Orenda woke up in great confusion, as people often do in new places. She did not open her eyes immediately, and therefore was not greeted by the sight of an unfamiliar ceiling. She was, however, in the throngs of a physical sensation that had not yet become familiar enough to be immediately identified, but which was welcome, and in her half-awake haze she let her hands drift to the source, and buried them easily in Tolith’s hair.

That was strange. As far as she could remember, they had fallen asleep during a fight, and she wanted to concentrate on that, because she felt it was important, but he seemed to have learned from his experience to add to his notes, and she couldn’t keep any thought in her head for very long because the physical sensations kept knocking them out.

Whatever Gareth had done to his ship had muted the magical interference that kept her ill, and that apparently also kept up a certain barrier that she hadn’t even known existed the first time, but which was certainly gone now. She felt the magic flowing out of him and into her, and when she tightened her thighs around his face she felt the scars there, felt his damaged ear, and knew that when she regained her wits she should connect those parts into a meaningful whole.

She screamed and arched up into him, and didn’t understand how she hadn’t knocked him off the bed, but when she settled back into the blankets, the soft, unburned, still-in-one-piece blankets, he was standing over her on his knees wiping his mouth and smiling.

“Good morning,” he said.

“Good morning,” she answered. “Are you feeling better?”

“You sleep like the dead,” he said instead of answering, “That insepent dragon is flying around shouting ‘ring ring ring’ again, so I suppose they’re serving breakfast.”

“I don’t, normally,” She said, and wrapped her arms around him to pull him down on top of her, “I must have been… tired.”

“Me too,” he admitted. “Yesterday was… a clusterfuck. But it’s a brand new day.”

He kissed her gently and Orenda didn’t understand the change in attitude. She feared that so much had happened to Toli so quickly that he was losing his mind. She had never been particularly interested in other people beyond the ones she cared about, had always had more pressing matters to attend to, and didn’t understand that he was suppressing all his awful emotions for her benefit. She didn’t really understand him all, and though her confusion was justified to herself, it was hindering her from making a real connection with him.

“Are you alright?” She asked when he pulled away to breathe.

“I’m great,” he said, “I’ll be even better in a minute.” He kissed her knee and ran his hands down her thighs. “I think you’ll like it more this time, now that you’re not sick.”

“Toli,” Orenda began, because there was something about him that made her think this was a bad idea. He was enthusiastic enough on the surface, but there was pain behind his eyes, and she didn’t understand why he was hiding it from her.

“Just… Rendy, just relax.” He said.

“But you don’t want to do this,” she said, because it was true, and his actions didn’t match his emotions.

“I want this more than I’ve ever wanted anything,” he argued, and she didn’t believe him. He wasn’t exactly sincere, but he wasn’t exactly lying, and she didn’t like it. Orenda prefered things to be real and simple- it was how she lived her life. Some things were lies and others were truths and the issue was finding out which were which. But this was both at once, and it made her uncomfortable. It was distracting, and Tolith was wrong because of it. It wasn’t better the second time, even though he seemed happy enough.

Orenda thought he must have lied or- not exactly lied, but he had not been awoken by Draco, because he had already done quite a few things while she had been asleep. He had already refilled the basin and soaked the cloth that he was using to clean her, he had already laid out their clothes and an assortment of brushes and other things for their morning routine.

“Toli,” She asked again as he stared down at her with an emotion she didn’t understand in his eyes, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” he said, “I swear. You didn’t like it?’

“It isn’t that,” She said and sat up, “It’s that you’re… you’re sad?”

He chewed his lip and stared out the porthole at the sunrise fighting against the night sky in a beautiful explosion of color.

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“I don’t know what this emotion is,” he said after a long time, “I’ve felt a lot of things, Rendy, that I don’t understand. And the thing is… I stayed up a long time last night, thinking about how I was feeling and trying to figure out why and there’s… there’s just so much of it, but I… I think I did. And it made me realize… a lot of things that I had to admit.”

“Oh?” She asked.

“My parents weren’t good people,” he said, “Mom never was, and dad was good to me, but that doesn’t make him good, you know? And… I’m not sure those terms even mean anything. They’re all relative. They don’t have objective meanings. Nochdifache, that is, Gareth, he’s… he’s not a good person either. He could have done more to stop your parents’ deaths, he should have never abandoned you, and when he hurt me, I think… I think it was some sort of fucked-up metaphor for him. I think he knew, somewhere in that rattled, wadded-up mess of brain of his, that he was the one who was wrong, he was the one who… he was the bad guy. He hurt me because I was there. He killed dad because he was there. He says that these things were accidents, but they aren’t. He just doesn’t care. He doesn’t care who he hurts because he wants to hurt himself, but he doesn’t know how. So… I’m not going to fight him. Not even like you said where I go prepare and come back. I’m never going to fight him. Because he’s a sad, crazy old man who wouldn’t even understand why I was doing it.”

