Max watched Mineau peel open a second charred tentacle and use a piece of the skin to scoop the steaming flesh into her mouth. Her shoulders relaxed a little more as she chewed with a sigh.

“I’m glad you think it’s an improvement,” Max said.

“I’m never eating anything else again.”

“I know that feeling.” Max watched her eat for a moment. “What does it taste like?”

Mineau's chewing slowed, then stopped while she looked at him. “Don't you know what it tastes like?”

“I do,” he said quickly. “But what does it taste like to you? Does it remind you of anything?”

“Oh.” Mineau looked down at the whitish pulp. She swallowed. “No.”

“Do you know what a potato is?”

Mineau tilted her head slightly. “Yes,” she said slowly. Then she nodded, her expression brightening. “Yeah. I see what you mean.”

“What about rhubarb?”

Mineau frowned and her eyes grew distant. She used a finger to smear another small piece of pulp onto her tongue. She swirled it around her mouth pensively before swallowing.

“No,” she said finally. “I don't know what that is.”

“You know one but not the other?”

“Yes.”

Max frowned. “How could that be? Why do I know what it is, but you don’t?”

“Maybe I never knew.”

“I know,” Max said. “I was just…thinking out loud.”

“Or maybe I did and that’s gone now with everything else.” Mineau waved broadly at the jungle all around them. “None of this makes sense.”

Max stood, not sure what else to say. He took a few steps toward the nearest knot of bushes. They were covered in waxy, triangular cones each as long and thick as one of his fingers. They were a mixture of red, green, and yellow, and some looked like they were in the process of gradually shifting from one color to another. He’d seen them elsewhere in the jungle, but he’d never stopped to inspect them before.

“There might be something out there even better than monster tentacles,” he said.

The waxy cones were bright and inviting looking, almost like fruit. He pinched one of the cones between two fingers. It was smooth and firm, but he felt it give slightly. It felt hollow.

“I wouldn't touch those,” Mineau said.

Max snatched his hand back. “Why?”

“Poisonous. If you break them open and touch your face, they make your eyes burn. Eating makes your whole mouth feel like it’s on fire.”

“Really?” Max stared at his hands in horror. “How do you know?”

Mineau looked at him, her face expressionless. When he continued to stare back at her, she quirked an eyebrow and took another bite of aloe flesh and began chewing with pointed slowness.

“Oh, right,” Max said. He held his hands out in front of him, trying not to touch himself or his clothing. “What should I do?”

“Did you break one open?”

“No.”

“You should be ok.”

Max backed away from the bush. “I ate a few leaves a couple days ago and they gave me cramps for hours. Maybe it's safer to stick to monsters.”

“Mm,” Mineau said. She raised one finger. “The raw aloe’s so bitter it’s almost inedible–” she raised a second finger, “–and the birds are just feathers and dust.”

“How have you been killing the birds with just a club?”

“I got lucky once ,” she said. She raised a third finger. “Then there’s the lemurs.”

“And maybe the walking trees.”

Mineau thought about that as she savored another scoop of plant mush. “How many trees have you seen?”

“Just one,” he said. “It was tearing down a wall surrounding an orchard.”

Mineau stopped chewing again. “Orchard?”

“I wish it was the kind of orchard you’re imagining,” Max began, but then he stopped. “I wish it was the kind of orchard I imagined when I first saw it. What kind of orchard are you thinking of?”

“Fruit trees,” Mineau said. She swallowed the mouthful she’d pushed into one cheek and took a breath to continue, but her mouth hung open as she considered. After a while she frowned down at the half-eaten tentacle. “I don’t know,” she said finally. “Just fruit trees.”

Max nodded, but said nothing. It was a strange, disconcerting experience to know what an orchard was without being able to remember ever seeing any particular orchard.

“This one didn’t have fruit,” Max said. “It had pods that looked like fruit, but when I got close they exploded and threw out wooden seeds that looked like they were supposed to kill whatever they hit.”

Mineau frowned and grunted sympathetically around another mouthful.

“Have you ever seen the little triangle spikes that the lemurs throw?”

Mineau nodded.

“Each pod was filled with those and every tree had dozens of pods,” Max said.

“That's a nasty surprise.”

“Especially when they all go off at once. That was my first day. Or the beginning of my first day,” Max said darkly. “I only went back this morning because I heard something strange. It sounded like thunder, but when I got there I saw a tree tearing down the stone wall around the orchard. It left the orchard trees alone, though.”

Mineau dropped the empty tentacle husk on the ground. “What did the tree look like? What was it called?”

Max described the walking yellow palm tree and the way it tore the stone wall apart with such ease using two arms made out of fronds. “I don't know what it was called.”

“I've seen those. They're called Wandering Palms. Aurum can tell you next time. You just have to ask.”

“Orla tells you the names of things when you ask?”

