WE BECOME THOUGHTLESS

sixteen | domestic chores

When morning came, Cole stayed in his bed. He couldn't will himself to leave, not with Emer and Alistair outside and an abundance of problems to sort through.

Just a moment longer.

"Come on, you big oaf!" Emer burst through the door, speaking loudly in warm Welish. At her words, he was immediately reminded of Orla – of soft and sweet Orla, with her gentle shoves and reassuring words. Suddenly, embarrassingly, he wanted to cry. He didn't.

Instead, he groaned into his pillow and rolled onto his side. Cole was glad Emer was alive – summers, he was weak with relief – but he did not miss her abrupt mornings. Sometimes, when she was feeling especially eager, she would wake everyone with the clatter of a spoon against a pot, splitting the air with traditional Welish war cries.

Cole didn't know what he would do with himself if she were feeling that eager – he would end up leaving his hut bright red, and Alistair would laugh at him for the rest of the day.

"What are you doing, Emer?" He hissed, giving in and sitting up in his bed. His hair flew in tangles around his head, ruffled to a point where it didn't look much like hair at all.

Emer placed both hands on her hips. "What do you mean what am I doing? Get up, get ready, we need to talk. Your new Chrysosian friend is sitting by the fire that I, charitable that I am, made."

"He's not my friend..." Cole mumbled, kicking his legs over the edge of his bed and running his hands down his face. He blinked the sleep from his tired eyes and stared down at his lap. The warmth that had accumulated in the small hut overnight seemed to suddenly vanish through the open door, and he was left feeling raw in the new cold.

"Sure seemed a lot like friends last night," she said bitterly, looking about the hut and kicking at the shards of a smashed clay pot. She had that severe, slack-browed expression on her face that let Cole know that yes, she was being serious, because it was hard to tell with Emer.

"How about we talk about you?" He stood and ran his hands down his arms, working the chill out of his skin and shrugging on his jacket. "How did you survive a fall like that?"

Emer went visibly pale at the mention of the crash. Cole didn't blame her. His own insides twisted and clenched up at the memory of the ship, being tossed into the sky, the fall and rip. He felt knots form where his stomach should've been, dark and bruised.

"The same way you survived – I was caught." She said simply.

Cole looked up. "What?"

"Let's go sit by the fire, I'll explain there. Your friend attempted to make breakfast. He's worse than Orla." She scowled hotly, rounding on the door and glancing over her shoulder. "Also, he can hardly understand a single word I say. You might need to do some translating if we're going to have some sort of conversation."

Cole fought against his grin. "It gets easier the more you talk," he wrestled on another layer as Emer disappeared out the door, shoulders tight and angry. "And he's not my friend!"

He knew Alistair wasn't a bad person – that was what made everything so complicated. Never in his right mind would he actively place someone good in harm's way, whether that meant abandoning someone in a harsh, foreign land or running at them with his axe, or whether they were Welish or not. Gods, if Niamh were here, she would put his head straight; don't be thick, Cole, you're too soft on the enemy.

Chrysos is the enemy and the enemy is bad.

Alistair wasn't bad, though. How could he be?

But a few days ago, Cole would've figured that no Chrysosian could be good. And so his black and whites had slowly bled into greys, the lines blurring between good and bad. It used to be so simple. Everything used to make so much sense. Now he didn't know what to make of it.