Asural, Desmond, 10416 P.C.

Todd wasn't sure what to do when Stephanie ran off. Colette told him to ignore it, to give her some space. He too had heard the children's whispers — they didn't trust this soldier girl, not like he did. They didn't know Stephanie. They didn't understand.

"What exactly are we supposed to understand?" Colette asked when he said the words aloud. They had retrieved their food and sat down at one of the tables before he finally spoke his mind.

"That Stephanie isn't a bad person. She's not the enemy."

"She's got the dragonmark."

"So? You only see her outward appearance. If she was a spy, Annabella and I wouldn't be here."

Colette leaned forward a bit, her eyes narrowed. "You fail to understand something. Dragons are playful. They kill for pleasure. Motch won't kill you right away, he'll toy with you first."

Todd frowned at her. "What's that got to do with anything?"

"What I'm saying is, his spies are the same. They'll wait for the perfect moment. They're not going to leap on the first opportunity. They like a challenge."

"For the last time, Stephanie is not a spy."

"You're betting your life on it. Trusting and loyal to a fault, you are. It could get you killed one day."

Todd picked up his tray and left the room.

Stephanie was sprawled on the mattresses when he entered her room just minutes later. She looked so small and alone. He went over and sat down on the edge of one of the mattresses, laying the tray of food on the floor and falling backwards to lie beside her. They were silent as they stared up at the ceiling.

Todd thought of home. It felt like forever since he had seen Cathy, since he had tried facing down Henry in the kitchen. What was happening in his world? Was time going on normally — was he now a missing person's case? What had Cathy done when she walked into his room and he was gone without a trace? Everything that had happened between then and now felt like a dream, surreal, on the verge of impossible. Here he was, lying on the floor with a girl as real as he was, in a world he wasn't a part of. Was there any other way to respond to it all besides just going along with it, like he currently was? He wasn't sure there was any other way. It was day three, and he still hadn't woken up. He knew he wasn't dreaming.

"Did you mean it when you said you trusted me?" Stephanie finally asked, breaking the silence with her timid whisper.

"Yeah."

"Why? I haven't given you any reason to."

"You haven't given me a reason not to."

"I don't think that's how it works."

"Sure it is," he said, sitting up on his elbow to look at her. "It's like... innocent until proven guilty. Trusted until given reason to not be trusted."

She sat up on her elbow as well, eyeing him with a frown. "You'll find yourself backstabbed and betrayed constantly with that logic."

"My mom always told me to trust the good in people rather than to expect the bad."

"Maybe you can do that in Amissah, but here, we have monsters. Not all of them are dragons. Not all of them look scary."

Todd thought of Henry. "We have monsters too."

She rested her head in her hand, curious. "What kind of monsters?"

Henry. Michael's murderer. "Too many kinds," he replied, rolling again onto his back. He didn't want to talk about the monsters in his life. "You, however, are not a monster. Or a spy. I can feel it. I can see it."

"What do you think I am?" she asked him. When he looked into her eyes, he saw how serious she was. She really wanted to know. He studied her for a moment, struggling to come up with the right words.

"I think... you're lost," he replied honestly. "You don't know what to do. You've been raised against your moral compass and it finally snapped on you and now you're just riding the waves along with us hoping we're doing the right thing. Am I right?"

"You're perceptive." Stephanie played with a corner of a blanket, not looking at him.

He grunted as he pushed himself into a sitting position and reached for the food. "They portion the food, but we can share. You hungry?"

She glanced at the tray of food he presented to her. "Maybe a bit."

He offered her the sole drumstick.

"No, you have it," she said, brushing it aside. "I never really liked chicken."

He lifted his eyebrows. "Really? I don't like it either."

"Guess we're two peas in a pod then," she replied, plucking a boiled pea off of the plate and holding it out to him between her fingers.

He grinned. "I guess so."

Instead of smiling back, she studied him with a painfully straight face as he bit into the drumstick. She hadn't even cracked a smile at her own joke.

"Just 'cause I don't really like it doesn't mean I won't eat it," he commented, gesturing to the meat. "I'm starving."

"Smiling is forbidden, you know."

He swallowed his bite of chicken before responding. "By who? It's a natural reflex. I bet I can make you smile on impulse."

"By the Veiled Lady. And I bet you can't."

Todd narrowed his eyes, chewing on another bite of meat. "Why did the chicken cross the road?" he asked in his most serious voice.

She was collecting peas in her palm, popping them into her mouth one by one. "To get to the other side. Try again."

"Why would the Veiled Lady ban smiling?"

"It wasn't just smiling," Stephanie revealed, polishing off the rest of her peas and reaching for a bean. She waved it around like a stick as she spoke. "Dancing, music, singing, all gone."

