Chapter Forty Five

Carza couldn't tell how long she rocked back and forth with Hull clutched to her, eyes staring dead ahead, unblinking, unseeing... something was tearing inside her. Something was breaking. Regrets were filling her up from head to toe, a cold wave that suppressed even the omnipresent gnawing for survival. It couldn't have been longer than a minute, perhaps. But it felt like an age. Like the world outside the cave was... nothing, now. Changed. The mountains had eroded to dust, no-one thought of glass-skinned monsters who danced on the peaks, and her home had faded from all memory. It was comforting, that thought. That she had been able to hold Hull to her for a hundred thousand years with not a single interruption. Couldn't say why it comforted her... but here she was. Her thoughts had crashed to a halt when he was impaled. The wounds were fatal. She recognised that. And once she had that conclusion, all the others felt pale and insubstantial. All other trains of thought ended at the same concluding station - that Hull was dying in her arms. And she could feel his pulse beneath her fingers, could feel his blood slowly leaving him, could feel him growing colder and colder. Soon enough he'd be indistinguishable from the snow-chilled stone all around them.

"Carza..."

His voice was weak. So very, very weak. Rasping.

"Water."

She moved faster than she thought possible. Blood was staining her front, and she barely noticed it. Water, water... canteen. As frigid as ice, now. She poured a few drops over bloodstained lips, and watched with wide eyes as Hull slowly revived a little. Of course he was feeling thirsty. He was bleeding, he was losing all the water in his body. And now his body was... was trying to replenish it. She had a sudden image of workers in a factory, working and working and working at the same assembly line... but the trains had stopped. The resources were still coming, but no-one was taking the finished products, and all the managers had vanished. No-one was coming to relieve them. No orders to stand down would ever arrive. And so they kept working, and piles and piles and piles of useless junk kept rising... some resources ran out, specialist ones, and the line slowed to a halt, junk piling up so very high... high enough to match the mountains, before it all came crashing down. She was looking at a broken assembly line, segments still whirring away, but the rest... the overall purpose...

Lost.

He wanted water, and he was bleeding from a wound so deep that she could see his heart through it. His lung was punctured by a tusk. A tusk longer than her forearm...

"Hull, are you..."

Was he alright? Stupid question. Of course he wasn't.

"...actually, a bit... bit numb. Hard to feel anything."

She smiled weakly, and brushed some of his hair out of his face. Founder, he was so very pale...

"I'll stay. Please, just... hang on, I can…"

She had painkillers. She had antibiotics. She had all sorts of wonderful things to help heal him... all sorts. There were bandages in her pack, and... and a little alcohol, enough to maybe sterilise some of his injuries... she wondered what would happen if she splashed alcohol onto the surface of his heart. Would he start circulating alcohol through his blood? Would she just get him ludicrously drunk? Fatally drunk, maybe? She started rummaging around with one hand, the other remained locked on Hull. Just to remind herself that there was still some warmth in him, there was something she could try and save. The gnawing in her stomach was back, and it inspired a kind of... stubbornness. An unwillingness to let him go. Maybe the gnawing was greed. Possessiveness. A desire to not be alone - it wanted her to be warm, safe, happy, and accompanied. She needed Hull with her. She simply did.

"...I... I have some painkillers, maybe-"

"Shush."

Hull groaned, and settled down a little more.

"...save for yourself. Can't feel anything... anyway..."

He breath was barely audible now, and Carza had to restrain a small sob.

"Just hold on. Alright? I can-"

"Carza."

His voice had a deceptive certainty to it.

"Won't be... long before others come. Get moving."

Carza stared at him.

"Go. Leave me with the bomb. I'll make a distraction in here, should get some-"

Carza slapped him. Softly. But the feeling behind it... her voice had descended to a half-feral growl now, and her eyes burned.

"Shut up. We're both leaving, Mr va Trochi, and I'll have no argument on the subject. Am I understood?"

