“Did you really need to run ahead like that?”

Nerinai looked over at Ike, nursing her nearly broken arms. “Of course I didn’t. Had this been any other situation, we would’ve been past the demon by now and everything could have been solved in minutes. Unfortunately that’s not the case.”

“Yeah, you don’t say.”

Ike shrunk into himself. His body was shivering. The room being freezing cold, nipping at his fingers and locking up his toes, wasn’t even the worst of it. Either the skeletones harmonica was more damaging then they thought, or Ike took a hit on his way getting the Raveness out of the line of fire. Neither of them saw the answer but the evidence was in the throbbing headache he hadn’t managed to nurse yet.

Even despite the injury, Ike wasn’t very worried about himself. Nerinai’s magic had failed. Not just failed even, it looked like the demon was throwing the ichor back at her.

“When you, you know, fought that demon before? In the herbal room?” He took a shaky breath, trying to temper the already fragile words he spoke. “Why were you losing?”

“I was not losing. That’s your own audacity talking, because I would have had the beast with or without your help.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“There were three of them. I turned the other two to ash, and the third waited inside the ceiling for a moment of temporary weakness. The demon was lucky.”

He nodded, shaky little motions in his robe. “Right. I thought so.”

Once Ike and Nerinai left the puddle, the demon went back to sitting perfectly still on its stone. Ike watched it for any sign of movement. Kicked his shovel out, hoping the weapon might make it stir. Not a flinch. Not a flicker of light in the hollowed eye sockets or twitch in the floating bones.

“I don’t get it,” he said.

“I’m certain there are many things you don’t get. Which is it now?”

No matter how close he and Nerinai were, she would always find some way to jab him with her tongue. He paused, thinking about the analogy, what he was confused about in the first place, and how he didn’t actually mind when she called him an idiot.

“The- for some reason that thing leaves us alone. Why? We’re just sitting here. Can’t fight back. Barely survived the first bout.”

Nerinai shrugged. Ike watched her fiddle with a nub of bone piercing her ear, thinking about the question and her enemy.

“Multiple possibilities. This is a peculiar form of spirit, not the typical kind you’d find in blight or hunting shamans. Notice the lack of flesh,” she said, then grabbed a small notebook from her cloak. Ike thought it looked almost identical to the one he found before. “A creature like this was obviously crafted, or is bound by a specific ritual. It likely only activates upon someone touching the water.”

“Would some rope help?”

“Unlikely, Guardian. The puddle is too far to cross before it can begin its song, and I have little doubts an attempt to rush past it again would lead to anything but our permanent demise trapped between the rock and the wall.”

“Magic didn’t work. Maybe this time I go ahead and fight first.”

She didn’t refuse the plan. In fact, it looked like she was actually considering it. Go figure, Nerinai trusting an Ike-plan. Maybe that should’ve inspired him a little. But then again, how much of a threat could this be that she was willing to accept his plan?

“Alright. Ok, that might work. My ichor clearly only mirrors back on me when I use it, but a physical attack on the demon could cripple it. A puzzle, if you will.”

Nerinai got up and checked her side. Ike wasn’t so brave. He stayed curled up on the ground as long as he thought he could, nursing the throb in his skull. What he wouldn’t do for a nap right about now. Eventually he sucked it up, thought about Nerinai trying to launch an attack instead of him and pushed himself up to his feet. Thinking about her fighting, especially with a shovel, filled him with both a wretched dread and the urge to giggle like a little kid.

“I’ll help if I can,” she said. Hands on her hips, standing straight as a settlement pylon. He really couldn’t hold back a laugh then.

“What? Is something wrong with you?”

“No, no, it’s just-” he had to let out a few more painfully fun gasps of air before he composed himself again. “Some things belong to Guardians, y’know? Please don’t pick a fight with a demon without your magic.”

Ike slid past her and grabbed his shovel off the ground. She scoffed, but Ike had a pretty good idea she knew he was right. For all her skill and might Nerinai could barely lift a bag of grain without her magic, let alone fight.

All that meant was Ike had to do the shit work. Worst of all, he had to do it totally alone.

At the edge of the water he tried to psych himself up. Hopped back from foot to foot, wrung his hands around the shaft of the shovel, anything to scare off the nerves burning in his stomach. This wasn’t gonna work. Facing an opponent of greater size, morale was your only real weapon. A sense of immortality and knack for stupid bravery that often led to suicidal victory. Fortunate for everyone around you, very unfortunate to be the one accomplishing it. Ike didn’t have too many illusions about his own grandiose, but he didn’t have many other options at the time, either.

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He ran.

Problem number one was the water. Stomping through a puddle of water deep enough to cover his foot made every step a drag and killed his momentum. Second problem was the flute- harmonica, whatever the fuck it was, was already up and blowing out sound by the time he got two steps forward. Ike pushed on anyway. Ripping his feet forward and gritting his teeth against the pain in his ears.

By the time he reached the stone and the skeletal figure, his ears were dripping hot red blood down his neck.

He let out a shout when he swung out his shovel. The metal head actually struck. Struck right inside the ribcage, where it got stuck, forcing Ike to fight back and forth to pull his shovel out of the things stomach while it reamed that song into his skull.

