As Buster spent his second day hopping towards Martenwol, he found his mind wandering to Mirabelle. He didn't know what was wrong with himself, so he couldn't even begin to try and guess what she was going through. But he knew that something was wrong with her, and in spite of his hopes it was getting worse and not better.
He felt something akin to survivor's guilt. He was getting better and living well when someone much more deserving wasn't. His talks with the counselors at Zed Steadman had been eye opening, and he imagined what they could have done for the gryphon and the fire that burned both in and outside of her. Maybe that was something he could offer when he tried to talk the Freelancers down: They helped me, they can help you too.
He didn't expect her to take it, though.
At first he had thought that maybe she had hired the mercenary, but then he reviewed the message and noticed that she said "we're not going to let you" in a way that implied co-operation rather than coercion.
Buster had less to go on with the mercenary. He didn't recognize him at all. But the way that he talked in the video sounded personal. The panda wracked his brain trying to find some spark of recognition or connection but felt nothing. All he could deduce was that the black and white and red floral print he was wearing was probably an oblique reference to a vulgar Nakunan playground joke:
What's black and white and red all over?
A panda, riddled with bullets!
Buster's mind wandered.
What's black and white and pink all over?
A panda on his way to be riddled with bullets.
He wanted to think, to plan. But this grizzly bear was a mystery, a wildcard. There had to be something there, but he would have to wait and try to find it when they got in touch.
So instead he thought more about Mirabelle as the sky turned grey and the second day approached twilight.
Once she was going to spend a week at her mother's house after they had a fight. Five days in he got a message from her mother:
How long has she been like this? This isn't my daughter.
That was the first time he had gotten truly scared. He had always felt like her outbursts were some kind of failing on his part, that he had upset her or hadn't done enough to calm her down. She had a good relationship with her mother, who was old and sick but sharp as ever. If her own loving mother didn't know what was going on then it couldn't just be him.
That was a few weeks before quarantine. Part of the strain of being stuck on Ryzeen had been knowing that Mirabelle was stuck back home by herself. She would sometimes not message him for days, then other times dump big angry paragraphs about him in the middle of a workday.
He wasn't much better. He wasn't allowed to tell her about what was happening on Ryzeen, and having her babble about the newest television show he wasn't watching or vidcon he hadn't played made him see red. When she sought sympathy for how lonely and afraid she was, he threw it back in her face and complained that he would trade places with her in an instant. She had wanted space, now all she did was complain that he didn't talk enough.
Finally, one day he received a voice message from her:
Buster, I know what you do now. I can't believe you did this to yourself. You're a fucking monster. When I think of all the people that died because of you it makes me sick. I wish I had killed you, then maybe some of those people would still be alive. But I've found someone new, so you're not my problem anymore. I'm putting you far behind me and never looking back. If I were you, I'd kill myself. You can't make up for what you've done. You can never climb out of this.
She said that last line with an avian hiss that made him tremble. When she got really angry and had dark conversations about the people that had wronged her, that was the noise she made. When she talked about the high school teachers that had bullied her or the boss at her old cafe job and how much she wanted to humiliate and kill them she made that same hiss.
Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
Back then he would talk her down. Honey, I know you're mad but killing your high school teacher wouldn't do anything but put you in prison. It would feel really good to go back to your old job at the vegan cafe and throw blood all over the walls, but imagine how much it would have sucked for that to happen when you worked there. You'd probably go to prison for that, too.
In turn, she would talk him up when he got too depressed. Honey bear, you make me feel like a princess. I finally have a home now, thanks to you. All our friends talk about how much they like you. It's OK that your job is classified, I trust you and I trust Nakuna. There's nothing wrong with you, you're just having a bad day.
Her trust in Nakuna had waivered over the years alongside his. When he started working he had been up front: My job is technically classified, I'm legally not allowed to talk about what I do and you have to be OK with that. She said she understood, and she never asked questions. Still, on some level he felt like she had to have known. Or maybe he had hoped that, because it was more convenient than thinking about the fact that one day she might learn and not be OK with it.
