I followed Jun down the hallway to what was apparently ‘our’ room, echoes of what Mortician had said to me rumbling about in my mind. They seemed to think Jun and I were something more than friends, and Okeria’s second-to-last comment made that thought seem like less of a one-off thing. But I barely knew Jun. That wasn’t enough time to make any kind of real connection, at least that was what I’d learned in my last life. I had a lot more… disagreements with people back then. Disagreements that led to shattered feelings and barren trust, and they were over things far less important than what I’d been dealing with over these past few weeks.

Food was the number one argument-causer, even after I’d learned that cores could substitute for that. Hungry people were emotional people, even if that hunger wouldn’t lead to starvation, and emotional people made emotional decisions. Love. Anger. Envy. Shame. All things I’d lost friends and gained enemies over. So much so that I sort of forgot what it was like to actually connect with someone without months or years of taking it slowly.

With that being said, I wasn’t about to jump into a relationship with someone from a completely different species. There was a difference between being unnecessarily cautious and taking the necessary precautions. Jun didn’t seem to have much of any experience with people being nice to her without an ulterior motive. Keratily wanted to protect her, but that protection seemed to come at the cost of Jun’s control over her life, and the enjoyment of said life. She needed to find people who liked her for her, and not weirdos like Okeria. Or me, for that matter.

“Seb, you alright? I’ve been standing here for almost a minute now, and you haven’t said anything.” Jun said with mild worry. She was indeed standing right next to a stone door, her hand on a long bar handle. “Is something wrong?”

“No, nothing’s wrong. I’m just distracted.” I said with a shake of my head. “Go ahead.”

“Okay, then.” Jun said slowly. She gripped the handle tightly and pushed the door open, stone grinding against stone as it swung. I stepped in after her when there was enough room for me, the door slamming shut the moment Jun let go. I looked around at the mostly empty room, save for two hammocks placed a good dozen feet away from each other.

“Welcome to our wonderful room. With hammocks I made myself, without any of Okeria’s materials or equipment. Completely private, away from prying eyes and overbearing rootias.” Jun said without a hint of pride. There was an exhaustion riding under the current of her motions and words as she walked over to the closer hammock and sat down in it. It held up to her armor’s weight, which was a good sign. “I’ve had a little time to think while you were out of commission, and I came to a few realizations I don’t want to say where Okeria or Keratily might overhear me.”

Realizations like that usually came with a few choice words in my experience. Most of which couldn’t be repeated in polite company. I wasn’t polite company.

“Vent away.” I said, plopping down onto my hammock with a little bit of caution. It held up to my armor’s weight, too, which was a better sign. “What’s so scandalous that you don’t want those two hearing it?”

Jun laced her fingers together and stared down at the ground. “There’s a really easy way to get out of being a Keratily. We call it ‘grafting’, and it’s not normally a… pleasant experience. But if I get to Rainbow Basin and I’m still a Keratily, I won’t get to leave Rainbow Basin. Keratily will claim guardianship over me, easily prove that I need to be protected from the other members of my family and the enemies of the Keratily name, and then that’s it. I’m stuck in Rainbow Basin until I eventually marry into some family that’ll protect me with their name.”

I nodded along to Jun’s explanation. “That’s pretty much what you told me before, but I thought Keratily wanted you to ditch your name as soon as possible? Did something change?”

“Yeah. I talked to her more.” Jun snorted in annoyance. “It turns out she wanted me to start dating as soon as possible, but that she wanted me to stay with her at the temple of Moricla for at least a half-dozen years before I committed to marrying someone. So she could completely confirm they were ‘good for me’. Only the abyss knows what that means, but I know what it doesn’t mean. Helping you and avenging Nia. Which leads me back to… grafting.”

Jun shifted uncomfortably. “It’s a barbaric practice from a long time ago, but it was never specifically outlawed. You’d hear about a few cases every now and again, but when you’ve got billions of people, a dozen cases easily get swept away in the rain. Whoever’s being grafted onto is stripped of their will, forced to succumb to the grafter’s will, and is never the same again. In ninety-nine percent of cases, it’s like making someone your slave. But in the one percent, the person comes out the other side of the grafting pretty much the exact same as when they went in. In my case, I’d come out of it with a new name and a little bit of trauma that therapy could hopefully fix. So all I need is a grafter.”

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

“That sounds like changing your name with a few really risky extra steps.” I pointed out. I was a little more bothered by Jun’s eagerness to throw herself at someone’s mercy than I wanted to show, especially because it was to help me. “So who would you even ask in the first place? And remind me why you can’t just file for a name change and make this infinitely easier for yourself?”

