Pak

　　The days pass in cycles of darkness and light, cool air and heat, grains of sand slipping through pinched glass. I no longer keep track of how many slip by.

　　We travel north, towards the Mountains. Cabbage kills for us so we can eat. Were it not for him, I would starve. Nothing grows in the barren Wilds. Even the trees are little more than thick sticks, dead wood, kindling over which I roast rats for dinner. I sleep on cushions of coarse dirt. I drink from tiny rivulets. I survive.

　　I see my father in my mind&

　　His face is dark, featureless.

　　His eyes flicker with recognition as they take in my gray skin.

　　He will know who I am. He will.

　　The red X` glows, taunting me.

　　The knife appears in my hand-

　　Don`t&

　　I check to my left, but there`s nothing there.

　　"Prrrrooh?" Cabbage asks, eyes shining with concern.

　　"I`m fine," I mumble and shake my head out like a dog. Keep walking&

　　Cabbage`s ears go sideways. He turns away, gives a fierce kick, flaps his wings and flies up high, circling, always keeping watch. My head throbs as I shamble onward. The weapon disappears. Pip.

　　Murderer&

　　I shudder, refusing to look for the voice. Just keep walking&

　　Rorri

　　"Oi! Woodie!"

　　Rorri turns to find Bilge at the top of the Plateau, waving for his attention. He`s shaved his face, rendering him almost unrecognizable, but his silly accent gives him away.

　　"It`s about time t`start a new life, mate!" he calls, but Rorri can only catch part of it.

　　"Hang on!" Rorri calls back. "I`m-"

　　But before he finishes the thought, a sharp gust of wind blows the human off of the edge, to an almost certain death. Rorri watches in horror. It`s his fault he was up there. It`s all his fault&

　　"S`not like you to bungle a job," Bilge`s voice thunders through the air.

　　"I said I was sorry!"

　　The sky glows a brilliant white. The clouds culminate into dozens of six-petaled flowers and eight-pointed stars. They darken, threatening rain. Thunder booms in Rorri`s ears.

　　"I don`t want to be sick today," he says. "I have to go to the manor&"

　　The sky clears. It`s a beautiful sunny day.

　　"Well, I didn`t mean it like that!" Rorri pouts, flapping his arms to fly after the Snow. "I could have saved you for later&"

　　*******

　　Rorri`s eyes fluttered open. He still couldn`t see, of course, but the feeling of his eyelids parting was one of the few things that signaled he was awake. It always preceded his rough blanket scratching his skin and the feeling of cold air skimming his corneas. Then, the sounds of the weather and traffic became real in his ears, the skittering of mice and the indistinct shouting&

　　&a low, rhythmic hum&

　　Something tickling his face-?

　　Rorri scooted away from the foreign sensation. He scratched at his cheek, willing the tickle away, half-convinced he`d imagined it and half-terrified of whatever invisible thing had made its bed in his.

　　"Mau?"

　　Something supple and cold nudged his arm.

　　"What&?"

　　Rorri`s hand drifted towards the source of the sound, quickly finding its soft fur. It pushed against his palm, demanding attention. A small smile crept to Rorri`s lips as its purr soaked into him, though his mind still rippled with confusion. Why was there a cat in his room? Adar wouldn`t have left the door open&

　　"Hello!"

　　Adar`s voice came from a point distant enough that it didn`t quite startle Rorri. He was getting better about it, after being cursed at enough times.

　　"Good morning," Rorri said. "Who`s this?"

　　"Mau?"

　　"It`s actually late afternoon," Adar said, "and his name is Poppy, I believe."

　　Rorri froze. Shacia`s face crowded his mind, as real as she was that night at the Mouse and Lion Inn, shrouded by the candlelit glow.

　　Oh! You haven`t met my Poppy yet&

　　"Your tutor came by when you were sleeping-"

　　"And you didn`t wake me?" Rorri snapped.