“I don’t think he ever claimed he accidentally shot you,” Orenda said, “I think he meant to do that. But I get your meaning. I can’t stay angry at him either, and it’s bothering me, because he… he did abandon me. And it put me in danger. But I… I don’t really know that I would have liked to grow up a pirate, either. I don’t know that it’s worth thinking about, really, because it didn’t happen. This is the world; there is no other. There is no world where I grew up on this ship, so it isn’t worth thinking about. Just like there was never a world where I was going to be royalty. It’s time to stop thinking stupid thoughts like that.”

“I mean,” he sighed, “I don’t… I don’t want you to stop thinking… I liked our pretend worlds. But… that’s what I decided, too, last night, princess. I realized that… life is like a storybook. You said that I had modeled my life on books, and I have, because… it really is like that. Life is like a storybook that no one is ever going to read. Gareth was right last night. Eventually I’ll be dead, and everyone who ever knew me will be dead, and it’ll be like none of it ever happened. The good doesn’t come from… the book isn’t for the person reading it, it’s for the person writing it. We have to live for ourselves, not for our parents or teachers or arranged girlfriends or… even the girlfriends we really want. I… I realized that… You’re not the main character, Rendy. You’re not the protagonist of my storybook. I am.”

“I don’t know what you expect me to say to that,” Orenda said in confusion, “I don’t know what you mean.”

“I don’t think we’re very good for each other,” he said, “And… I don’t… I can’t go with you, to the temple. I’ll die like everyone else who tried to go up there. I think that place is cursed, that only fire eleves can go. When you start out on that journey, I can’t go with you. We can never be together.”

“I… yes, that’s true,” Orenda said, “It was never going to be forever. I thought you knew that.”

“I liked to… to tell myself some things that weren’t true, princess,” he said, “Because… a world where they were true was better than a world where they weren’t. I liked to tell myself that the storybook was about you, and I was the love interest, and you would eventually have this revelation like, ‘Oh! He fits all the tropes! He’s a dashing adventurer! We were childhood friends! We’re meant to be together!’ And… if the story was about you, that would… that would make sense. But the story isn’t about you. The story is about me. And in a story about me, the moral, I think, after everything that’s happened, is that I get to learn, ‘I don’t need someone else to make me happy’. I have to learn that my parents weren’t going to make me happy, taking revenge on a perceived enemy isn’t going to make me happy, and getting the girl isn’t going to make me happy. And if I don’t learn it now, you’re going to die.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Orenda asked.

“To learn that, they always kill off the protagonist’s love interest,” He explained, “so if I don’t end it now, you’re going to die fighting the Emerald Knight.”

“Tolith,” Orenda narrowed her eyes and stared into his messy soul, “I need you to understand something, right now. Life is not a storybook! Life does not follow a three act structure, life does not have love interests, and destiny is not a thing! You’ve gone mad! You’ve spent so much of your life doing nothing but reading to escape that it’s tainted you, and it’s going to drive you mad. You aren’t the protagonist of anything- you’re just a guy trying to make it through life. And whether or not I die will have nothing to do with you! I can’t deal with anymore crazy bullshit! I can’t do it! I can’t have you going mad on me, too!”

“This is the least mad I’ve ever felt,” he argued. “Rendy, listen to me. Today you’re going to sail back to the fire continent on this ship, but me and my crew aren’t going to follow you. We’re going to repair the Recovery, and we’re going to spend as long as we can being a thorn in the empress’s side. I think… I think I’m a fighter, not a lover.”

“Well,” She said as she stood to wash her face and get dressed, “At least the madness suits you. It doesn’t suit Gareth at all.”

“If I’ve gone mad,” he said, “I like it. And I think I’ve earned it… Rendy?”

“Yes?” She asked.

“I think part of me will always love you, because in your life, the story is about you. And we will always be friends, right? If you need me… there has to be a way to get a message out. I’ll always help you. I think you’ll always help me.”

“You’re so sentimental,” She said as she clasped the medallion around her neck, “If you are leaving today, I don’t think it will be forever. I’ll never believe rumors of your death again, you know, you had your chance at that, so now I’m working under the impression that you’re immortal.”

“No one’s proven you wrong yet, princess,” he smiled and stood, “want me to tie that dress?”