I woke intermittently as I slept, peeking my head slightly through the mist to ensure that I hadn't yet overstayed my welcome. After what I thought to be a few hours, I checked again.

It was still dark, but the sky was noticeably starting to lighten. I didn't want to push my luck with the rising sun, so I rubbed the sleep in my eyes and prepared to get to work.

I would need to slip out of the mist and up on to the solid clouds. From there I could slip into the streets of the wealthier population and finally make my way into the soon-to-be bustling streets of the rest of the city. Once at the edge of the city, it would be only a short walk to the edge of the clouds and I could pick a good spot.

There would be no way down for me but to jump, but I trusted myself that it would work. For I short while I had debated just throwing myself out of the mist and to the earth, but I wanted time to think about where I was jumping from.

I peeked out of the mist again to watch for the guard. I would have to time my departure according to their rounds just like when I entered.

As one of the guards approached, I ducked my head back behind the mist and counted to ten on my fingers three times. I looked out again, and the guard was now walking away from where I was, and his back was turned.

I was so sure of myself coming out of the tunnel that it was easy to ignore the dark drop below me. I took a deep breath and turned myself so my back was facing the palace and I was facing back into the tunnel. Moving my right arm up and over the ledge and grabbing the uneven ceiling of the tunnel with my left hand, I swung my leg out and over onto the solid cloud in one motion. I drew my other leg up and used the momentum to roll myself fully onto the cloud.

It was a well-practiced maneuver, and it was certainly far less nerve racking than trying to slip in. Either way, I was glad to be done with it.

I brought myself to my feet quickly and strode across the clouds and grass and back into the city.

I kept myself walking as casually as I could, but it was hard to look normal this early in the morning. People in this sect rose with the sun, and the sun was still making its way to rising.

I was still deep within the wealthier part of the city when I felt the hairs on my neck rise. It was a faint clatter in the otherwise silent night, so distant that I wasn't sure if I had heard anything at all.

I kept walking. To retreat into an alleyway or pause to listen could show a lack of confidence and cause a trap set by people with poor intent to be sprung. The quicker I was out into the main part of the city, the better off I would be. Until then, I was jumpy.

Just to reassure myself, I reached my hand briefly into my waistband to check that my knife was still there. Checked, I thought to myself. Still there.

After a few more minutes I caught another noise. Footsteps. People walking about was hardly a cause for alarm, but these footsteps seemed to be eerily in step with mine on every other step. I let myself skip and stumble my feet slightly, putting my steps slightly behind. The soft steps became more obvious, and then slowly faded back into my own.

Who ever was following me was working hard to remain unnoticed, and they were doing a two-bit job of it, too.

But there was another thing. My feet were soft on the packed dirt road, and my footsteps were nearly soundless. To match my footsteps, the fool following me would have to be close enough to hear or close enough to see me walking. I decided it would be best to not clue in my follower that I was onto him. Sometimes, I had learned, it could speed up the attack.

I chided myself mentally. Not that there was going to be any attack for certain. I really was just paranoid.

I veered off the back road I was on, remembering the shouting voice from before I entered the palace. If someone had followed me to the palace, they would have known the roads I had used and set a trap. Perhaps I was paranoid, but I was better safe than sorry.

Once I was back out of the wealthy sector, I would be surrounded by people starting their morning jobs and could disappear into the many alleys and roads.

At least, I hoped there would be enough people.

The sun was rising fast. The sky was starting to lighten significantly on the eastern side, and the clouds over head were starting to show pink. Just as the cloud I was standing on probably looked to anyone underneath, I mused to myself.

I crossed back into the main section of the city as I picked up my pace. There were a few people out, some pushing carts while others carried tools of their trade to wherever it was that they worked.

It wasn't by any means sufficient cover, but it would have to do. I secretly wished I would've taken my chances with the sun and left the tunnel later.

It was too late to worry about regrets, so I checked my knife again, secure in its place-hold, and made a sharp right. From there I was able to casually turn my head to look down the road I came from. It was light enough to see far down the road and besides the people I had passed, there was no one. I quickly assessed the moods of the people. None of them were worried or suspicious.

Whoever had been behind me was no longer on my trail. I fingered my knife and chuckled to myself as I slowed my pace. Perhaps there was reason to be paranoid on earth, where the chance that someone may recognize me as someone that worked for Yulimer was slim but not zero. Here in the clouds, it would have to be a complete stranger. If it had been a guard that had seen me, I wouldn't have been followed. It would have been more like being hunted.