“She does exactly that, yes.”

“That’s helpful.” Max looked down at Aurum. How many other helpful little talents did the creature hide?

“Aurum,” he said, pointing at Mineau, “what's her name?”

Aurum stood and turned to face Mineau. His eyes strobed once with golden light, then he leaned into a trot until he stood before Orla. He chirped as his eyes strobed again, and Orla stood to face him. Her own eyes flashed with light, then she sniffed and sat down again.

Max waited, but nothing happened.

“Maybe it only works on monsters,” Max said.

“Hold on,” Mineau said. She was sitting up a little straighter on her rock and her eyes were darting left to right. “I haven’t seen this before.”

“Seen what?” Max said. He leaned from side to side, looking at the air in front of her for a disturbance in the air or some other hint at what she might be seeing.

“It’s…” Mineau let the sentence trail away as she frowned and studied the empty space in front of her. “I think she’s asking me what else I’d like to share when Aurum asks my name.”

“What are you seeing specifically?” Max said.

Mineau didn’t look at him, but raised one finger to point at his chest. “Orla, what’s his name?”

Orla stood again and faced Aurum. The two brightling’s repeated their exchange of flashing lights and Max heard a tiny bell chime as letters began to scrawl themselves in the air before Max’s eyes.

How Would You Be Known?

Max frowned at the message, then read it aloud to Mineau. “Is that what you see?”

“Mhm,” she said, frowning thoughtfully at nothing.

“Strange that sometimes I can see what Orla is doing or showing you and sometimes I can’t,” Max said.

“Mm.”

“What do you think it means?”

When Mineau didn’t answer, Max looked past the glowing script hovering in front of him. Mineau had lifted her face to the jungle canopy, but her eyes were fixed, as if she were staring at something much farther away. He had just opened his mouth to ask if she was all right when she turned sharply to look at him.

“Do you remember what the stone mouth asked you when you first woke up?”

“The stone monster in the flowers when I woke up?” Max blinked. “It asked me my name.”

“But what were the exact words?”

“I don’t remember,” Max said.

“‘How will you be called,’ it asked me,” Mineau said. “Strange that this question is so similar.”

“It is…” Max looked back at the words floating in front of him.

“‘How would you be known,’” Mineau read the words aloud again. She shrugged. “It can’t be asking only for a name. Orla already knows my name…‘How would you be known,’” she said once more, emphasizing the second word.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

Max looked down at Aurum. “Little one, tell me what you want me to do with this…message.”

Aurum looked back at him, then flicked one ear and yawned.

Max sighed. “Thank you, little beast.”

“Orla,” Mineau said, “show me everything Max could see if he asks Aurum for my name again.”

Max sat forward eagerly on his rock again when he saw Mineau rear back slightly. “What are you seeing now?”

“Myself,” Mineau said as her eyes darted back and forth, tracking things Max couldn't see. “My club. My shield spheres–”

Shield spheres? Max thought

“–the three stars. The things Orla is carrying. My name…it’s all coming and going so quickly…”

Max remembered the blitz of images Aurum had displayed when Max had asked what else the brightling could do to help him. And he realized with a twinge of embarrassment that he had never asked to see the display again. He’d just…gone to sleep and moved on.

What else could Aurum offer that Max hadn’t had the presence of mind to explore? What abilities, what transformations were waiting to be unlocked if Max just learned how to ask the right questions?

“It stopped,” Mineau said. She was frowning again. “I think…Orla, I would be known by my name.”

Orla, sitting impassively just out of Mineau’s reach, looked to Mineau. Her eyes flashed gold once and Mineau nodded with satisfaction.

“Try again,” Mineau said, looking at Max.

“Aurum,” Max said, pointing at Mineau again, “what is her name?”

Aurum stood in front of Orla once more, and their eyes both flashed.

“Ha!” Max smiled as a transparent rectangle appeared between Max and Mineau. It looked like an impossibly thin pane of glass, tinted a smokey black. At the top of the pane, just above Mineau herself, elegant script began to appear. “Huh.”

“What?”

“That’s not how I imagined you spelled it,” Max said,

“What? My name?”

“Yes.”

“How did you think it would be spelled?”

Max shrugged, smiling sheepishly. “Like the fish.”

Mineau tilted her head slightly. “Like what fish? Why are you laughing?”

“It’s a small fish, I think,” Max said. “But a mighty one. A survivor.”

“Is it,” Mineau said. Her tone made the statement a challenge more than a question.

“It is,” Max said, passing a hand over his mouth to help smooth away the smile.

“How do you know?”

“The same way I know about rhubarb and you don’t,” Max said. “I just know.”

“Ah. Of course,” Mineau said dryly. “Thank you for letting me know.”

“My pleasure,” Max said.