Everything hurt. Everything hurt so goddamn much and then Ike finally yanked back hard enough that he shattered the bone he got caught on and stumbled back out. The song stopped. Did he win?

He did not. In fact, the short daze he was in from stumbling back left him in a prime spot to lose harder than he already was. Respite from the thundering song was just replaced by a wide stroke from the skeletons arm that sent him flying back into stone.

When he woke up, all he could feel was throbbing. Pulses in his back. Something wet on his skull, and a sharp popping in his ear like a knife he couldn’t stop stabbing himself with. His eyes blinked open to the blur above him, desperate for something to escape the pain. Even through the pain he could make out Nerinai’s face above him.

She looked so worried. Why was she always worried about something? About him, about the mission, about the other people in the building. Ike was still dreamily thinking about her and all the things she cared about when he realized her mouth was moving and he couldn’t hear a word.

Oh. That was bad.

Once the shock wore off- and it wore off quick- he started panicking. Pushed himself up and almost headbutted the Raveness. He felt his mouth moving, struggling to form words. Was he shouting her name? Was he shouting his? Was he yelling something else that he couldn’t hear? He had no idea, just a frantic heartbeat.

She got up and walked away, leaving him alone. Alone. He curled back into himself the way he was before, the way he should’ve stayed, and started running his hands through his hair and pulling. Anything to distract the pain.

God. Ike wasn’t a religious man. A sort of stupid thing really, considering the proof of a hellish afterlife walking in front of him every day. He hoped there was a god up there watching him as much as the next pitiful half-corpse. Right then, not knowing whether or not he’d ever hear again, whether this pain would ever stop, he started praying. Ike didn’t know how to pray. Never prayed a day in his life and hadn’t even seen other people praying, but right then he said every word that felt right and squeezed his eyes so hard he could see a lightshow behind his eyelids.

That didn’t work, so half in a mania, he started counting grains of dirt on the ground. One grain, two grain, three grain…

Something light brushed his face. So light and careful, he thought it might be death. He tried whispering that he wasn’t ready to die yet, even started coming up with a list of grievances for the old reaper. Then, slowly, he realized he could hear himself doing it.

“Oh.. oh. I can- I can hear again. That's, that's, that's ah-” He rolled himself over, guided by a hand on his shoulder to see Nerinai crouching over him again.

“You’re shaking,” she whispered.

He barked out a laugh. Too hard, which made his back start aching again and he grimaced. “Yeah, yeah I am. Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize to me Guardian.”

“Sorry- damn. Can’t help it.” He tried to force a smile and gave up halfway.

Nerinai cradled his head between her hands, pushing the hair out of his eyes and occasionally glancing down to her own red painted fingers. “Are you okay?” Ike could see that she was shaking a little too.

“No,” he said. He wanted to laugh again. Wanted to keep laughing, which was ridiculous, which made him want to laugh even harder.

“Right. Of course. What I meant to ask was- you can hear? Does anything feel broken?”

“No, no uh, don’t think so.”

“Ah…”

For a moment she stared into his eyes searching for something. Maybe looking for a lie, trying to see if whatever she did wasn’t enough and he was just on the edge of death. Ike sure felt like it.

Then- totally unprompted- she laid her head on his chest. Pressed her face right into his mangy old robe, moving her hands down to grip him by the shoulders. Even if he wasn’t half afraid that moving would shatter a bone in his back, he froze himself there. Since when was Nerinai the sentimental one? The lady in black, terror of the Carrion Cross, heir to a prophetic line of sacrifices.

Ike finally realized that maybe this was always Nerinai. The part of her she locked far away, the reason she always tried fighting by herself. Ike hadn’t even come so close to death as to worry about the funeral and she was almost shaking as much as he was.

Despite himself, he really didn’t feel like her Guardian then. There was something else he couldn’t really put his tongue on.

After a while of holding each other- because Ike had wrapped his arms around her at some point too, though he didn’t remember when- she lifted herself off him again.

“If you don’t mind me asking, how did you stop the pain?” He pushed himself off the ground with her, carefully testing each muscle and bone on his way up from the ground.

She scrambled around behind Ike’s back for a moment then held out her hand to him. “Ilium flower,” she said. The only thing in her hand was a pile of ash. “A white flower that takes about three months to grow with a nearly daily ritual prepared fresh from a host of shamans at once. Can’t cure death but it can heal most things related to the skull.”

“Really? Holy hell. We should use that stuff all the time.”

“Guardian, didn’t you hear what I said? Three months. Ilium isn’t a headache medicine, it’s purely for emergencies.”

He opened his mouth to let out another quip but she was up and gone already. Ike watched her start pacing the room. Ike’s injury hadn’t solved a thing. They were down a plan and a fancy flower now, leaving them swimming in the mud for an answer.

Nerinai was already starting to take it out on herself. That much he could tell just by her pacing. He thought he heard her whispering too, probably trying to come up with a plan that was almost as complex as it was likely to fail.

“Nerinai,”

“Please, Guardian, let me think.”

“Nerinai, I think we need help.”

She stopped in her tracks. “What did you say?”

“Help. You know? The thing where you ask other people to lend you a hand when something gets too hard?”

She scoffed at him. “Yeah. And who, exactly, do you think is going to help us kill a demon?”