So that left me with the possibility that I was paranoid. Knowing how I got during some nights of working, it was an obvious conclusion. I knew if Jace was here he would probably be laughing at me for the rest of the morning. I smiled at the thought.

Eventually, as the first sign of the sun peeked over the clouds, I neared the edge of the city. The sky was turning brilliant oranges and yellows in the east. I had been out to the edge of the city many times in my life, usually with my mother and sister, despite the lengthy walk from where I had lived. As I got older and more attached to my brothers, I had called my sister plain and boring and left her for the wild excitement of my brothers closer in age.

Very few roads ran all the way to the edge, and where they did, they usually met up with roads from other clouds with other people. It was a much too busy place for my current needs, so when I came to a dead end road and a line of homes, I stepped between two and out of the city.

It was a breath-taking view. The cloud that the city sat on went on for another one hundred meters or so, and then it dropped off completely to the earth below. Farther out, clouds peppered the sky. Some, I knew, were simply like a mist while others were solid and had nomads living on them. Yet all the clouds reflected the same sun in varying shades of pink. Above me, more clouds were moving and reflecting the same brilliance of the sun. Between the clouds, I could see the earth below, far off in the distance.

Some adults had told stories about how the clouds sometimes looked like the ocean at the end of the continent. If it were true, I doubted the oceans could ever match the beauty of the clouds.

A slight breeze caught me, and I sighed. It was lovely up here; I didn't want to leave this world again for the cruelty of earth. With a bitterness, I wondered if it was the cruelty of earth, or simply that I had lived in the clouds before anything truly terrible had happened to me.

I took in the sunrise and the clouds one last time and got to work as I made my way to the edge. I would need to remove one of my shirts again for mobility, and I decided that I would tie the shirt into my belt and hope I didn't lose it. If I made it to earth in one piece, I would need my second shirt again. A shouting voice stopped me.

I whirled to locate the man, taking a tentative step back, and my hand flew to my knife reflexively. I may have been at the edge of the clouds but houses still were lined up right before me. If attention was drawn to me now when I was so close...

A vaguely familiar man half staggered half ran out between the houses towards me and into the clearing.

"Hey," he called again, and for a brief second I realized he seemed excited and hopeful, but I needed him gone from the clearing before I could leave.

He was still walking towards me confidently, and while he was still several meters away, I drew my knife and held it in a forward grip. It was obvious I had his attention, so I let my small amount of aggression accelerate to blot out everything else I felt.

I was successful immediately, and I watched him halt and his face go pale. As he took a step back, I matched him with a step forward. His panic grew. It would be any moment before he turned on his heels and ran.

Then he did something so contrary to his emotions that I was taken by surprise.

He held up his hands, stammering, "No, no, it's not like that at all, you don't have to, I—"

"You're from earth," he blurted finally, making a vague gesture.

"And who told you that idea?" I snarled, still on the offensive. I scanned behind him for anyone else.

Was this some sort of trick sent by the king? I wondered, not sure what it could mean.

Then it hit me. This was the same young man I had seen the day before as I entered my home, and he had been genuinely surprised to see me.

"No, no one told me," he was saying. "You're the only one here who dresses normal."

I was shocked. Of course, my clothes would stand out among the weather-makers as eccentrically ill-fashioned, but to anyone who was used to living on earth, the short shirt and wide belt would be a sure sign that I was associated with them. He didn't say I dressed like on earth, I noticed. He said I dressed normal.

"You're not from the clouds?" I questioned him, starting to realize.

"No, of course not." He seemed desperate to explain himself, and his eyes jumped from my blade to my face. "No, no, I've only been here for two weeks. I have to get back."

It hit me.

"You're the boy who went missing after the storm," I murmured.

"You really are from earth then," he said proudly, taking a step towards me. "You can help me get back."

Was he not paying attention to my feelings pressing into him at all? I thought as I grew angrier.

"Who said I'm going anywhere?" I hissed.

He beamed like someone who had won a game of cards.

"You'd have to be, why else would you come out here after sneaking around the palace and be dressed like you're from earth, unless you were going to earth and also need to fit in?" He shrugged. "It just makes sense," he said.

"You think I'm going to help you get back to earth," I stated.

"Well, it'd be awfully nice," he said as he shuffled his feet slightly.