Hull blinked. Good enough. And Carza set to work. Her brain was moving with confidence, every train was moving to its station, everything was operating like it should. First - the body. Still dead. Good. Second - the outside world. Cold. They had coats. They'd be fine. But the issue was the other creatures. Still had no damn idea what they were, really... and the idea that other intelligent species besides humans lived in the world was... eerie, she had to admit. Groundbreaking, maybe. If anyone would believe her - believe them. So... how to leave. Well, the hunting party was probably gone. So they might have a window. The Female had come alone, marked them out... wait. Idea. They'd been marked with her scent, hadn't they? She moved for the body, grabbing the smaller arms. Undamaged. Their struggle had been... terrifyingly close, she realised. Far too close for comfort. A single errant swipe, and she'd have been torn apart. The entire fight had lasted... maybe a minute, she thought. And the wounds...

Only one had made a difference.

The others had just been scrapes. Seemed deep, but it was mostly just blood - the flesh was fairly unblemished, beyond a light groove here or there. Painful, sure, but not deadly. Not likely to be deadly, at least... the last shot had done the creature in.

Six shots. Four wounds. One miss. And only one bullet worth a damn.

She grabbed one of the smaller arms, and winced. Stank of perfume, the same stuff covering the mountains. Just wanted to be sure. With a painful grimace on her face, she wiped the hand over her face and shoulders, around her neck... she'd read about people applying perfume, this seemed like the way they'd do it. Hull groaned as she brought him over a little - the body was far too big for her to move. She stopped the first time he groaned, and he muttered that 'if she was doing this, get it over with'. He didn't sound irritated, just... sleepy. That was somehow worse. He did, at least, seemed to revitalise a little as she painted him with some more of the scent. Both of them now smelled wonderful. And more importantly, they smelled local. Maybe it'd do something. But... anyway.

Next, she had the flask with gunpowder. Carefully, she started to tear off strips of cloth from a handkerchief, tying them together into a long string. Not perfect, but... nuts, nuts, Hull was still bleeding. She abandoned her efforts, tried to bandage him up a little. He grunted, and remained still. Breathing slower. Running out of time. She worked faster, much, much faster, almost clumsily... more string for the bomb. Soaked in a little alcohol, just enough to keep the flame going. Finally, she looked around, scanning the room for anything to rest the bomb on... if it fell over, if the powder spilled out, if the fuse went dark... hm. The ground was wet. Uneven. Not a good place. But... there was one place in the room where she could anchor it, and it was far enough off the floor to be immune to damp... slowly, and with a sense of spiteful retribution, she wedged the bomb into the creature's corpse - into the brain case, wincing as parts of its grey-blue brain spilled out like clumps of porridge. But it'd anchor it, keep it secure. Elevated, too, so... anyway.

And then began the work.

"Come on."

All she said before bracing herself, and heaving Hull up. Founder, he felt... he felt so light, and cold. He'd lost so much blood already... the bandages weren't even that soaked, his blood had been so reduced that there wasn't much to leak out any more. Barely enough to keep him going. With the fuse in one hand, and Hull draped over her thin, shaking frame... she began to move. The first step was difficult. The second was worse. But the gnawing in her stomach was a hot brand, it demanded she keep going. Her voice became a snarl again, this time directed at herself - encouraging her to go on, to keep moving, to march. One, two, three, four... step after step after step. The cold intensified as they left the cave, and the scent of perfume weakened, just a little. The corpse was left behind, the darkness of the cave vanished... and all that remained was the dark of the outside world.

The mountains loomed, invisible in the night, quite possibly swarming with these creatures. They were in the belly of the beast, their likelihood of survival was... depressingly low. Hull's pack dropped into the snow. She couldn't carry both him and it. And...

"Anything-"

"Keep moving."

