in my next life, surely

first contract

Feeling a bit bored, he picks up the outerworld conch beside his bed and peers into the water inside, observing the new flow of events.
It seems like, a day ago, Klim went and drowned. Again. She's an Asher now. The ends of her hair and fingertips are slowly turning transparent accordingly, showing how fragile her existence is. One more step into water, and she'll probably wash away right into it. The thought is interesting. He once recorded all of their memories together, but those things have been long burned. Kai wonders if he should try and write them down again before she dies for the last time and they're erased from his mind for good.
Of course, there's no information on how the empires outside are progressing. No information at all. If he's curious about how regular grass looks or what direction clouds are usually supposed to move in, he won't be graced with any answers; only an empty silver pool.
What is it that's so worth drowning for?
He stands on the bed and hangs the conch from the ceiling, watching how the liquid clings to the walls of the conch like jelly to avoid being poured out. Then, he lays down, staring into it. Nothing new happens.
Nothing happens at all.
Which is a bit concerning, considering that quiet in this place is unusual. Something is subduing it. Something is coming towards him.
"Um?"
Before he can sit straight up, someone pushes aside one of the fragile fragments holding his tiny shelter together with a glasslike hand.
Klim peeks in from the crack it creates.
She gulps quietly as he draws his blade from his palm. "Could you not-- not kill me, just yet? I know that this place is completely exempt from all rules, even the Heavenly Scriptures, so... um..."
"The territory is free from the Scriptures, but I'm not. I still can't form alliances with Asher people. Please go away--"
"You can still make contracts with us, can't you?" Klim gently pushes her way through the rest of the wall, scattering its materials into the air. She's holding a glass pen and clear film in her left hand. "I just... was looking for, um. A. A trade."
"You don't have anything with you."
"I don't." She carefully puts the wall back in place with her foot, thus repairing the damage she's done and locking herself inside in the process. Aware of the range of his sword, she stays where she is, far away from him in the almost-empty room. "So I, um... please hear me out?"
"Sure," he says, wary. He doesn't want to hold a conversation right now, not when it can be some kind of distraction for an attack. She hasn't shown her face since she abandoned him, and there's no telling what she'll bring.
"You had six lives when you incarnated, and got seven more during the--"
"You want one."
Klim purses her lips and nods.
"And you're giving me nothing in return."
"Nothing material. It's all out at sea at this point." The only thing she has left are the materials for a contract: two completely unused and very fragile items. "But... during the Cloudrest Wars, you saw how well we worked together, right? How well we fought together?"
"You've already disconnected from that life. I know your drive for war died with you once you were thrown into the void."
"I fucking hate going to war now, actually."
He knows that, too. That's why, when she was reincarnated in her bed in the middle of the war, she immediately took her things and left-- leaving him to fight and conquer the rest of the sky on his own. And the kingdom he now has ownership over is a wasteland.
"But Skye, um... he's trying to start another one. A war. On you. He wants to rebuild the Cloudrest kingdom again, and that means that he has to kill you, the person who's proven that he can destroy the entire place."
"I'll just kill him again." Skye's strong, but he isn't all that noteworthy when it comes down to it. Back in the Cloudrest Wars, Kai and Klim were able to take him down without too much trouble, even though he did own the kingdom at the time.
"He has an army this time."
"Oh. Never mind."
A pause.
"Why does this matter for the contract?"
"First, because I just gave you information. That's something you can't get in here, right?" The girl peers up at the empty conch, then back at him. "Second, because I'm going to offer to defend you from him. From his army. You know I can if I have your guidance."
"Can you really? You can barely even swim," he quips, watching how her usually meek demeanor shreds off of her and reveals her real irritated personality at those words.
"Ha." She crosses her arms and exhales sharply, like a frustrated attempt at laughter. "You think I died and became an Asher because I didn't know how to navigate my own territory? I've turned into glass--" she holds up her transparent hands, sneering at them-- "because fucking Skye trapped me in an obsidian cage filled with filthy mud and walked away as I suffocated in it, clearing him of all guilt. He knows that if I get the opportunity to make an alliance with you, he and all his plans are fucked. But if he drowns me and turns me into an Asher? Ashers can't team up."
"And he hasn't just taken your remaining life?"
"Because he knew you'd be hesitant to give me one of yours." She smiles at him, unfortunately right. "You don't trust me, do you?"
"We're both good actors."
"So I guess not. Then what about this?" She flips the pen around in her hand, puts the contract film in her other hand, then writes something onto the very top of the page. Kai can read the text, backwards from his point of view, if he tries hard enough.
As long as this contract is active, it is not possible for Klim Asteria to answer Kai with a lie without being faced with death.
She writes down her name quickly, then tosses the pen and paper over to him. "Sign it."
His eyes widen as he sees the text she's appended at the end: Unbreakable and Unmodifiable. "You put too much trust into me," he comments, putting down his name and watching the ink flare up with brilliant red and teal colors.
"I'm investing just as much trust as you did in me before I ran away."
"You're self-aware."
"I'm proud of that. Give me back the paper." Kai rolls the film up around the pen and tosses it towards her like a dart which she catches easily. A glowing mark appears under her eye: a sign that the contract is in effect. "So? Ask me if I lied."
"Did you?"
"I didn't."
Nothing happens. She smiles again.
"I'll defend you without running away this time. Because I fucking hate war, that's true, but you know what else I hate? Fucking Skye. And this contract holds until I'm erased from existence-- so you'll have a loyal defender at the cost of one life. One."
Klim is annoyingly persuasive, and the deal is honestly kind of necessary-- now that everything she's said is proven to be true, Kai knows he's fucked. Klim knows this, and she's writing down all of her terms on the contract.
"So, Kai? Deal or no deal?"
A pause.
"Deal."
"Great!" She walks forward from her place against the wall, holding the transparent contract and pen out to where he sits on his bed.
In return for one of Kai Wintera's lives, Klim Asteria will dedicate the rest of hers to protecting him and his kingdom.
"Sign here."
Klim's signature is a little cutesy for such an important contract. Kai signs it seriously. Once he closes the last a in his name, the ink lights up again in glowing purple and floats off the page into the air, preventing it from being erased. Klim reaches up and pulls them from where they hover, then seals the words into her upper left arm, making it glaringly obvious that she chose to wear her jacket off-the-shoulders just to display her new tattoo. As the pen and paper in Kai's grip dissolve, she kneels down takes his empty hand in her cold ones. She kisses his wrist and leaves behind a purple mark shaped like a fish-- her emblem engraved into his skin, a condensed version of all the words of the agreement. And as her hands pull away, he watches their glasslike fingertips become filled in with his blood.
"That was probably a mistake," he says, feeling one of the lives he's stored away drain out of his body. In its place is an absence that makes him feel dizzy and forces him to lay down.
"It wasn't," she says, pulling his blankets over him in an artificially affectionate kind of way. "Well. I'm looking forward to the things that our allyship will yield, my king."
His world blacks out.