Harper's Pathos

Chapter Five: Strength of Will

Morgan wanted to cry. If there was any water left in her body, she might have been doing just that. She wanted to scream. She might have also been doing that, if she wasn't so sure it would cause her bone-dry, ragged throat to start bleeding. Traveling the desert with no food or water would do that proved even more harsh than she expected.

Roused by Harper's lovely little speech, the sorceress had managed to endure nearly another week's travel across the hellish dunes. However, each day grew only worse. Hunger and dehydration felt as if they were slowly tearing her apart from the inside, and the now bleeding blisters she had developed on her feet were certainly pushing the amount of punishment she could take. Those words of confidence her companion had offered were waning in power.

When the sun was just past its highest point the pair took their now daily break, cloaked in the shade of another small gully they had found. Harper sat down quietly atop the sand, legs crossed. Morgan, however, merely let herself fall to the ground, landing on her back with a thud. Her hazel eyes were glazed over, and she lay there completely unmoving.

"What's wrong?" the nephilim asked. Their hair was disheveled and they looked equally worn down, but somehow seemed to be enduring the situation better than their friend.

A quiet but shrill chuckle escaped the dehydrated girl's lips, "What's wrong? Seriously? We're fucked is what's wrong, Harper."

"Hey! Don't be-"

"Don't be what, little angel? Realistic?" she did not look at Harper, only stared straight at the sky. "We're gonna die," she croaked.

"Morgan!" the small one shouted, "What did I say before? We're getting out of this!" 

The sorceress leaned back up -a task that looked arduous with how slowly it was performed- and stared at her friend with wide eyes, one of which she had to try very hard to keep from twitching, "I don't understand you!" her voice shook, "How are you still so hopeful? Where does all this mental fortitude come from I just don't get it..." her shrill words quieted to a mumble.

Harper didn't have an answer. They didn't understand how they were still so determined, but they didn't care, either. If this fortitude was going to keep them alive, keep Morgan alive, it didn't matter where it came from. They didn't answer. Instead of fixating on their friend's hopeless expression, their eyes began to wander.

Their silver eyes scanned everything around to distract from Morgan's question. The gully walls, the sand just ahead of them, the sky... wait, the sand. Something was off about it.

They squinted toward the middle of the gully and... strange. The sand closer to the middle, as it sunk slightly in elevation toward the center, looked different. If their eyes were right, the sand there was just a touch darker than that around it, and not due to shadow. Harper's hopeful mind immediately put together what could cause this.

Oh my gods, they thought, please let me be right.

Harper hadn't voiced their pain, but their throat was just as dry as Morgan's. They were just as dehydrated, their suffering was just as immense. Every breath felt like swallowing sand.

"What are you doing now?" Morgan questioned as her friend began to scoot toward the center of the gorge.

As they reached the darker shade of sand, they buried their small hands deep into the earth. Like a desperate animal burrowing in the ground, Harper clawed a deep divet into the sand.

Morgan began to move closer to them, "What the hells are you-"

She was cut short by an excited gasp from the small one. She likely would have found it cute if their situation wasn't so dire. 

"Morgan! Come here!" 

The young woman obeyed, and soon found herself staring into the small hole Harper had dug. Water. Not fresh -rather mixed in with sand- but water nonetheless. The short one had just uncovered groundwater.

Not a moment passed before the two were cupping their hands and scooping it up, desperately slurping up this miniscule amount of hydration. When it began to run out, they dug further down together, revealing a few drops more. It was almost nothing -there was but a few gulps between the both of them- but even so, it was everything. Even as the liquid -this elixir of life- was muddied by the ground around, they both greedily consumed as much as they could, swallowing a small amount of sand.

When they believed they had supped upon all this patch of sand had to offer, they sat in silence for a moment. When Harper took in the view of Morgan's face, the expression they read was complicated, filled with several emotions at once. Though, it was clear she was holding back tears, perhaps in an attempt to conserve the little bit of moisture she had been able to feed her body.

"See?" the nephilim spoke softly and quietly, "We're gonna make it. I keep telling you."

"T-thank you," Morgan whispered, falling forward, arms wrapping around them.

Harper nearly yipped in surprise at the sudden burst of affection. As they reciprocated the embrace, they noticed Morgan's shaking. At this, they only hugged the trembling woman tighter.

"I don't want to die out here," Morgan's voice quivered as much as her body, "T-thank you for not letting me die out here."

This small outburst was the final piece of the mental puzzle Harper had been trying to solve. As it clicked into place in their mind, everything began to make a lot more sense. Every time the woman had snapped at them, every time she cursed under her breath or made a morbid joke about the pair dying in the desert: it all lined up and the nephilim now understood it perfectly.

The sorceress was strong, obviously. She was a warrior, a force to be reckoned with. Harper had seen her win enough battles to know that she could take almost any hit and give back twice as much. They weren't afraid of someone hurting them with Morgan around, because she was more than capable of holding her own and winning  nearly any fight.

However, a truth suddenly hit the short traveler like a ton of bricks; they weren't fighting anyone or slaying a beast, they were scraping by to survive in a wasteland. There is more than one type of strength, and just because someone has one in spades doesn't mean they have another. In that moment Morgan wasn't a warrior. She wasn't a sorceress. In that moment... Morgan was a terrified young girl lost in the middle of the desert.

Harper cursed themself for a moment. They had expected their friend to be strong in a situation that she clearly wasn't handling well. Morgan hadn't done that to them early on in the library when they escaped the drake, she had literally carried them to safety. When they encountered the bandits Harper had assisted in the fight, but it was Morgan who had done the heavy lifting. Now she needed them to pull some weight, and so far, they hadn't done that.

The small one wasn't a warrior. Not yet, at least. They didn't have the same strength their friend did in battle. They did have a different kind of strength, though. Strength of will: exactly what Morgan lacked in this situation, and exactly what they needed to pull the two of them out of the desert.

Harper held their friend close to them, her shaking face buried into their shoulder. They had leaned on this girl enough. It was time to return the favor.

"Don't worry, Morgan," they said, "I'm gonna get us out of here."