She'd wanted to ask if he wanted her to salvage something, but... well. Here she went. Her legs bored deep holes into the snow - too weighed down. Her breath came in desperate stops and starts, her muscles burned... and Hull felt colder. Much colder. Almost as cold as the snow which still rained down in fat flakes, tickling her cheeks, making her think that something had found them. The fuse in her hands ran by with distressing slowness. Barely making any progress, and Hull was slumped over, barely breathing at all... she intended to burn the fuse when it was right at its end, but... they were going so slowly... come on, just a few more steps. Then a few more. Then a few more. Their journey was just a litany of 'a few more steps', if she focused on smaller, achievable goals like 'not falling over', she might be able to get through to something unattainable, like... surviving. Or reaching the other side. Going back was suicide, there was a village, sure, but they'd have to go through a small army of these things. They couldn't really outrun them when they were healthy, and now... both were exhausted, cold, and one of them was dying.

Not dying.

He was going to be alright.

She wasn't losing someone else.

She wasn't going to be alone.

"Carza..."

His voice was barely audible over the wind. Good. No chance of the creatures hearing them.

"Hm?"

"...sorry."

She scowled imperiously, even as she felt her heart freezing up.

"You should be. Idiot. Should've avoided those tusks. You're bigger than me, you could've hauled me through the snow no problem. Instead, here we are. If you act like this in the future, I'm going to be very angry."

"...necessary."

"It wasn't."

"That... thing was strong. Stronger than us. Not easy to kill. Best tactic... one-two punch. One distracts. Other shoots. Wouldn't... wouldn't expect one of us to... to do that."

"To get impaled."

"...yeah. That. Knew you'd object."

"Of course I would. It was a stupid idea."

"...worked."

"Shut up."

If he was talking, he wasn't falling asleep. If he wasn't falling asleep, he was still alive. He could recover, she told herself over and over again. He could get better, he could heal. Just... needed to keep moving. The fuse between her fingers became more ragged... reaching the end. Not many matches left. They were navigating based on the towering shadows of the mountains, the dim light of the moon... nothing more. Stumbling through the snow, and... how far were they from the other side? The snow was bad, yes, but it was middle of the night, and... maybe they were still in the middle of the pass. Hard to say how far the creature had carried them... it didn't feel like much, but the creature took massive strides and had been moving very quickly indeed... it could've moved a monstrous distance... her match flared, and for a second she saw the mountains, the gleaming peaks, the glittering snow... featureless wilderness.

And no creatures.

No hesitation. The fuse was lit, and she let the flame properly catch. The alcohol fuelled it, let it sustain itself even in the cold and the snow. The string was thin enough that the flame became a small orange bead, weaving along a path behind them, into the darkness of the cave, downwards, downwards, to a metal flask embedded in a brain case. It was risky, doing this. Might attract more attention... but if it did, it might just lead the creatures to the cave, where they might try to rescue their kinswoman, or maybe they'd rejoice in her death... but the rubble would be enough. They were soaked in the scent of these creatures anyway, so they might be harder to track... it was desperate. But they needed another distraction. She staggered along desperately, Hull's feet dragging on the ground and only occasionally moving on their own accord - twitches which would've barely registered to anyone besides Carza, who was marking any movement from Hull. Anything to show he was still living. That he could recover.

She put any thoughts out of her mind that related to him dying.

He wasn't going to die.

The explosion was barely audible... just a shudder. A quiver in the earth. Best case scenario, the creatures would come, find the rubble, the dust, the dead creature, and would think that all three of them had died together. No distinctly human scent to track, after all... and they were far enough away. Maybe. Hopefully. Founder, she needed to just... keep moving, to keep... the snow was piling up around her knees now, and she could feel sweat streaming down her face and mixing with the dried tears, body working overtime to just keep on going. The frozen moistness of her breath clung to her cheeks, and she kept talking, watching the air fan out before her in steamy, milk-white mist.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Stay awake. Please."

"...trying..."

"...think about it, the two of us, sole survivors of a disastrous expedition... that's heroic, isn't it? That's the sort of thing we could carry for the rest of our lives."