　　"Mau?"This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

　　Poppy pawed at Rorri`s arm again, his purr rolling into a loud snort. Rorri scratched around the soft bump of the cat`s ear.

　　"I guess you don`t remember&"

　　Adar crept slowly towards the forest elf`s room, his footsteps barely audible, gentle enough not to aggravate Rorri further. Rorri shifted in the bed, prompting an annoyed chirp from his new friend.

　　"You told me a while ago that you didn`t want her to see you like& that."

　　Numbness gripped Rorri`s throat. Adar was right. He had forgotten. It was so easy to forget anything he`d said at all in the past so many weeks, never knowing whether it was something he`d really said, or something he`d dreamed.

　　"Mau?"

　　"He`s taken a liking to you," Adar continued, his voice drawing nearer. "He ran straight for your room once she let him out of his little box."

　　Rorri`s mind buzzed with questions, each one cutting into the one that came before it. He took a deep breath.

　　"What does he look like?" he asked.

　　"He`s mostly black, with a white chest and toes, and a white smudge on his lip, sort of like he`s got half a mustache. And he`s got short hair. A bit overweight."

　　"Mau?"

　　"I didn`t mean it as an insult&"

　　Rorri chuckled, scratching around the bony outline of the cat`s chin. They settled into a pleasant quiet, but Rorri`s mind was anything but, with each voice and thought and accompanying image vying for the brunt of his attention.

　　"Why did she bring him here?" he asked, his chest tightening.

　　"Her exact words were I`ve got a lot on my plate right now, and I think he`d be happier here`."

　　Rorri nodded slowly, watching Shacia`s shadow turn from him and scurry away&

　　"I set his bed up next to yours, though to be honest, I think your bed might be forfeit."

　　Rorri heard Adar`s clothes rustle, then the floor creaked and sank beside him.

　　"She also brought some toys and a weird& carpet tower thing. It`s on the stoop, right now. Not sure where we`ll put that, but& oh, and she brought a box for him to poop in. He`s not allowed to-"

　　"Did she say anything else?" Rorri interrupted.

　　Adar paused. "She told me there`s a rumor going around on the Plateau. They`re saying that the Widow is a Du閚, and that she orchestrated the attack on the opera house for some reason. So naturally, now they`re calling her-"

　　"Oh, dear god, please don`t say-"

　　"The Black Widow."

　　Rorri groaned and rubbed his forehead.

　　"I know," Adar said. "It`s about as tasteless as it gets."

　　"It`s like they`re not even trying," Rorri said, shaking his head. Poppy purred and kneaded his leg, occasionally poking through the thin blanket with his claws.

　　"Did she say anything&" Rorri`s voice trailed off as his mind`s gaze drifted, searching for his tutor`s familiar form.

　　"About what?" Adar prompted.

　　"I don`t know," Rorri sighed. "Me? Her? Us&?"

　　"She asked how you`ve been," Adar said. "I told her you`ll be ready to take the cast off soon, and you still can`t see. I also told her you`ve been struggling with depression and that you sometimes have trouble knowing what`s real, since you hallucinate so much."

　　Rorri`s jaw dropped.

　　"Um& Was that too much, or-?"

　　"It`s fine," Rorri grumbled, knowing he couldn`t have expected anything different from the silver elf. "Did& Did she seem okay?"

　　"Not really," Adar said. Rorri`s heart sank. "I think she`s lost a bit of weight since I saw her at the opera. She strikes me as the type that doesn`t eat much when she`s stressed. Definitely didn`t seem healthy. She was wearing a disguise or something, too. I guess she doesn`t want to be seen out here? I didn`t ask about it. I don`t know her that well."

　　Rorri fell into somber stillness, comforted only by the cat`s rhythmic breathing beneath his hand. A bizarre, skeletal Shacia dressed in black danced into the darkness of his mind. A distressed hum escaped his lips. He wanted only to blink the image away, sweep it clean and replace the picture with the reality surrounding him, but blinking did nothing to clear his view, and reality was far, far away&

　　Adar cleared his throat. "But, uh& I also noticed that she kept looking towards your room. She`s probably missing you."

