“Raea exploded?” Sally asked Palan as the trio watched Elrith subdue Raea. Although Raea’s flames were nullified by Elrith’s power, the raindrops still sizzled when they made contact with the storage chest. A nearby soldier managed to placate the elephant, and Michael had ordered the army to look in the other direction while Elrith sorted things out.

“Obviously,” Cleo answered before Palan could speak. “She was like a dormant fire-mountain. Any little thing could’ve set her off.” She looked at Palan. “What did you do though? She seemed really determined to kill you.”

Palan shrugged and raised an eyebrow as Elrith was tossed into the air. Raea screamed something at him before starting to run away. Palan let out a sigh and climbed off the elephant before running after her while maintaining his distance. He was going to give her space, but not at the cost of her doing something stupid and dying. Didn’t she care about the promotion? Would she still get one after running away like this? He ignored Elrith’s stunned look as he passed the general who was lying on the ground, looking up at the sky while rain fell on his face.

The ground was wet, and Palan left deep footprints in the mud as he ran through fields of crops, following after the trail Raea created. He wasn’t sure where she was going because the only thing around them was grain. Lots and lots of grain. It reminded him of the desert—an endless expanse of yellow. He almost expected a sandstorm to appear over the horizon.

Raea continued to run for over an hour until she finally stopped by a house with two floors. The land around it was bare and brown, but the crop fields could be seen in the distance. Palan stepped out of the fields and entered the empty area but not approaching Raea. His muscles burned, and his vision was blurred. He was breathing heavily through his nose while sweat poured down his body, but he tried to keep his expression neutral. Running for an hour while overdrafted was no joke. If Raea chose to keep running, he probably would’ve collapsed and been unable to continue.

A flapping sound caught his attention, and a scream echoed through the air as Cleo and Sally fell from the sky. The two halflings landed behind Raea, splattering mud everywhere. “I told you to stop pulling those feathers!” Sally said as she shook herself off and sat up.

“I slipped!” Cleo said and spat out a mouthful of mud. “It’s not my fault you’re slippery when wet.” She froze when she realized Raea was staring at them. She cleared her throat and began to whistle while looking the other way.

“Why did you follow me?” Raea asked, directing her question mostly to Palan even though she was facing the trio. Her voice was trembling, but her gaze was firm. Palan didn’t respond because he was still trying to catch his breath. “Didn’t I tell you to leave me alone? Why can’t you just leave me alone? You never listen!” She stomped her foot, creating a miniature crater in the ground. The mud splashed onto Sally, but she didn’t say anything. “Why did you put her in the storage chest? Why did you know the demon who killed her!? Why!? Why?” Tears flowed from Raea’s eyes. She gritted her teeth and fell to her knees. “Why…?” Her elbows touched the ground as she hunched over and buried her face into her hands.

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Palan frowned and crossed his arms over his chest out of habit. The last time she grieved was when he killed her subordinates with poison, and she got over that pretty quickly. It only took around a day really. So why was she so unreasonable this time? “Why is she crying?” he asked Cleo. The lizardman was pacing back and forth, wanting to hold Raea, but at the same time afraid to touch her.

“Huh?” Cleo stopped moving and stared at Palan. “Is that a serious question?” Palan nodded. Cleo scratched her head. “You’re serious,” she said. “Okay. You’ve felt pain before, right?”

“Obviously.”

“So what happens when the pain you feel is too much to bear? You cry, right?” Cleo asked.

Palan grimaced as he thought back to his childhood. He cried many times while his mother flayed the skin off of his back with a whip that had cactus thorns embedded in it. “Sure,” he said.

“There you go,” Cleo said and pointed at Raea. “She’s in more pain than she can handle. That’s why she’s crying, you blockhead.”

“But why is she in pain?” Palan asked.

Cleo blinked and looked at Sally. “You take over,” she said and sighed. Cleo shook her head and pulled a tent out of her space. She started to set it up around Raea.

“She’s in pain because it hurts when someone you love dies,” Sally said. “Hasn’t that ever happened to you? Maybe a family member. Or a pet?”

“No,” Palan said. “But I’ve seen people cry.” He still remembered the sounds his dad made when his mom died. It brought him a lot of joy at the time. Maybe that’s why Andrea always made him happy to see her. “It only takes a day for them to stop.” Even the last time Raea had grieved, she only took around a day to get better. “She even avenged Selena. What more does she want?”

Sally furrowed her brow and pursed her lips. “Avenging someone doesn’t bring them back,” she said. “I would know. Until it happens to you, I don’t think you’d be able to understand what it feels like to lose a loved one.” She sighed and smoothed out her feathers while looking up at the sky. The rain poured down her face, making it look like she was crying. “When you lose that person who has been there your whole life, helping you, protecting you, doing everything to make you happy, the world just isn’t the same. It loses its color. The surroundings become dull, and the things that made you smile don’t make you feel anything anymore. Grief hurts. It tightens around your chest and bites behind your eyes. It sticks needles up your nose and pulls on your stomach.” Sally paused and sniffled. “Raea’s world has lost its color. It takes more than a day for it to come back. It can take years.” A wry smile formed on her lips. “For some people, it never does.”

Palan was silent as he digested Sally’s words. The only sound that could be heard was the rain and Raea’s soft sobs. A door creaked. A young angel appeared at the doorway to the two-story house. His expression froze when he saw Palan, and he quickly shut the door. Palan heard a childish voice shout from inside the house. “There’s a demon outside the house, Grandma.”