"...sure…"

His voice was weaker. Much weaker. She'd used all the alcohol on the fuse, or she'd have given him... no, no, stupid idea, that'd just make him feel warmer while his insides went cold as ice, black as gangrene. Her feet were numb now, and her fingers felt like someone else's - like the creatures had attached fingers to her hand, and while she could control them, she couldn't feel them - and each motion made her wonder who else was here. The mountains were silent but for the howling of wind. They ought to build a fire, rest... no, resting here would mean sleeping, sleeping here would mean never waking up. Had to keep on going. The night was thick, but... but the moon was flitting across the sky, and it was a little lower. Morning might come soon, and if it did... they'd be alright. If they could see the sun, they'd be alright. Numbness was climbing through her whole body now, and the sweat on her face was beginning to freeze a little. A smack cracked it off, sending it to the ground in cloudy shards. Her face felt nothing from the contact, and her fingers didn't either - the numbness endured through all things. The snow was powder-thin, but layered thick and high... she could wade through it easily, it crumbled at the slightest touch, but there was just... just so much, and each touch would melt a little, the water would pool in her trousers... soak through the leather of her boots and into her socks...

No feeling in her toes now.

"Stay awake."

For herself as much as for Hull.

The stars wheeled above, and Carza's eyes remained locked ahead, certain and unwavering. If something came for them, it'd damn well come and nothing would stop it. So all that mattered was the road ahead. Road? No road. Not even a path. Just a wide pass, the edges concealed in shadow and falling flakes, with maybe no end at all. Maybe the pass became a labyrinth. Maybe the 'pass' was just the entryway to a great system of canyons and valleys, deeper and deeper in the mountains. Maybe the creatures had built a city of ice here, or of dark stone like the statue, scented deeply. She still reeked of them. Of every spice in the world muddled together in a way that wasn't... totally unpleasing. Made her feel hungry. Hadn't eaten in a bit. Hull hadn't either.

"We should... eat before we-"

"Keep moving. Don't waste food on me."

The second she suggested stopping, his voice became stronger. What, was that it? Was his impulse to sacrifice himself making him tougher, did it revive him? Fill him with determination? She wanted to spite him. Wanted him to live, didn't give a damn about his martyr complex, he was going to make it. They were friends, they were good friends, he was her first friend, really... they went out here together, and four people had died getting them this far, they were not going to end this journey any way but together. He was so very cold, and she couldn't tell if that was just the snow, or... or something else.

"How are you feeling, Hull?"

"Numb. Should let me go. Feels warm now."

"Shut up. I'm not indulging you."

"...Carza, just... don't make this all pointless. Keep going."

"I will. And you're coming with me."

He was silent. And she kept on walking. No idea how long. Just... kept going. Murmuring to herself. To Hull. Rambling. Saying nothing of importance. Sometimes she just started talking about cultures she found interesting, at least in books. At one point she summarised the entire plot of a massive series of bad pulp novels she'd had a juvenile interest in years and years ago... remembered all of it. Every single plot point and character arc. Hull listened - well, he hummed. She kept prodding him, after all. Wouldn't let him be silent. Her chattering was soothing, but it made her mouth and teeth ache from the cold, and sometimes she had to stop just to catch her breath again. But she felt... felt like they were going downhill. It was hard to tell, with the snow masking everything, but... the general gradient was down. Her rambling became more fevered, and she realised that her entire body now felt like her fingers - foreign, alien, strange. Not hers. Someone else's. She was just a bundle of half-frozen thoughts, the body was moving of its own accord. Good. She couldn't even feel exhaustion any more, just... just drive. Hull hummed affirmatively at her nonsense. Reminded her that he was still going... even if he sounded sleepier and sleepier with each passing second.

"...I don't regret meeting you."

She almost fell over in surprise. A coherent sentence. It'd been... maybe an hour since his last.

"What?"

"I don't regret it. At all. You're a good friend."

She smiled weakly, and kept staggering onwards, leaning against the occasional boulder. Needed to do it more and more often... her shoulder was aching something fierce, Hull's weight was straining every muscle in it, and her back, and the other shoulder, and... everything else.