“I can tell. Orla,” Mineau said, speaking to the bat-faced brightling lounging a few feet away, but keeping her eyes fixed on Max. “I would be known both by my name and by the fearsome visage of my mighty namesake.”

“Oh,” Max began, “well…”

But the brightling’s eyes had already flashed. Max looked back to the smokey pane that displayed Mineau’s name. He waited for the image of a tiny, unassuming fish to appear, but nothing shifted on the smokey black background.

“I don’t see a change,” Max said. He tried to keep the relief from his voice.

Mineau chewed on her lip as she thought.

“Orla,” she said finally, “I would be known to Max as I currently am.”

The brightling’s eyes flashed again and a series of images began to appear on the smokey pane, growing larger and clearer as if they were rising up quickly through murky water. At the center of the cluster of images was Mineau. She stood with arms and legs apart in a pose Max recognized. He’d seen a small version of himself assume the same pose when Aurum allowed him to choose how to allocate monster dust. The three colored stars hovered next to one of Mineau’s left hand and the overlapping bubbles hung next to her right hand.

“I recognize these,” Max said. He reached out to tap the multicolored star and watched it separate quickly into three distinct colors. The yellow star remained vibrant, but the blue and the green stars were muted. “This is the illusion that appears when Aurum wants me to choose how to spend monster dust.”

“Let me see,” Mineau said.

Max repeated the phrase Mineau had used and then watched as she poked experimentally at the images only she could see. She nodded.

“It does look the same,” she said. “But I can see that you chose the blue star and that you chose fire. I can’t explore the other stars.”

“I don’t understand why the little ones allow us to do this. It's faster to just ask each other’s names and which star we chose.”

“It’s faster for two people, maybe,” Mineau said. “What if we end up in a crowd? And no one in that crowd has time to talk to us?”

Max looked around pointedly at the forest. “How likely do you think that is?”

“I have no idea,” Mineau said. “But people clearly used to live here. Maybe they still do. Maybe a lot of them still do.”

“Or maybe they’ve all been killed by monsters. Maybe they’ve killed everything except the trees.”

In the silence that followed Max realized he didn’t know how long he’d been glaring at the ground, brooding on the possibility that he and Mineau were the only two non-hostile living beings in the entire jungle. He looked up to see Mineau had assumed the distant expression he was already beginning to recognize as the sign that she had sunk deep into her own thoughts. He was surprised at the way it made him feel almost alone in the little clearing outside his hideaway.

While Mineau fell away into rumination, he felt the weight of the hostile jungle press in around him. He looked up and found that the light of afternoon was fading into the gloom of evening. He imagined spending another night alone in the silent, murderous jungle now that he had met a second wanderer. He felt an aching, preemptive loneliness at the idea that she would simply walk away into the trees and leave him behind.

But why shouldn't she? She seemed so much sharper than he was, so much better at discovering more of the brightlings’ mysterious powers. What did he have to offer that might convince her not to go her own way?

A safe, hidden place to sleep, maybe, but she seemed to think those came and went. He had fire that could kill monsters in a way that she couldn't, but she could claim that same power from Orla. Or use the slingshot, since she said that seemed more effective. And she could club monsters to death in a way that he couldn't–and didn't even want to attempt.

So what did he have to offer that she would value? He could simply tell her that he was lonely, that he loathed the idea of spending another night by himself. But that was his need, not hers.

He turned to look at her again and found that her expression had shifted. Her eyes were wide and fixed, and her eyebrows had lifted into an anxious, crinkled triangle.

Max cleared his throat. “Mineau?”

Mineau’s face turned fractionally in his direction, but her expression didn’t change. He waited, then cleared his throat again.

“Mineau?” Max watched her eyes refocus and turn toward him.

“Mm?” Mineau drew a deep breath and straightened as she glanced around at the trees surrounding the clearing.

“Are you all right?”

Mineau glanced at him again before looking out into the trees again. When she laughed, it was a tense, bitter sound. “Yeah, of course. Aren’t you?”

“No,” Max said. “Not really. I hate this place.”

Mineau huffed. It might have a laugh, might have been a gruff, non-verbal sound of agreement.

They both looked at the trees and the silent gloom of evening gathering around their trunks.

That was the wrong thing to say.

“I’m glad I met you,” Max said quietly. “It’s nice knowing I'm not the only one trying to figure this place out.”

Mineau opened her mouth to say something, but closed it again. Instead she nodded, blinking rapidly.

Swallowing against the lump that had suddenly risen in his own throat, Max looked at the aloe leaves Mineau had scraped clean of tart monster paste and then left on the ground between her feet. “I have plenty of those now,” he said. “If you want another one. If you’re still hungry.”

Mineau followed his gaze, then nodded after she cleared her throat. “I’m okay for now, but I’ll take a few for later. It’s a nice change not hating what I’m eating.”