"And did you think to yourself, if I was even going to earth, how I would have a way to get down?" How could there be a bone of logic in this boy hardly any older than me?

He wasn't smiling now, but inside his hopes were starting to plummet as he became more and more crestfallen.

"I hadn't thought that far ahead," he mumbled.

I took a few cautious steps back and sheathed by knife back into my waistband.

I rubbed my temple and said, "Listen, I'm sorry that life can't be all sunshine, I really am, but I'm not going to earth. I think you should leave now."

He worked his jaw for a moment as he thought. Finally, he held up his hand and his mood went from hopeless to a confusing and anxious mix. I narrowed my eyes at the sudden shift in tone.

"Alright.," He gave in, hands still in the air in a surrender gesture. "Alright, I'll go."

He turned his back on me and limped heavily back to the buildings. I watched him go and finally, as he neared the homes he dropped his hands and disappeared behind a wall.

I straightened up fully and put a hand on my hip. I didn't trust him, that was true enough, but why I didn't? I couldn't say.

I slunk up to the buildings and peeked into each of the small alleys between the structures. I would've gone up onto the street to check where he went, but I would have to believe that if he was watching from a distance, people would notice and become suspicious of him. There would be little trouble he could cause while people were watching.

As for myself, I would go largely unnoticed off the street even as people walked by.

I waited, unsure what to do. I had felt his emotions for a short while followed by the usual fading as he disappeared, but still I felt it flickering, like the moonlight through the trees on earth.

I felt the connection finally slip away for the last time, and then it was gone.

I wondered if I had just been *distracted while I looked for him, and, shrugging the thought away, I went to work getting ready to return to earth.

My feet closed the rest of the distance to the edge of the clouds. Before I reached the edge, I had already begun to remove my belt and had slung it over my shoulders.

Walking to the very edge of the clouds, I couldn't help but take a longer look than needed. There were no additional clouds beneath the city, and I could see where shadows were creeping back to their casters as the sun came over the horizon. The city, for once, truly did look red. It took my breath away and I stood gaping. It was all so other-worldly from this distance.

When I jumped out of the clouds, my target would be for the crop fields outside of the city. Hopefully they would provide a softer landing. I had jumped out of a few homes before, but jumping from a height like this was something I never imagined.

I took a step back from the edge to finish preparing. As soon as I finished, I would walk to the edge and off of it. The longer I waited, the more time I had to rethink my decisions.

I unfolded my shirt sleeves and worked on unbuttoning my outer shirt. Once I was prepared to remove my outer shirt, I gave a sharp glance back to the homes. It was a reassurance that I couldn't feel any lingering emotions outside of my own, but I was still cautious of the houses a few hundred meters* away.

I grabbed the belt and efficiently slid the outer shirt off. I stretched gladly despite feeling suddenly exposed, and I retied my belt with my second shirt securely in the strap. My knife was secured to the inside of my trousers, and I didn't mess with it. It wasn't as important as the shirt. Anyone could buy a new knife, but I couldn't walk back into the red city without a second shirt.

I braced my foot against the clouds for a running start. Attached to my back, two wings unfurled and spanned well past my fingertips. They were foreign and unnatural, and somehow my own blood went through it. There was no time to wait now. It was time to jump. I bent my knees to get a quick running start. In only a few seconds I would be off the edge. My heart was in my throat, beating rapidly.

Then I heard him.

"Oh," he let out in a whisper.

I whirled on my feet and brought the wings closer to my body like their usual cramped position under my belt and second shirt, but there was truly no hiding it now.

He was standing almost right behind me on the clouds. Only a few seconds ago, I had checked the area of two hundred meters between the houses and me. Maybe it could've been possible if a fit man sprinted the whole way, but he had that limp and he wasn't even panting from the effort.

Where had he come from? I knew just as well as anyone could have that the feat was impossible.

He stood staring at me as I felt embarrassment and vague horror pierce his fear. I winced. My heart was beating fast in my throat, but my had was already at my side, ready to pull my knife without a second thought.

"How—" I started, angrily. "What are you doing here."

His mouth was hanging open, and he snapped it shut. "Are you...?" he asked me, trailing off and staring at the space right behind my shoulders.

I narrowed my eyes, secretly wishing I could melt into the clouds.

"Don't finish that unless you want me to jump right now," I snapped.

He stood straighter and his eyes settled back on my face. "You're going back to earth and I want you to take me with you."