"You too."

A spike of lucidity. He might die here. He very well might.

"First friend, too."

She took a deep breath. And kept going. The mountains were widening, just a little... the pass was broadening. Coming to another valley, most likely. She staggered, and her foot cracked through something. Crud. Crud. A creek. Unfrozen, ice thin, covered by a layer of concealing snow. The water seeped through her boots in seconds, soaked her socks a moment later... and she could feel it freezing. Each movement cracked tiny crystals, sending shivers of pain through her leg. With difficulty, she ripped herself out, refusing to let Hull go. Not letting him die of cold water, that was... no. Her foot rapidly became a lead weight, and she could feel the crackle of ice with each movement. Might lose a toe or two. Maybe. Had she been walking for hours now? Minutes? Barely any time at all? Maybe she was already mad and was lumbering clumsily through the ice, babbling to herself, dreaming of things which couldn't be - hauling someone so much larger than her, and managing it for an extended period? In her condition? No, it was a fantasy, a dream, she couldn't even feel her body at this point. Her mind was all that was real.

Hull groaned as she stumbled, almost falling.

Her cheeks must be red as apples now. And her eyes bloodshot, watering... ears turning a funny shade of purple.

Keep. Going.

Melqua would be destroyed by her death. She needed to get back. Needed to get back home. And Hull needed to be with her, she wouldn't allow anything short of perfect survival. Her four companions seemed to hover around her, shades in the mist. Silent and watchful. Protective? Unlikely. She'd gotten them killed. Cam had barely even known her, and had died to a drunk in a Founder-forsaken city. Lirana... she still had Lirana's biography, at least. Still had it. And... and... wait. She could... but that would be admitting Hull might die. But...

"Do you want me to... to add your biography to..."

Her voice became a croak at the end. Dying into silence. She couldn't believe she was still walking. Thought she'd have collapsed a while back. But... she just kept moving, and she couldn't tell why. Her existence had stopped revolving around herself, her own being. Instead of listening to her own heart, she was listening to the slow, slow, slow heartbeat of Hull, pressed up against her back as she hauled him along. Her breathing was irrelevant, just an instinct. His breathing needed to be charted like an astrologer charted stars. Her entire being had ceased, she was just... just the thing keeping Hull va Trochi powering onward, nothing about her was relevant at this point. He groaned slightly, and... and after a few painful seconds, managed to speak.

"...my... parents know most. And you know the rest."

His smile was faint and pale.

"...don't need to write a thing. All up..."

He weakly tapped the side of her head. Barely stronger than the snowflakes. Right. He... wasn't like Lirana, he had people to remember him. Just needed to endure this, and... no, she'd be unnecessary, because he was going to live and do other things, she couldn't write his biography now, it'd be... be barely a fifth complete. He'd live for a hundred years, and he was only twenty-one, so she'd cover barely 20% of his full life. Just... come on, keep moving, keep moving. No other thoughts. The sky was lit with ragged streamers of green light, and she barely noticed. Eyes on the ground. Rocks. Hidden creeks. Ice. Going downhill. They were moving faster, the slope was helping... she was staggering more and more, though, Finding it harder to stay upright. She was tired, yes, but... that was irrelevant. Keep on going, keep on-

Her foot stepped down.

And she felt earth.

No snow.

Her eyes widened.

The snow as more patchy. Patchier than ever. The air was... maybe a little warmer, she was too numb to really tell. Hull was barely breathing, and she soldiered on, feet aching as they crashed into the hard, cold-packed earth, riddled with tiny crystals of permafrost. The snow lay in fat white heaps, like chunks of rendered fat from the body of a whale. The creatures weren't hunting for them. They'd done it. Had they? No, maybe... no, yes, they were going down, they were leaving the pass... the mountains were far, far apart, and... and she could see them. See the dark stone. See the peaks. The sky was brightening, very, very slightly. The sun was coming up, they were making it to the next day... the idea of time passing was almost enough to make her collapse, exhaustion flooding her body, but... but she just had a little further to go. She walked a little way, stumbling and hunching, back screaming for relief. Her fingers were still numb. Her face was painfully cold, and the warmth only made it worse, awakened nerves from their long sleep, only for them to howl in protest. Didn't care. Busy moving. A little way... and then a little more... just a little way to go, a thousand little ways, and eventually she'd make it.

