Immediately his eyes snapped open, and all the pretty little lies he’d been telling himself dissipated. He was laying flat on the ground with a greenish sky above him occasionally crackling with vibrant electric shocks. Shadows dance behind the webbed lights. Wing’s and long shapes hidden by the clouds.

He pushed off of his back with a groan that he struggled to keep quiet. The place he’d fallen was hard and flat. Some kind of slate rock. Beyond that, though, Hell was as muddy as the blight it wreaked on earth. For as far as Ike could see stretching into the bleak and foggy distance the landscape was pockmarked with murky waters and muddy marshes. There was the occasional spike of stone or plateau, the outline of some kind of tower, and worst of all more humanoid shapes lurking out far beyond where he was.

Ike lived many miserable years in Cadeloch, in a world surrounded by the blight and unspeakable monsters, where the sky was always gray and the streets always dirty. He could scarcely imagine just how much worse the world could be. And Hell? Hell itself was before him. Well he didn’t feel like finding out what was worse than home.

At least it was quiet. There were several places on his body where the fall and the fight with Donnahais left him bruise, his arm was soaked with his own blood, but at least it was quiet.

He liked to imagine that hell was actually peaceful. That the rare whoosh by his ear was just the wind on a nice morning, and not some horrible demon monster breathing in his ear. And, as long as he kept his eyes shut and mind ignorant, Hell was as peaceful as he wanted it to be.

Then he imagined Nerinai waking up before him and running off to find some new way to kill herself.

He looked around and noted that Nerinai was thankfully still there, knocked unconscious for the second time today.

He breathed a heavy sigh of relief and let himself lay back on the stone for another minute, thanking whatever black god there was that she hadn’t gotten up first. The guardian didn’t know much about what she was supposed to do next, but he had high doubts it would be any better then what they’d been forced to endure in the Palace. At least he had a moment to sit with his thoughts, recover, and get ready for the next fight.

The first thing his mind came back to was that word. Judicator. The horrible thing- demon, dark god, worm, whatever the fuck- that had been poisoning the minds of Raveness’s for six hundred years. It was here somewhere, lurking out in the fog and waiting for Nerinai.

He wanted to be afraid, but not now. Now he couldn’t.

Everything Nerinai fought for, everything he fought for, rested on them pulling through. Ike always knew it was going to end something like this, but there was still a chance that at least one of them made it out.

Ike pulled his knees up to his chest and watched the horizon. His shovel was at his side, the gate was shut (he hoped), and now all there was left to do was wait for Nerinai to wake. He wasn’t about to rush that either. When she saw him sitting there she was very likely to tear him limb from limb and let the pieces rot in hell for ruining her plans.

She began to stir a few minutes later. The wind picked up, turning from a subtle whisper into a howl just long enough to break the peace.

“Ike?”

The guardian smiled at hearing his name. “Still here,” he said.

Nerinai rolled over and started to rise before stopping. She looked around at the murky atmosphere, then turned her eyes back to Ike and locked on.

“What… what are you doing here?”

He shriveled a little at the drop in her voice, but what was done was done.

“I followed you through,” he said, turning away from her accusing black eyes. “That’s my job, right? Guard the Raveness. Through earth and hell, as it happens.”

Ike heard her cloak rustling and turned, just in time for her to grab the collar of his robe and yank him toward her face. Her eyes were moist and she was shaking. Ike swallowed hard.

“What the fuck were you thinking? You followed me? You fucking IDIOT!”

Ike twitched at her roar.

“Everything I did to keep you from dying- to keep you from coming here! What-how-why- AGH. You moron. You idiot. You-YOU!” she screamed, voice shrill and tearing at Ike’s chest.

When she ran out of words to call him, out of warnings and cautions and logical sense, Ike was entirely convinced she was going to kill him. She balled her fists in his clothing like she was going to slam his head against the rocks. Maybe he deserved that for being such a stubborn prick.

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Finally though, Ike saw tears in her eyes.

The proud and powerful Raveness, the black prophet of shamans and men, the hope of life and scourge of the blight, shoved her face into his chest and began to sob. Heavy, loud and broken sobs, choking for air and trying to smother herself in his clothing all the same. For the first time in his life Ike saw the Raveness completely shatter.

He was stunned. He didn’t know what to do. Should he try and say something? Comfort her? Could he? Was coming through the gate a bad decision after all?