There was no hiding now that I was going to earth. I was moments away from jumping off the clouds and into the empty air below.

There was also no hiding me. Internally, I cringed at how exposed I was. He would know the feeling, but he would have to guess why.

He took my silence poorly. "Please, please," he begged, "I don't know why I'm here; I don't belong here."

I took a step backwards. It would only take a spin and a few steps, and I would be gone.

And yet...

In an odd way, I was drawn to him. Perhaps it was his feelings of hope and despair pressing into me. Maybe I just knew the feeling of being on the wrong side of the clouds too well. Years ago, I would have begged anyone to take me home.

I took another have step back.

It would be dangerous to try and take another person with me; I wasn't even totally sure of my capabilities to get myself down. He was a young man, but his fear was so childlike...

"When I got here I was told I was supposed to find you, that you would help me. Please." he offered finally. His hands were spread wide in a gesture of surrender. Did he know what games he was getting wrapped into?

I threw up my hands and cursed.

"Fine," I yelled. "Sure, won't that be just lovely!"

The look on his face at my outburst would have been priceless under any other circumstance.

I paced the edge of the cloud calling to him, "Why don't you just jump of the edge right now, what's the difference if I come falling after you?"

Idiot king, I thought. Stupid, stupid king.

I turned on my heel to find him staring at me bewildered.

"What do you mean jump off?" he asked slowly. "Can't you," he hesitated, uncertain with his words, "fly?"

I drew my wings closer to my body subconsciously.

"No, no I can't," I sneered. "I cant use them; they don't work."

It wasn't entirely true, but I knew at least flying was out of the question.

"Oh," he mumbled.

His hopes were falling again.

"Listen," I tried. Why did I want to make him feel better? "I'm going to try to glide down. If you want to hold on and try to come with me, you can."

His hopes rose again.

"But if it doesn't work, I'm dropping you. It doesn't matter how high up."

The weight of my words hung on the feelings between us. I watched him silently, calculating. He was going to say yes. The wrong choice.

"Then I guess I'll be coming with you," he said confidently.

There was nothing to do about it now. If I dropped him, King Syhoven would just have to be pleased that it hadn't been my choice.

I steeled myself.

"Then here's how were going to do this," I explained. "I'm going to climb on your back and hold on. Then you'll have to get a running start and jump straight out and head-first. Once we're off, hold onto my arms so that you don't fall. Got it?"

He nodded and his fear showed slightly on his face.

I walked over to the edge of the cloud and looked at the brightening ground below as I adapted my plan.

"Let's get this over with," I muttered.

I made him stand a few meters away from the edge of the clouds and climbed onto his back. As I wrapped my arms and legs around his neck and torso, he became increasingly uncomfortable. I had no remorse. He chose this and everything that went with it.

He instinctively reached to grab my legs.

"What did I tell you?" I hissed in his ears. "Grab my arms after you jump, not my legs before."

He let go and murmured his apologies under his breath. After a moment, I was situated how I liked and stretched my wings out behind me. Everything in my back and wings ached and there was no solution for it, so I curled my wings closer to my body until they could be useful.

"I'm ready," I told him.

He nodded but I could feel not just his fear but his heart pounding in his chest. My head was peeking over his shoulder, but I couldn't see his face.

He started walking towards the edge of the clouds, but he was missing determination.

Suddenly, as I realized what he was doing, I yelled out, "No! Stop!"

He froze, and I continued.

"No," I said again more subdued. "Don't look before you do it. It will make it worse."

A shudder went through him and I watched his mood intently. It was fear for only a second longer, and then it was replaced by determination that was so steely that it felt as though my head had been plunged into icy water.

His muscles tensed underneath me. Three long stride was all it took.

He catapulted us off the clouds face first and into the abyss below.

The air whistled in my ears and pounded my face as I strained the muscles in my back to hold the wings stretched outright. We started to descend more and more vertically as I tried to fight the wind.

My joints felt as if they were being slowly pulled apart as I tried to keep my wings extended and my arms wrapped around the young man.

We started to pull up slightly, but we were still accelerating.

His fear slammed into me all at once. I gasped, but the air was pulled from my mouth as we fell faster. The wind was howling.

I held on tighter and dragged my wings into an upward slant. The effect was immediate, and we started to slow.

Then it we were slower and slower. I realized too late that we were slowing at an alarming rate, and we started dropping downwards even faster.