A small hillock before them...

She rose up it, and her knees began to buckle completely. She cursed herself. Weak. Too weak. Far too weak. Everything was screaming at her to stop... the cold had preserved her, made her muscles too numb to feel pain, activated some part of her mind which demanded survival in the face of the cold - all other things fading but the urge to keep going and escape the chill. And now... now she could see scrubby grass. A shrub or two. The mountains were brighter. And she was thawing... thawing enough to feel. And she could feel how... how light Hull was, and how limp. And how weak his breathing really was, not that her own was picking up and becoming ragged and laboured. Her heart was pounding, and she could barely hear his. He was becoming someone else. And if he was someone else, then...

No.

She lunged, and collapsed.

The final lurch had been the last straw. A final effort that was just... too much to demand.

The hilltop was close, very close... her legs were screaming, back aching, face twitching with pain... her goals collapsed. The future faded. All that mattered was getting up the damn hill. If she got up the hill, she'd be... fine, maybe. Possibly. She could barely tell, and she knew was that the hill was in her way, and she wasn't going to die because of a marginal incline. Hull was groaning again, pained... then silent. Panic rose in her chest, a furious heat that drove her up, clawing the dirt... she wasn't even crawling, she was just worming her way up, hungry, cold, exhausted, burned out by too much in too little time, and then the cold had seeped into her bones and made it all worse. He was going to live. Both of them were. With a final, desperate, calamitous heave, she felt... felt herself clutching air. Nothing above her. The incline was almost... almost...

There.

The hill was surmounted, and the sky was beginning to turn a light shade of cornflower-blue. Like the last morning she'd had in ALD IOM, the most beautiful morning she'd ever seen, which made her adore her home in a thousand new ways. The hill was done. And... and she could see the world beyond.

The pass had gone by. The mountains were wide apart... this was the exit, they'd made it.

A weary smile crossed her face... and she could see the steppe. The rolling, boundless steppe, a sea of green shades waving gently in the wind. Frost-kissed, but... but alive. She saw birds diving for prey, saw large animals grazing. Horses, cattle... they looked wild, but... but they were here. They'd made it. With a grunt, she helped Hull prop himself up on her bag, and... and poked him.

Come on. Wake up.

"Wake up, Hull."

She whispered, voice cracking.

"We made it. We made it to the other side."

His eyes slowly, slowly opened... the light made him look like a corpse. Too pale. His blood had dried. The bandages were still bone-white, not enough blood left to soak them. Frost had taken over his lips, and only now was it beginning to melt. His limbs weren't even moving. She'd brought him this far, she'd... he spoke. His voice was low, quiet, and painfully weak.

"...so we did."

"We made it. Steppe's just there. Warmer. There'll be food, water, shelter... we can find something. I promise. Come on, we..."

"Carza..."

His voice weakened for a moment, strengthening only with conscious effort. Carza leaned close. Hull was... she couldn't deny it. He was dying. The wounds were too deep. The injuries too grievous. If they had a doctor with a whole hospitals-worth of supplies right next to the cave, they might've had a chance... but it'd all been too much. She stroked his hair out of his face, and wondered if she was crying - face was stinging too much for her to tell, and her eyes were already watering from exertion. She kept stroking his face. Not sure why, but she didn't want to let him go, and... and this was what she was doing, she couldn't stop. Not now.

"Hull, please, just... hold on, please."

"...we made it."