No. No he was never going to let her do this alone.

Ike put one hand awkwardly on her back, using the other to support himself. “I’m- I’m sorry,” he said.

She kept crying.

“You were supposed to live,” she said, voice muffled and hoarse.

“I am alive. Just as alive as you are.”

“I wanted you to live. Just you.”

Ike felt the mark on his side, from when she’d stolen his earliest memories of living in the monastery with her. He remembered how many times she’d tried pushing him to the side, how often she’d tried keeping him away from the hard things and the sacrifice. He remembered how she’d gone out of her way to ruin centuries of hard boiled tradition and nearly gotten herself killed all in the name of keeping him alive.

Ike held her a little closer, resting his chin on her head as she wept.

After all the mistakes Ike had made, despite being born a weak and meaningless pawn in a scheme that he hadn’t even been smart enough to recognize, Nerinai still wanted him to live. Ike thought there was something wrong with that but she was being vulnerable and honest. She couldn’t be anything else.

Sitting in hell and steps away from the end.

“I chose this,” he said eventually, whispering almost more to himself than to her.

“What?”

“I chose this. Whatever happens next, I chose to be here. Why should I go on living without you?”

“I wasn’t doing this for you.”

“I-I mean, of course not-”

“No matter how hard I keep trying to save you, you keep throwing yourself in front of me. Aren’t you aware how frustrating that is?”

Ike smiled. “I could say the exact same thing about you.”

Nerinai exhaled, and Ike didn’t hear her say anything else.

The two of them sat like that for a long time. Eventually Nerinai’s weeping turned into fitful and broken sobs, and then quiet sniffling. Ike could feel the patch of his robe wet from the tears. After a little while she was silent but Ike didn’t let go until she snaked out of his arms and turned, pressing her back against his knees and staring out at the broken world around them.

Ike wanted to say something strong or smart. Maybe poetic. He’d never been good with words, now least of all.

“What comes next?” he asked.

Nerinai half turned toward him, her face mostly concealed by her hair, but Ike was pretty sure he didn’t need to see to know that her eyes were red.

“I can’t fight,” she told him, “so I don’t know what comes next. Nobody knows what happens after the Raveness crosses the gate. Without the seals, I thought maybe… The gate shouldn’t be able to open again. But I don’t know where we go from here.”

“Or how we get home, I’m guessing?”

She shook her head no. That was pretty much expected.

Whatever hell had in store for them, it wasn’t going to be easy. Ike didn’t need to be a shaman to know that much. When the time came, he would fight to the death, but for now he wanted to make this moment last longer. He wanted good memories to die with, at least.

He leaned forward, touching Nerinai’s shoulder and careful not to do anything that would make her shut down again.

“Nerinai, I think I-”

“Shut up,” she told him. Ike obeyed. Both of them knew what he was going to say, and both of them weren’t going to make this any harder than it already was. “We should start moving.”

“And go where?”

“Anywhere,” she told him, then looked back at him. Ike nodded and stood up, offering his hand to help Nerinai up to her feet as well.

Ike grabbed his shovel and surveyed the landscape. Every direction looked about as shitty as the rest, so he decided to just pick one and go. Far off in the distance he saw the outline of a tower, broken, but maybe shelter if they needed to rest. It was as close to a reasonable landmark he was going to get.

The two of them walked across the broken land, stepping over the water where they could and sticking to the flattest pieces of rock. Ike wasn’t sure it was really water, either, but he didn’t want to know what it was. This whole place reeked of ichor and bad shit. The land rose and fell, sometimes the two of them careened to the side or slipped on something, but every time the other was there to help. Ike walked right beside her, one hand on his shovel and the other ready to catch her if she fell.

As hard as she tried to keep her face turned away from him, Ike saw the worry still etched into her brow. Also the tear marks and the bright red around her eyelids, but those were a given.

“Do you… hear something?”

She shook her head. “Nothing. No magic either. I think… It’s like that part of me is entirely gone.”

Ike nodded and let the topic drop. They had a long way to go, and he didn’t feel like alienating her now.

What was he going to do? Everything was resting on a knife's edge, between them, with their lives, with whether or not they’d ever make it home again. He couldn’t tell Nerinai how much he cared about her now. Given the outburst when she woke up, she wasn’t going to say anything either. Ike had a horrible feeling that he was going to die here.

Most of all, he was terrified he was going to die holding on to three difficult words.