Todd felt a pit in his chest. It was as if her words were trying to suck all of the joy out of his soul. "Wow. You mean...?"

"I've never heard music or singing, yeah." She bit her bean, and then added, "Correction. I've heard it. Once. You need to know what you're not supposed to do or create."

Todd was slowly losing his appetite. "You still didn't answer my question. Why would the Veiled Lady ban it? The Veiled Lady? Not Motch?"

Stephanie chewed on her bean thoughtfully. "He ordained it, she enforces it. And I don't know."

Todd straightened up a bit. "Well, why should we follow it?"

"Um, because it's a law punishable by flogging and death."

"Oh." Todd pulled his knees up and rested his elbows on them. "Well, actually, technically, isn't deserting the Army punishable by death?"

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"Yes..."

"And being the Deliverer kind of automatically means they'd kill me anyway, right?"

"I guess."

"So... whether or not we break their laws, it won't matter, because we're on the death row already anyway." He spread his arms out in a shrug. The very idea of being on death row didn't feel real to him, but the logic made sense.

Stephanie narrowed her eyes at him, studying him more before averting her gaze and grabbing another bean. "I guess," she repeated.

He rubbed his chin, watching her for a moment, trying to come up with the best joke he had. "Knock-knock."

She looked up at him with a slightly startled look. "Huh?"

"You're supposed to say 'who's there'."

"What? Why?"

He pointed at her with a bean. "Just say it."

"Fine. Who's there?"

"I butter. Now you say 'I butter who'."

She sighed. "I butter who?"

"I butter tell you some more knock-knock jokes."

"Was that supposed to be funny?"

"I'm just warming up."

"Todd..." Stephanie sighed again, picking up a pea and looking at it. "Look, I... I don't want to smile, so please don't try and make me." She squeezed the pea, turning it to mush.

Todd gnawed on his bottom lip. He hadn't expected that. "Why don't you?"

She pushed the tray away and laid back down to stare at the ceiling. "It... bad memories. My friend... Marcie, she... she'd always have problems with not smiling. One time she got in huge trouble because of it. They beat her, and yet she... she'd always have that... that dumb little almost-smile that'd drive me crazy because she was beaten for it and I was so scared I'd lose her for real and then..." She stopped. Todd could see tears trailing from the corners of her eyes; she lifted her hands to touch the trails as if surprised by her own tears. "Then I did," she ended in a whisper. Smacking away the wetness from her eyes, she added, "I just don't see the point."

Todd watched her, an ache in his throat. Everything around him still felt dreamlike, this girl and her stories included. How could it be that someone had gone through their whole life without singing and dancing and smiling? It sounded horrible, hopeless even, and it created an ache in his chest and throat he couldn't soothe.

He moved the tray back to the floor and laid down beside her again, folding his arms across his chest and staring up at the ceiling. In his mind's eye, he saw his parents dancing together in the kitchen to some old love song that had always made him roll his eyes. It was a scene he had often witnessed because his parents had loved to dance. From the time he could walk his mom had taught him every kind of dance she knew. One time he had woken up at two in the morning to hear his parents laughing and dancing in the kitchen. They had loved each other — and him and Cathy — so, so much. He couldn't imagine what life would have been like without that. Even after they died, he had found comfort and happiness in the memories, in the little things. Smiling through the pain and grief, finding people and things to help make him laugh again — like Michael and Mikayla — it had carried him through those dark days.

"It... it heals," he said finally. Gathering up the courage, he continued. "My parents... they died. Car accident, almost two years ago. And... yeah, I just... it was hard. Like, really really hard. I was... they were like everything to me, and then suddenly both of them were just gone." He swallowed hard. "I don't even remember if I actually got to say goodbye."

"I'm sorry," Stephanie whispered.

He hurried on. "But their memory lived on. Inside of me, I mean. They loved dancing and singing and laughing — they loved each other so much and it was like it just boiled over and created all these good feelings you just couldn't contain. Even when I was so... sad, I... I knew I couldn't let myself forget how they made me feel. They would have wanted me to keep their legacy alive."

Stephanie was quiet for several long moments. "You don't understand, Todd," she finally said, her words like thorns in his chest.

"Don't understand what?" he replied, a bit sharper than he had intended to. "The life of abuse? How it sucks away your joy and leaves you feeling helpless and worthless? I do get it. I get that. My brother-in-law is a raging, abusive monster." There, he had finally admitted it. Lifting his arm, he looked at the white scar along his forearm. "It doesn't matter what you do. You're always feeling helpless. Worthless."

Stephanie, too, studied the scar. "He beat you."