He was barely making sound at this point. She clutched him closer, and... and she thought something. Remembered the feeling of him picking her up and spinning her around when they got their funding. Remembered their snowball fight, before everything went wrong. Remembered going into a strange hall in the Court of Ivory and seeing a hungover young man stumbling out from behind a pillar, yawning and stretching. She'd thought he was a nobody, just a scholar, a colleague... but then, in the hall of anticipation, where they'd been waiting for the doors to open and their initiation to begin... he'd been the one beside her, holding her hand, helping her stay calm. She'd let him lean on her, too, just to support him... he'd been wearing slippers, not boots. Bad for standing up for long periods. Hadn't prepared properly, too... too daft. Her first real friend. For months they'd been in the Court after the initiation, drinking together, eating together, studying together... he'd become tied up with her existence. She couldn't imagine a world without him at her side. He was... he formed the end to most of her thoughts, his life was bound up with her own, when she had ideas her first thought was his reaction, when she saw something interesting her first impulse was to share it with him.

She'd never get another chance.

She angled his head upwards.

Leaned forward. Closed her eyes.

And kissed him.

First kiss. Proper kiss, at least. He was so very cold... but she could feel him moving, a little. Feel a tiny pulse. His eyes were still open when she drew back.

"...oh."

His voice was quiet.

"...hm."

He was still processing that. He blinked a few times, each one slower than the last.

"...take care, alright?"

Carza clutched him tightly, and refused to let him go. Even when she felt his lungs ceasing to draw breath. Even when she felt him growing so cold she could barely tell him apart from the ground. Even when everything... she knew he was gone. She could feel it. Refused to believe it, for a little while. Just held him tightly, and wept silently. Hull had been her first friend, and... and she couldn't... she... they were meant to go on together. They were meant to be colleagues for the rest of their lives - this expedition had been to make them both comfortable. Four companions, each one dying... and now Hull.

She was alone.

She was completely alone.

She kept stroking his cheek, and remembered what it'd felt like to kiss him. Only when he was about to die, that was the only damn time she'd worked up the courage. She loved him. She'd genuinely, wholeheartedly loved him. Loved how he was just... an idiot, but an intelligent idiot. How he found legitimate happiness in his obscure areas of study, and wished that he could make a living from it. He'd found little pockets of academia to nestle in, much as she had, and they'd worked so hard to make sure they could remain in those little pockets. They both loved their home, their golden void... she remembered drinking samovar with him, laced with brandy, indulging in all manner of treats as they worked... remembered everything in crystal-clear detail. The way his hair was always ungainly, the way he always seemed to be a little too large for his own comfort, too burly, too tall, too wide. Strong, strong enough to pick her up like she was nothing... and by the end, weak enough for her to carry him the miles to the steppe.

He'd seen the steppe. Seen the morning rise on their goal.

Carza stroked his cheek again, feeling the unshaven stubble which had accumulated during their time in the mountains... felt the contours of his face, the details she'd... she'd... she opened her pack. And removed a pad of paper. A pen... no, the ink was cold, she needed a pencil. Just a note, an important note, a vital note. She drew a quick line - a blank space for a title. Still needed one. But she had the rest.

An anthropological monograph by Mr. Hull va Trochi, and Miss Carza vo Anka.

He got his name first.

He'd made it here. He'd given everything for the expedition, and she just... kept on going. She wasn't meant to. She wasn't meant to go on. He was the stronger one, the rest of them were. She was the idiotic, underprepared, unfit scholar who'd come out here so she could... could achieve living death, could do nothing with the rest of her life. She'd been fighting for retirement, she wasn't allowed to survive this. She was the last one standing. She couldn't fight as well, she couldn't run as well... wasn't as skilled, as clever, as experienced. She'd been the weakest, and she'd survived because of that. She'd survived because she was too weak to be on the front line, too weak to be the one that tackled the creature at the end, too weak to hold the back against the hunting party like Anthan, too weak to kill Kralat and suffer mutation like Lirana, too weak to be considered a threat by that mutant like Egg. She'd... she'd survived because she was the least of them, like a scrap of food too mean and small to be noticed, that would endure at the bottom of a bowl while everything else was scooped away.

