Chương 13: Chapter 10.5 - What He Carries

Torou was silent after that—not the alert, watchful silence of a soldier on duty. Something gentler than that. A silence still trying to find its way back home. Dendron was about to speak but stopped himself. What could he possibly say? Sorry? It'll be okay? You'll get used to it? Each one sounded like an insult. He stayed silent. He redirected his focus to his own body again, his roots buried in soil that had remained stagnant for days, and realized there wasn't any other place for him to go either. Two now.

Two individuals whose inner workings he had disturbed without consent, because giving consent had never been an option for any of them. Luan had not been asked, and neither had Torou. He had convinced himself that he had done so out of necessity, and he was right, and yet nothing had made it easier.

"I keep reminding myself that it makes sense," he mumbled aloud.

"More eyes. More territory. Better chances of surviving whatever comes next." The forest was silent. It always was.

"But that's not what worries me." He chewed on that for a moment, unhurried to get there.

"What worries me is how simple it's becoming. First time round, it took me forever. I watched him sleep, told him he was more than just a tool. Didn't change what I'd already done to him." A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. And he remembered Torou's expression as the worm had approached him—confusion first, then something that wasn't quite fear, then the particular stillness of someone realizing the fight was already over.

He'd seen that same stillness on Gordon's men, once. Different circumstances. Same shape. This time, all I did was plan it and do it. I planned it out, picked my target like I was shopping The sound of a branch cracking overhead reached him as it settled under its own weight, the rain from two days ago soaking patches of bark which had not yet dried.

"He's got a sister. Told her he'd come home a hero." He let that stand as a sentence before thinking anymore about it.

"I understand wanting to come home as somebody who is worth coming home to." He nearly laughed, but didn't.

"That hasn't worked out all that well for me, so maybe I shouldn't be giving him advice on it." He considered an apology. Once he'd done it to Luan, when it had been dark and quiet, and he'd managed to trick himself afterward that he hadn't really done it. But nothing changed. Luan was still a piece of himself, and now Torou was as well. Sorry didn't undo a soul worm. Sorry was just a word he said so he could keep going without having to think of himself as the kind of person who wouldn't.

"I did it to Luan. Then I did it to Torou." He spoke the words aloud, seeing if he could say them.

"Well, I guess that's what I do now." He let the idea stay there long enough to sting. And then, because he could not sit in it for eternity either, because there was a door somewhere pouring soldiers into some unknown plane of existence he would never get to see, because he still had a name to live up to, a role he'd chosen for himself on a whim, now playing out inside a stranger's terrified mind–he went about doing what he always did when confronted with emotions too heavy to process.

He tried to find the humorous side of things.

"Unknown, huh." An almost self-deprecating chuckle.

"Real original, me. Deciding to call myself after the thing I fear most." He didn't stop to analyze that, either. He might have time to think about that later. Right now, he was just surviving. The memory of everything from the past hour came unbidden into Torou's mind — the shocked expression on the ape's face, the exact moment his mind broke open to reveal the voice of somebody who was not him. It had been priceless. Dendron let himself cling to that.