Todd was admitting things he had never spoken out loud before to this girl he barely even knew. "Yeah. And I was too weak to stop him." The conversation had taken a bitter turn he hadn't intended on. He dropped his arm. "But... smiling, laughter, it heals. It does. I had friends who stood by me and helped me heal in ways I couldn't have on my own, and they didn't even know about all that. They listened. And cared. They gave me an escape. It was like therapy."

"Did it stop the pain?"

"No. But it helps." He closed his eyes, searching for a way to connect with Stephanie, to help her see his point. There was only one clear direction. "You lost your best friend... so did I. A week ago, actually."

She turned her head to look at him, her eyes glistening. "What happened?" It was hardly a whisper.

The dark alleyway flashed before Todd's eyes. Michael yelling at him, calling him pathetic and a coward. In the heat of the moment, Todd had told Micheal to sod off and stormed away. He wished he hadn't. He really, really wished he hadn't. "Knife in the chest," he whispered, staring at the wood-panelled ceiling. "I didn't see who did it." Michael had cried out, choking on Todd's name in agony and terror. Todd could still hear the echo in his ears. He'd never forget the sound.

He was pouring out his heart and soul to a girl no one trusted. For all they knew, she was a backstabbing spy sent to kill them. Todd didn't believe it. He saw himself in Stephanie. Someone who was lost. Hurt. Abused. Someone who just wanted love.

"Come on," he said, grunting as he got to his feet. He offered Stephanie his hand. "I'm gonna teach you how to dance."

She gave him a look of alarm. "What?"

"Just trust me." He waited, his hand outstretched. She just wanted to be cared about, to be trusted and loved. He believed that. He also believed that she'd accept his hand because of it.

Perceptive was the word. She took his hand, and he pulled her up. He tried to sound practical as he took her hands in his. "We're stuck in a life or death situation and we don't know what's up with Annabella. Things look bleak. Let's start off simple." She was over a half foot shorter than him, he realized as he took her hand and rested it on his shoulder. The other he held in his own while he gently placed his hand on her back. "Now together we're going to take two steps to the right— oh, my right," he added quickly as they moved in different directions.

"Oh." She looked a bit flustered as she repositioned herself. "Okay."

He gently guided her through the steps. "Now two steps the other way."

"That's it?" she asked as they began to repeat the steps.

"For the most basic dance. We're starting off simple, remember? I know you've got good footwork, though, so I'll introduce more challenging dances later."

"Okay," she whispered, and ducked her head, watching their feet. Together, they moved back and forth in the little room to the sound of silence. No music. No noise. Just silence.

The knock on the door startled them both. Stephanie jumped away from Todd as if he were a hot oven. Todd, shaking himself out of the quietness of the prior moment, walked to the door and opened it.

Benjamin stood in the doorway, practically filling it with his broad build. "So," he said softly, looking Todd up and down. "You really are the Deliverer."

Todd stared. "Who told you that?"

"You, first of all, in your story. Annabella confirmed it for me."

"Is she okay?" Stephanie asked, joining Todd at the door.

"It's bad, but she's a survivor, that one. I doubt it'd take her down without a fight, although she runs the risk of losing her leg." Benjamin ran a hand down his weary face, and Todd exchanged worried glances with Stephanie. "The fever is still high, but Justine hope's it'll break by morning."

Todd nodded slowly. "Can we see her?"

Benjamin gave a small shake of his head. "Not tonight. Tonight, you both need to rest." Benjamin looked Todd up and down once more. "Tomorrow morning, we assess your skills."

"My what?" Todd replied, rather stupidly.

Stephanie gave Benjamin a wide-eyed look. "You're gonna train him?"

"Train me?" Todd echoed — again, rather stupidly.

"It was Annabella's reason for bringing you here," Benjamin replied. "She says we've been sent an 'unprepared Deliverer'."

Todd blinked himself out of his stupidity and lifted his eyebrows. "You paraphrased that, didn't you."

Benjamin's eyes flickered with amusement the rest of his face didn't show. "I see you know our Annabella well. I expect you in the TR room tomorrow morning at six o'clock, Deliverer. We have work to do." With that, Benjamin strode away.

Todd blinked several more times. "Wait! Six in the morning?" he called, trying not to sound incredulous.

"That's what I said," Benjamin replied. "Come well-rested."

Todd looked at Stephanie with wide eyes. Him? Training? Training for what? Didn't these people realize he was entirely useless?

She shrugged her shoulders. "Let's look at it this way: he thinks you've got something in you worth refining. And it's a chance to prove to Annabella that you've got what it takes to be the Deliverer."

So she had sensed Annabella's disgruntlement on the matter as well. "Yeah," he said, leaning against the door-frame and watching Benjamin turn the corner, "if she survives." Then, taking a breath, he added, "If I survive."