“I think I already told you this, but names aren’t just important to us. They ARE us. If someone looks at me right now without my armor on, they’d know I was a Keratily. Not because of what I look like, but because we just… know.” Jun tried to explain. “And if I grafted someone else’s name onto mine instead of Keratily’s, they’d see me as Juniper ‘that name’. Right now, I’d rather be Juniper ‘any other name than Keratily’. Which is where you come in.”

“Because I have Nia’s name.”

“Exactly.” Jun confirmed. “If I can become Juniper Persephonia, then I won’t be as in danger. I’ll still be in danger from anyone that recognizes me as a person, and not as a name, but I’ll be a whole lot safer. The only problems are the actual procedure, and somehow doing it without Keratily turning on me. Which I’d like to think wouldn’t happen, but I’m not innocent enough to think she’ll still look at me the same way when I don’t have her name next to mine.”

A sharp silence followed Jun’s words. I couldn’t bring myself to agree or disagree with her, since I’d seen both sides of her worry play out time and time again. It wasn’t consistent. It all rested on what Keratily valued more; the fact that Jun was alive and happy, or if Jun’s happiness and safety was because of her. Did she want Jun to be saved, or did she want to be Jun’s savior?

I felt my mouth draw into a thin line. This greatly bothered me for a reason I only somewhat understood. “When do you want to go through with it?” I asked. My words came out harsher than I wanted them to, but Jun didn’t flinch at all. “We’re in this together, for better or worse. Just tell me what you need me to do and when I need to do it.”

Jun tensed at my willingness. “You’re… you’re sure? You might be making enemies out of two of the three people who’re willing to help you. They’re both influential and powerful, and I’m just… me.”

“Keratily stops helping us the second we get you to safety. And by your own words, you stop helping me if you’re still a Keratily when we get to Rainbow Basin.” I pointed out. “Which boils down my choice to this; do I want to guarantee that Okeria will be the only person helping me out, or do I want to gamble Keratily and Okeria’s support while guaranteeing that you’ll stay with me?”

It wasn’t really a choice at all, if I was honest. Okeria wasn’t a fighter, and he’d still be connected to Rainbow Basin anyway. Jun was my friend, and the only person I’d willingly trusted with all of my secrets. I wasn’t about to let her be entrapped by Keratily under the guise of protection.

“I choose you a hundred out of a hundred times.” I decreed.

Jun’s shoulders shook, but I didn’t know with what. She looked down at the ground and pressed her clasped fists together against her visor, little tremors working through her body every now and again. She shook her head and let out a shuddering little laugh.

“I was hoping you would, but I couldn’t convince myself. Thank you, Seb.” She quietly said without looking up. “I’ve never had someone who actually wanted to be my friend, not just my family’s friend. And all of my family's enemies can’t look past my last name to realize that the Keratilys have hurt me too. Maybe that’ll change once I’m Juniper Persephonia.”

It probably wouldn’t, but I wasn’t stupid enough to point it out. Jun already knew; she was just being hopeful. And if I’d known what the grafting procedure entailed beforehand, I would’ve known that she was in the process of convincing herself to go through with it.

“When do we need to go through with this? Before we get to the nexus? Or can we wait until we’re just outside of Rainbow Basin?” I prodded a few dozen seconds later.

“I don’t know.” Jun admitted. “If we do it now, Keratily might not help us any more. Abyss below, she might try to kill us when she finds out what we did. But if we wait until after we get to the nexus, we might not get the privacy to do it. I… I think it’s better if we do it now. I won’t take off my armor until we leave this hazard, so unless Keratily checks me with her interface, she won’t know what happened. That’s a big if, though, so maybe we should wait…”

Jun muttered conflicting opinions to herself for a few minutes longer, and I sat there and let her. This was a big moment for her, even if I didn’t fully understand it, and I wasn’t about to butt in and ruin things for her. I opened my interface and swiped past all the notifications I still hadn’t dealt with, then frowned. Something Mortician had said to me when Jun and Okeria freed me from the oil finally hit me, and it put a damper on my personal plans.

How was the time dilation in the oilsea supposed to help Mortician? They’d have less time in there than I did outside, but they’d spoken like it was the inverse. I shook my head and sent off a quick message, then closed my interface to see Jun staring directly at me without her helmet. I didn’t know the air was safe to breathe on the trawler.

Her face was etched with conviction. Her body shivered with anxiety. “We do this now.”