm for once in her life and didn’t spark another inferno of a fight by inserting herself in his battles, then he wouldn’t have died. Or if she had just remembered for a moment who Oliver was, then she wouldn’t have let him use her tiredness to make her look away when he was obviously going to do something stupid. Or if she ha-

“I would like to ask a question about your world, if you don’t mind,” Aelin said, his voice still soft.

“Why didn’t you ask Oliver?” Emma responded.

“I would have, but I was afraid Oliver might take me asking him something as an invitation for more talking. And as useless as Oliver was when it came to survival, I didn’t want him to die from the lack of air more talking would have resulted in”

“Good to hear that my dead friend had such stellar company before he died” Emma snapped, glaring at him for a moment as the embers of frustration she had tried to stamp out erupted in a raging storm inside her for a moment. But only for a moment. Seconds later she sank in on herself, the fire gone with nothing left to fuel it, a hollow husk, its insides burned away, filled with nothing but melancholy left to fill it.

“Was he really that bad?” Emma asked, even though she wasn’t sure why.

“Oliver Antonova talked more than any proper hunter I have met,” Aelin said, slightly defensive.

“Well, aren’t ‘proper hunters’ supposed to be silent at almost all times?” Emma asked with a raised eyebrow.

“He had two weeks to learn from my example, and yet he didn’t become silent in the slightest. Secondly, we are losing the trail of this conversation” Aelin said.

“Fine, fine, so, what did you want to ask about? You know, other than how useless our dead friend who sacrificed himself for us was” Emma asked.

“What, by all the fragments and all the spirits, was your world like to create this devotion to friendship in both of you? I understand wanting to save each other at any cost, you’re clearly close, but you sacrificed a weapon and your safety for me, a stranger, just earlier today... there is just no reason” Aelin said.

He sounded honestly confused at the concept of helping strangers, something so weird that it drew out a pained chuckle from Emma as she leaned forwards to the fire. She was entranced by its twisting flames for a moment as she thought of how to answer Aelin’s question, before looking at Aelin again.

“Well, you weren't a stranger, were you? I saw you at the beginning of our little run, you could have left us behind, but apparently, Oliver had already infected you at that point, and you didn’t. I’m not as good a person as Oliver was, not even close. He, based on what I managed to staple together from the two versions of your meeting I've heard, took a literal leap of faith to save you when you were nothing but strangers. A viciously sarcastic stranger at that. I’m not that amazing, I just help my friends” she said.

Her eyes fell to the fire once more, as the endless supply of dried leaves burned brightly to set the branches Aelin had scavenged within arm's reach on fire. She was lost in thought as she remembered all the times when Oliver helped people for no other reason than that he could, and sometimes even when he couldn’t. Aelin was right when he called him an idiot. What kind of person just offered to help someone move when he overhears that they were stood up by their friends? On a school day, too.

“But, well, when someone risks their life to help me save my best friend, they’re a friend too, even if I am furious with you for choking me out and preventing me from helping Oliver,” she said, glaring at him at the end.

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They sat around the fire for some time, simply being there for each other even though the tension and grief which hung heavy around them. It was like a cold mist leaching the warmth and safety of the fire before it reached them, like grasping hands of fog stealing the light and hope from the air. Emma didn’t know if Aelin felt the same, he had, after all, only known Oliver for a week, so it was hard to guess if he felt the same hollow anger as her. A strange feeling, truly, because she was furious at the world for not just giving Oliver what he wanted just once, namely a world which cared for its inhabitants, even though she knew it not to be wishful thinking. But even if he felt nothing near the same level of anguish as her, because how could he when Oliver was like a brother to her, she doubted that anyone could see that spectacularly good fool die without feeling something.

She faintly felt the tears on her cheeks as she stared into the fire, reminiscing about the days before the system, and slowly coming to a decision in her mind.

“Oliver said that elves heal quickly, so how long will it take for your leg to heal?” Emma asked.

“Five days, or somewhere near that, but I will be able to move back to camp and hunt tomorrow as long as you find a suitable stick to use as a crutch, and some to make a splint” He glanced down at his leg “or if you find it within yourself to help the terrible person who prevented you from committing suicide by way of a giant beast, then a splint for the night would be good”

“Sounds doable, oh, and just so you know, after we get back to camp and pick up whatever you were working on and Garmark, we are going down to find Oliver and confirm that he’s dead” Emma said as she stood to go find branches for a splint.

“What? Why? We saw him fall from the branch, no one could possibly survive a fall from that height, we agreed that he was dead, why would we go down into the darkness of the below for a corpse!” Aelin yelled, exasperated more than anything, which, in the light of him being stuck with Oliver for two weeks, alone, just after meeting him, and in a place where dangerous situations abound, is fair. Even Emma had to adjust for some time to Oliver and the frustrating experience he could be after he came back from his cabin trip, which was understandable, given what happened.

“yeah, I know, but, well, I can’t leave a friend behind if there is even the slightest chance that they might be alive, especially not Oliver” Emma said with a sigh, knowing that what she asked was slightly unreasonable.

“Well then lucky us, because if that’s your code then we don’t have to look for him, because there isn’t the slightest chance that he might be alive” Aelin bit out.

