I'll Be Here

Love Like Water Ever Flows, Part 2

All Xiao wanted to do was make himself as small and invisible as possible.

He sat with his back to the trunk of a tree, knees wrapped as closely to his body as possible and head down.

I wish I were anywhere else.

I wish I was anyone else.

I wish things could be good.

He twisted his fingers into his hair.

The air at Jueyan Karst was physically thick with tension. Every breath was a labor of effort.

No one had quite fully understood that they had lost Pervases. It seemed like he was only out of sight, quiet as ever, and not gone...

Indarias, stone-faced and silent, was making herself busy over a small fire, preparing some joss sticks and Pervases's favorite grilled fish to burn while Bonanus walked restlessly around the border of the karst, claymore in hand, back and forth and back and forth and back and forth, mouth in an awkwardly tense straight line as if he wanted to speak but didn't know what to say.

Each round that Bonanus made, each time he passed by the clearing where Xiao and Indarias were sitting, he'd stand for a moment and wait with increasing agitation for Indarias to notice him. And each round that he made, Indarias simply refused to acknowledge his presence.

The cycle repeated for what had to be just a couple hours but felt like ages as late afternoon darkened into grey twilight.

Bonanus finally broke the silence first. He pushed his claymore into the ground and allowed it to disappear. "Indarias, I know you have something to say to me, and I wish you would just say it."

His voice was more gentle than Xiao had heard in a long time.

Xiao kept his head down.

"I have nothing I want to say to you." Indarias lit an incense stick, and the sickly sweet smoke trailed into the air.

"I don't believe that."

"Believe whatever you like."

"I will not stop asking."

"Ugh." There was a sharp snapping sound as Indarias less-than-delicately tossed the incense onto the stone ground. "Fine. If you insist."

Xiao kept as still as possible, turning his head just slightly to look through his hair at his fellow yakshas.

Bonanus stood with his arms hanging awkwardly at his sides as Indarias approached him and took a deep breath in.

Here we go.

"How could you make Xiao do that?" She cried, frustration immediately cracking her voice like she'd been ready to fight. "How, after all you know that he has been through, could you let him do that again? You know he's been doing better! You know he's been trying to quit! How could you ask that of him?"

Bonanus's voice was trembling with forced calm. "We didn't have any other choice. We had to save the girl. If you care at all about Pervases and what Pervases wanted, then you know that. And Xiao isn't a baby anymore, he can handle it."

"She was just a human!"

"That's why we had to save her."

"No, that makes it even worse!" Indarias's voice grew louder. "Now she's a zombie, Bonanus, a fucking zombie, and what is she even going to do now? Whatever that is, whatever she is doing, that is not life!" Her shoulders trembled, whether from rage or from sorrow, Xiao couldn't tell. "She is not alive, and she'll never truly live again, and you made Xiao do that to her!"