GRAVESKIES

Chapter 19

Willow's face had always been memorable. No matter what she did, it never escaped Ryu, and it always followed her. She knew every twitch of muscle in her jaw, every subtle motion of her hands, could translate them to every language of the earth. She knew Willow's tears of disappointment best, because she always found new ways to disappoint her. Was she going to sleep too, thinking how could my best friend be someone like this? Ryu twisted, shoulders raised to her ears, blanket tossed aside.

The soldier couldn't bear to look at Fern because she couldn't comprehend the fact that Fern meant so many things. If she started to think about everything she'd found out that night, it'd crack her open.

Ryujin left the tent and, days away from battle, tried to harm herself. It's probably best to call it what it is. Her arm trembled so much the blade barely nicked her left wing. Did the excuse of endurance training still hold up?

A scream thrilled up in the night sky. Another night, some time ago, she'd heard another; been too busy to look, but now she had time to waste. Triangulating the source was easy because man, oh man, this guy wouldn't stop screaming. How long had the medics neglected him? With guessing fingers, she pulled down the zipper of the tent's entrance and glanced through the slit. A fire Wieder, and, she couldn't believe it. His flames fought against him, they were stuck to him, too weak to leave his body, and his body could no longer resist. Fire Wielders are made for it, to brave the flame, to spread it, but this one's skin reacted like gasoline. His own flames choked him out, yet they wouldn't leave anything but superficial burns. They wanted to kill slowly. He crawled in the dirt. It reminded her of larvae walking on Fern's skin. She always felt afraid Fern would eat them alive.

Ryu tried, really tried, fingers scraping at the entrance, to help him. But she couldn't convince herself to go in. She didn't have the energy. She resigned to sleeping on the ground, doing no good, being voyeuristic. She laid there and listened to the screams, and if she fell unconscious, she woke up to the trotting of troops carrying out a corpse. Had she heard the man slash his own throat, or had she only dreamt it?

Kran arrived in a hurry when the soldiers lifted the body. He exchanged a single glance with Ryujin.

Breakfast made it better, but not good enough. She needed to pretend like things were normal, like she didn't have an inkling of suspicion of what was happening, like she hadn't run out of excuses for her own falling feathers.

"Sawyer, hey. Been having some rough days, and what's a friend, if not a therapist?" she chuckled with irony. "D'you wanna listen to me complain? You can complain too, 'bout anything."

"Sure," he laughed with mirth, a little disbelievingly. "What's on your mind?"

So she complains. And complains. If she couldn't talk about her life falling apart, or her own body feeling like a damn conspiracy, she tackled the most accessible subject— Fern. "And last night, she showed me something."

"Showed you something, huh?"

"Not an analogy, surprisingly enough."

Ryu didn't even notice his attention span running exponentially lower. At some point, Sawyer faceplanted directly in the ground. "Can you please say something that doesn't have to do with Fern?"

"You told me to say what's on my mind."

"I didn't know how much you had on your mind!"

If only you knew...

"She's just... I just... wanna squish!"

"Huh?"

"She does these things that are so exasperating and I just want to squish her."