“Probably not, but I just- I just need to try, okay? I need to make sure that I'm not the kind of person who leaves behind a person I care about when they need me” Emma pled, her voice desperate, not for Oliver to be alive, she had already accepted that he was dead, even if she had not, and probably would not, move on. No, she was desperate to be sure that she had never, and would never abandon someone in need when they thought they could count on her, she was desperate to never be like her brother.

She looked into Aelin's eyes intently for a moment, staring to see even a flicker of understanding for what every strand of who she was called for, what every part of her needed.

“Oliver was right. The system does give us hints in its stupid explanation texts. Only that when it warned Oliver of humanity's history of zealous mad men, he was nothing but a way to pass on that particular warning to me, who has to deal with all you human morons” Aelin said, before lying down to sleep, something Emma took as a tentative yes.

Three days after Oliver’s fall, Emma found herself patiently sitting on a branch around the height Aelin’s head, waiting patiently for him to finish whatever he was making.

“So, I was wondering if you wanted to go before or after Oliver rotted into a skeleton, because while I would be scared by seeing Oliver’s corpse, I also think it defeats the purpose of going down to check if he survived the fall if we wait a couple of decades” Emma said, her tone clearly patient no matter what anyone might claim.

Aelin didn’t even look up from where he sat, carving at a long piece of wood as he slowly whittled the straight branch the width of Emma’s thigh into a single long stick with her splinter. He had been doing so for days now, his calloused hands blistered as he worked furiously at his project, a fact which did not help with the guilt she felt for hurrying him.

“You know, at some point, you will need to settle on whether he is or isn’t dead. You keep saying that you know he is dead, but then talk about him like he is pinned in a chasm, waiting for us to save him like some damsel” Aelin said, ignoring her complaints just as thoroughly as he had been for the last couple of days.

“Fine, how about a compromise? We agree he’s dead, but that a group of cannibals are going to eat him, meaning we still need to save him” Emma suggested “and, if you need it, we can imagine that the cannibals dressed his corpse like a princess beforehand” she said, a slight smirk playing on her lips before she began pacing behind Aelin.

“you’re surprisingly comfortable joking about your friend's corpse, I wouldn’t have guessed that given your violent reaction to his fall,” Aelin said.

“I wouldn’t call it violent,” Emma said.

Aelin paused momentarily before continuing his work with the wood even as he spoke again “You’re right, why would I call it violent when all you did was punch a man with a broken limb as he lay sleeping for nothing more than having a slight connection to what happened”

“Hey, it’s not like I punched you in the back of the head with everything I had, I gave you a jab to the shoulder to wake you up, maybe a bit harder than intended with my new stats. But you still curled in on yourself like a dead spider. Conclusion? Not my fault you’re weak” Emma said, her slight blush bright against her pale skin as she tried to defend herself “and besides, we don’t know he’s dead, so it’s all just speculation at this point”

“I thought we agreed that he was dead”

“Oh, he is, one hundred percent, no one can survive that, but we can’t be certain until we see the body, so, here we are, going on an expedition to look for it... well, we would be” Emma said.

“And as I explained to you yesterday and the day before and an hour ago, we need the rope and weapon I am making if we want to go down with any form of speed. The rope will let us avoid wandering away from the area Oliver fell in, and the bow will let us hunt far more effectively, meaning we don’t have to spend hours every day doing so” Aelin said, sighing as he continued to work as he explained once more.

Emma paused for a moment before slumping down next to him, sighing as she massaged her tired eyes. There was a reason she was up before Aelin a couple of days ago, and that reason was mostly her new inability to sleep, a development that was just wonderful for staying alive in a death forest.

“I’m sorry. I know I've been Annoying the last couple of days, and, well, I think I have a bit of an excuse for that, but it's not fair that you are taking all the heat for it. It’s just... I'm stuck, stuck between either seeing his corpse, dead on the ground, and just so still in a way he’s not supposed to be, you know? His body mangled and barely recognisable, and- and just so dead” there was a lump in her throat, and she honestly wouldn’t have been surprised if it was Oliver’s fingerbone, stuck there by some curse “And then, when I finally deal with that, you know, as much as I can, he’s not dead anymore, no, he’s suddenly alive and waiting for us, in absolute agony, but waiting and waiting, and we aren't on our way. And he is just helplessly lying there, trusting us to find him, because, well, it’s Oliver, but we aren’t coming, so he just dies, alone, while thinking that we’re right around the corner and it’s his fault for not hanging on, even though it's all my fault for not saving him in the first place, and... I'm just- I'm just not dealing with this super well” Emma said, half surprised that Oliver’s eye didn’t erupt from her throat to stare her with that damned endless hope and trust of his as she forced the last words out and she drew her knees to her chest.

Aelin had stopped his movements along the wood as they sat in silence, Emma noticed distantly, but she didn’t note anything beyond that as she stared into the forest. She never had the opportunity to talk to Oliver about this place, but she could only imagine how beautiful it was to him. Emma almost flinched in surprise when Aelin’s arm fell around her shoulders, but swiftly disregarded the impulse. He didn’t say anything, just sitting with her for a quiet moment as they gazed at the ever-fall forest and its swirling leaves and singing birds, at the constantly shifting light that gave the forest a golden glow. A short time later, he returned to working on his bow. It wasn’t a long moment, and while it wasn’t perfect, it was good. And perhaps, at that moment, when the largest part of her life had been torn away, she didn’t want anything perfect, but something good enough to comfort.