Max muttered quietly the way he'd seen Mineau do, then reached into the brightling’s storage space and pulled out two more leaves. He stood and moved to sit on a stone a few paces from Mineau. He handed her the tentacles.

“Thanks,” Mineau said. After she pushed the charred tentacles into Orla's storage, she put her hands on her knees, stood, and started walking briskly toward the trees.

Max’s heart leapt in his chest as he watched her go. “I think we should stick together.”

Mineau had already turned to face him before the words had finished tumbling out of his mouth. She frowned and cocked her head at him. “Of course.”

“I…” Max felt his face flush. “Sorry. I thought you were leaving.”

Mineau grinned at him. “Just like that? You thought I would just walk off into the jungle, no ‘goodbye,’ no ‘thank you?’”

“I don’t know.” Max smiled sheepishly. “I don’t know. Sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry about,” Mineau said, still smiling as she waved a hand dismissively. “But that's the problem, isn't it? We don't really know much about anything. We don’t know what else is out there–who else might be out there. I haven't explored very far from where I fell.”

“I've been focused on finding food,” Max said. “And clothes.”

“So you said.” Mineau began pacing. “If there’s no one else here, if it’s just you and me and a jungle full of monsters, and if we have no way of knowing where this Emerald Gate is, we may be here for a long time. If we’re going to be here for a long time, we shouldn’t just wander around hoping we’ll find our way. We should plan where we want to explore and how to manage our resources.”

We, Max thought. He liked hearing that word. It meant, he imagined, falling asleep knowing someone else might hear a monster coming even if he didn’t. It meant talking to someone who could actually talk back to him. It meant not having to know everything, to immediately understand everything the forest threw at him.

Mineau looked at him and paused. “What are you smiling about now?”

“Nothing,” he said. “Well, not nothing. I’m just enjoying hearing another human voice. I’m looking forward to talking to myself less. And I agree that we need to explore. I haven’t gone far because this is the only source of fresh water I’ve found.”

Mineau held up a hand and began ticking items off on her fingers. “I’ve crossed streams and rivers, but we can’t be sure how common they are, so we should gather stores of water and food. Dead wood for fires. I’m not sure when we would need fire, but better to be prepared since disturbing living trees makes the aloes angry. We should try to find a way to track where we’ve searched for the Gate and where we still need to check. We should both activate the brightling stars that we haven’t chosen yet–”

“Assuming we can,” Max said.

“I'm sure we can. Why else would they still be lit up and available? I planned to take both now that I’ve got a full set of clothes.”

“Why?” Max said.

“Because they’re still there,” Mineau said. “We can still interact with them. Until that changes, I’m going to assume we can still claim what they offer and that we should, because why else would they give us the option?”

“Sheer cruelty.”

Mineau stopped. She looked at him for a moment, then turned to look out at the trees again. Her expression was grim.

Not helpful, Max.

“Sorry,” Max said. “I’ll stop doing that. And I agree. Claiming the other stars seems simple enough. We just have to get enough monster dust.”

Mineau turned back to face him. “Exactly.”

“What do you plan to do with them? The slingshot might be helpful, but I don’t think I want to use the club.” Max nodded at the club in Mineau’s hand. “The yellow star showed me dying horribly when I tried to kill an aloe with it.”

“The blue star showed me something similar,” Mineau said, looking down at the rings on Max’s right hand.

“Is it really worth the effort, then? If we already have the best options?”

Mineau raised a finger. “The best options so far. We don’t know what else might be out there. And you can burn lemurs out of the trees. I can’t hit them at all.”

“The slingshot sounded like a better idea. For both of us.”

Mineau nodded. “Agreed. But we have no idea what we’ll find when we move deeper into the jungle. And don’t you want to take the yellow star so you can experience the thrill of clubbing a walking bush into submission?”

“No,” Max said. “I really don't. I already told you I know what would happen if I tried.”

“Ah, well,” Mineau said, planting her fists on her hips and smiling broadly, “I’ll be around if you want to try. I’ll make sure you aren’t brutalized by murderous shrubs.”

Max felt a smile split his face. It was a wide, toothy smile that he couldn’t quite tame. “You have no idea how much I would appreciate that.”

“Good. We’ll conquer this jungle together.”

“Let’s do it.”

Max and Mineau both turned to face their brightlings when they chimed in unison.

Aurum and Orla both pulsed with golden light and twin spheres of glittering energy pulsed outward from their furry bodies. As the spheres expanded, their light began to fade. When they were gone, a familiar pane of insubstantial smokey substance blinked into view before Max and gold script began to write itself across the top.

“‘Ratify the Terms of Your Accord,’” Max read aloud.

He squinted through the transparent substance as images began to spill down the pane beneath the command. Still standing, Mineau scrutinized a similar pane.

“They don’t make anything easy, do they,” she muttered.