In a twisted way, that had been an upside of Mirabelle becoming more erratic and destructive. It was easier to imagine that she wouldn't have a problem with what he did because she herself was becoming so chaotic and violent. She talked about wanting to kill people all the time! Same difference if you think about it.
Except he hadn't thought about it. It was a crummy rationalization done in the moment and then allowed to continue out of inertia and comfort. And when she dumped him, he was forced to reckon with that. She had rocked his world. Unmoored him from the comforting assumptions he had built his life around. Started the leak that Lance would ignite and blow his world apart.
Now it was just one more guilt he was burdened with. One that he didn't have an excuse for, or anyone to blame but himself. The heaviest kind of guilt.
That was part of why he wasn't as anxious about his looming demise as he thought he might be. Mirabelle Blackburn undeniably had a reason to demand comeuppance, and he wasn't going to deny her that.
At the very least, he would hear her out. After all, he had talked himself out of certain death more than once at this point. He was starting to think he might be good at it.
As night drew to a close and he once again perched on high ground, the Jerboa was barely parked before he was taking a needy draw from his vaporizer. He had unpacked a lot that day and made a few breakthroughs, and now he needed to relax. Tomorrow he would be reaching Martenwol before sundown, a place he had hoped to never see again but was now anticipating. An actual Nakunan-sized bed was pretty nice to think about.
He found himself hitting the vaporizer again and again until his throat burned, driven by equal parts stress and boredom; not much else he could do until he was asleep but vape.
"I hope you guys enjoyed listening to me mumbling to myself about my ex like a crazy person." Buster said out loud mostly for his own amusement, giving a small giggle.
"I made some real breakthroughs today. You're a great listener, you should be a therapist. Unless you are a therapist, in which case I hope whatever paper you wind up publishing about this does well! Hehe..." Buster was getting silly.
Mirabelle had been an avid consumer of weed and had been the one to get him into it. He felt incredibly square smoking weed for the first time during his residency and not feeling much of anything, but after the first few times suddenly it started working. Many years of their marriage were punctuated with passing a bong back and forth while they watched television after a long day at work, sometimes to relax and other times to escape.
Buster would pack a bowl, light it, and then inhale as much as he could. Then Mirabelle would take it and finish off whatever was left. Pack herself a bowl, do the same. Back and forth.
For years this was the ritual. Then one day when weed was scarce, Mirabelle angrily asked him "How come you never save any for me?"
She explained that in smoking culture when two people shared a bong you were supposed to do half and save the rest for the other person.
He felt so awful. He had no idea that he was supposed to be doing that. He had apologized profusely and let her have the rest of the weed as an apology, while she assured him that it wasn't that big a deal.
Now that he had some distance, he found himself wondering: Why didn't she say anything? He had felt so bad for not knowing and just following his assumption, but only now was he considering how odd it was that for years she was carrying that around instead of just saying something.
Was she afraid of him? He could be grumpy and depressed a lot of the time, but he was always someone who needed an afternoon to himself instead of someone who would take it out on her. He was physically large and imposing, sure, but that didn't stop her from getting physical with him. So why would it stop her from talking?
There was something there. Buster knew himself well enough to know that when he got really high like this, ideas had a bad habit of coming and going. He didn't have a pad of paper handy. He hoped he would remember this.
He sat in thought, combing his memories in a weedy haze. Idly tapping on the glass with his claw. Starting to feel the exhaustion of oncoming sleep. He grabbed his vaporizer and took another few pulls, letting the vapor rock him to sleep.
His ears perked up and his eyes flew open as he was struck with a sudden connection. It was one of those cutesy terms his counselor had brought up once, like "don't set yourself on fire to keep somebody else warm" or "don't let a slip become a slide".
He barely finished the thought before it exited his head. He hoped tomorrow morning he would be able to piece it together, because for now he was on a frictionless trip to a dreamless slumberland.