She added more.

Dedicated to: Hull va Trochi. Lirana Magg. Anthan of Apo. Egg of Fidelizh. Cam of Fidelizh.

She wanted to do more, but she knew they'd have mocked her for it. Hull would've found it funny if she tried to be sentimental. A simple dedication, she knew him well enough to know that... that a simple dedication would be all he'd want. Nothing more sophisticated, nothing sillier. She stumbled to her feet, folding the paper carefully, sealing it inside the same envelope as Lirana's biography. Some more for the list. With tears still running down her face, she checked... typewriter still here. Ink ribbons still here. Clothes. Supplies. She had everything she needed to keep the work going. Because the world was still spinning, even when she wanted it to stop. Silence was meant to follow times like this. Silence. Mourning. Paralysis. And yet... yet the day was coming. And she couldn't stay here, she couldn't linger and die like everyone else.

As long as she was alive, the expedition was still working.

And now it'd become more than just academia. It'd become... revenge, in a way. Spite. The world had ground them down, piece by piece.

And she'd survived while people better than her died.

So she'd keep going. Because the world had made its stance clear - the expedition was going to fail.

Well.

Forgive her vulgarity.

Fuck the world. She was finishing this. And she was going to get back home, and see Aunt Melqua again, and publish her work and... and she'd apologise to Hull's parents, and she'd slap that bastard from the treasury, and she'd publish everything but with his name first. She'd write and write and write, and each time she'd dedicate the work to Hull and her companions. To all five of them.

Because the world didn't get to make a choice here.

She wanted to bury him.

Her limbs were so weak she could barely stand up. Even without his weight, she was still on the verge of crumbling. So... so she did the next best thing. For the next few minutes, she went from shrub to shrub. Cracking off twigs. Had to stop constantly, resting on her knees, sometimes collapsing entirely and resting for long, long minutes, fighting off sleep. Determination kept her going. Only determination. Then she ripped up some of his coat, his layers of clothes... not his robe. That was stuffed into her bag. She wasn't leaving it behind. Nor his hat. Nor... nor the things he clearly cherished, and that she could carry. Branches were layered. She had a little liquor left, just a little... and she made a libation, soaking the ground. Used his coat to cover his face, used her fingers to close his eyes... reached into her pockets, and found some spare change, carried since Krodaw. Two coins, one on each eye. She wouldn't let the creatures find his body, and she wouldn't let the birds eat him. If she couldn't manage the strength to bury him, then... then this would do.

One more match left.

No words. She knew him too well, and she knew she couldn't express her feelings through... through words. He'd been her first friend. Her only friend. And she'd never told him about her childhood. Never told him how much he meant to her. Never even met his parents. Her lips were still prickling with sensation from where she'd kissed him. She cracked the head of the match, and let the fire bloom, inching down the stick.

Her face was wet when she dropped the match to the ground, trailing fire like a blazing comet.

Couldn't watch.

She didn't want to see him burn. If she did, she might... might not move again, might just fall to the ground and weep for days and days. She very dearly wanted to.

She simply walked, pack over her shoulders, no thought in her head but... but going onwards. But making this worth it.

Smoke filled the air above. Turning day to night in the place where the pyre burned.

Good.

The steppes loomed before her. Infinite. Full of anything and everything. She barely saw it.

Managed an hour before she fell to her knees in the deep, deep grass, and let it swallow her whole. Just... just a minute. Just a minute to rest. Recover. Her fingers were still numb... that wasn't good.

Hull would know what to do. Hull would've kept going.

She should be on that pyre.

Shadows fell over her head... and consciousness began to fail her, darkness creeping in at the edges. Exhaustion demanding she sleep, no matter what.

Voices.

Dull. She barely understood them. Tried to move her lips and murmur something, but... but nothing came out.

"...move... tents..."

Tralkic. Something like Tralkic. Hull had been right. And the last thing she saw, the very last thing before everything ended and the darkness took her...

Was a glass-skinned hand hauling her up.