　　The image shifted until he could glimpse her eyes - the drooping eyelid, the mischievous twinkle, the longing on their pale green surface.

　　"I`m sorry," Adar said in earnest. "Do you want me to leave you alone, or&?"

　　"No," Rorri murmured, turning away.

　　"Mau?" Poppy clambered over the covers, narrowly missing Rorri`s groin as he settled into the groove between his knees.

　　"I never did catch up to Trisman," Adar said. "It was weird, almost like he paid us a special visit or something. He normally goes door-to-door. I don`t think it`s even collection day, now that I think about it."

　　Rorri shrugged, wincing through a flash of pain in his shoulder.

　　"Anyway," Adar continued, "do you want to practice getting around the house again? It`s been a while-"

　　"I don`t want to scare the cat," Rorri cut in hastily.

　　"You can`t stay in bed forever," Adar said. "I don`t want your muscles to waste any more than they already have-"

　　"Why?" Rorri snapped. "It`s not as if I`ll be pulling a job any time soon. I can`t even walk down the street the way I am now. Why should I care if I waste away, Adar? Why should you care? The only reason I`m even still alive is because you won`t let me just-"

　　"Mau," Poppy interjected, digging his claws into Rorri`s arm. Rorri jerked away. He felt as if he`d shrank into a tiny version of himself, or maybe the world had swelled around him. Tears leaked out beneath his eyelashes. He knew he`d saddled Adar with an awful burden, with all he`d done for him since the accident, and yet&

　　"I`d be a pretty shitty friend if I let you kill yourself," Adar said. "You know I haven`t spent all this time taking care of you because it makes me feel like a good person, right?"

　　Rorri sensed a heaviness in Adar`s voice he`d never heard before. He could see it in the void, a dense stream of purple spiraling from where his voice came. But it was still so gentle. It was always gentle, and patient, and far more kind than Rorri deserved. He couldn`t understand it. Why did Adar keep taking care of him? He hadn`t done anything to earn such kindness.

　　"All that aside, I can put the cat in my room while we practice walking so you won`t trip over him."

　　Poppy chirped affirmatively.

　　"&Fine," Rorri said, throwing his blanket to the side.

　　*******

　　With time and practice, Rorri grew accustomed to navigating the house. He learned the number of steps it took to get between rooms, following the wall to keep himself steady, and once the cast was off, he could finally feed himself. It was a small victory, but even that minute level of freedom bolstered his spirit, to say nothing of the dignity that came with finding the chamber pot on his own.

　　Adar taught him to speak Human without the silly intricacies of the Weathermens` cant, and though his grip on the language was still loose, it gave Rorri something with which to keep his mind occupied. Adar encouraged him to draw, but Rorri refused. What was the point if he couldn`t see what he was drawing? It would only frustrate and sadden him, and frankly, the suggestion was rather offensive. He knew that Adar meant well, and maybe it would be good to work his hands, but still. The thought of drawing a picture that looked like something a blind man might draw absolutely mortified him. So they played Go Fish instead, as if that were any better, and they tried other card games, but none of it made any sense. They had a brief stint where they sang with each other under the delusion that they might form a street band, but Rorri just couldn`t carry a tune - though Adar had a shockingly gorgeous voice. Rorri wondered why he didn`t sing more.

　　Things were looking up, but Rorri still felt utterly stuck. He couldn`t leave the house - not safely, at least - and though Adar and Poppy were good company, he was still lonely and tired. He missed Shacia, and he missed Bilge. He missed the Snow, the wakefulness it brought, and he missed the city, its taverns and hideaways. He missed sitting in the park, drawing passersby. All the things he could never do again&

　　But he was alive. That had to count for something.