I tried it again, falling horizontal, and slanting my wings. We started to slow and I flicked them back down. We sped up and I dragged them upwards. I held on tighter, screwed my eyes shut, and tried to focus more on the quickly descending earth below.

I realized that if I couldn't drop him into water, we wouldn't make it. I really hoped he could swim.

There were small lakes scattered around the city. All I needed to do was get towards one of them.

How many seconds did I have left?

I strained to keep my wings stretched outright. It was getting harder and harder.

I picked a small lake and started hurtling in its direction. There was no way that I could aim for anything more than simply in the water.

The lake was getting bigger. I shifted my body, trying to get us closer. I desperately hoped I would time it correctly.

Less than 20 meters from the surface of the water, I let him go. He was still clutching my arms, and I pushed him away with a knee to his back. His hands were forced to let go.

Having released him, I fell much slower. I plummeted towards the waters edge, but I was traveling too horizontally. I tried to pull up and away from the muddy soil next to the water at the last seconds, but it didn't stop me from colliding shoulder first into the earth.

I rolled and tumbled, but even then, the impact was jarring.

I finally came to a halt in the grass, my breaths coming in short and uneven gasps. I rolled to my knees, but my limbs were weak and I let myself fall back down to the ground; instead of getting up, I rolled onto my back and stared up at the clouds. They were mostly white now and the sky was a light blue with only a bit of yellow still in the east.

*Samuel.

I got up onto my knees and staggered upright. Too fast, I said to myself. A wave of nausea came over me and I fought to stay standing in the grass.

After a moment or two, the feeling mostly subsided, and I half ran, half jogged in the direction of the lake. With out the second shirt, I was able to balance so much easier, and I shifted not just my arms but also my wings as I moved.

I scanned the earth in front of me. The small lake looked entirely undisturbed, but I didn't see anyone on the grass surrounding it either.

I sped up into a full sprint.

"Sam?" I called out, but there could be no one hiding in the short grass around the lake or the red dirt beyond it. He could hardly hide behind any of the trees.

And then there it was. Something dark popped out of the lake near the center and disappeared back under again.

A head.

I was still nearly thirty meters away when I saw his head break the water again. Fear hit me like a rock.

"Sam!" I yelled again.

His head turned but went back under after only a few seconds. I held onto his fear, searching for any changes.

I should've asked if he knew how to swim. It had seemed like the safer choice. If we had landed on the ground, we would have been seriously injured together.

My feet padded on the dirt as I closed the distance. The grass got higher at the bank. I rushed through it and splashed into the water.

I stopped, knee deep and staring at the blank surface.

I couldn't swim either.

Sam's head bobbed up again, but he was no closer to the edge of the pond. He had to be drowning. How many more times until he lost energy to swim?

I stepped out of the water like a flash of lightening as his head went under again. There it was. The tiniest bit of hope flashed, disappeared, then came back again in waves.

Sam's head popped back up and stayed there for a while, and his fear ebbed slightly.

When his head reappeared, he was considerably closer to the edge of the pond.

I let out a breath I didn't know I had been holding and let my shoulders drop. His head broke the water once again, and this time it didn't disappear.

He finished closing the distance above water, his legs kicking slowly and arms paddling furiously. From the bank, I could hear him sputtering in short, suppressed coughs.

I took a hesitant step closer to the water.

"Sam?"

He was only a few meters away now, and his head and shoulders came into view.

"Do you mind helping a young man out of the water?" he laughed, half coughing.

I stepped back and held up my hands.

"No, no, I don't swim."

He laughed at me and dropped lower into the water. "You don't have to, your feet can touch here. It's not too deep."

I glowered at him. Now that he was at the edge, all his fear was gone and in its place was excitement that beat into my bones. Some sort of reaction for having fallen out of the sky a few minutes earlier.

Sam beckoned me into the water. "Come on, don't make me crawl out like a cripple."

I compromised. I stepped to the edge of the bank, carefully staying just out of the water.

I said, "here," and dropped to a knee and held out my arm. "Take my hand."

His impatience flicked at me.

He tried to reassure me. "I promise it's not that deep, it's just a little muddy. Hard to get out alone, you see."

He paused and a little bit of anxiety spiked.

"My leg jolted off in the lake."

I recoiled. He flinched at my reaction or my confusion or both.

His eyes widened a bit as he realized what he said.

"A prosthetic... it was a prosthetic. When I hit the water, it detached it from my leg and I couldn't get it back on. It was drowning me."

He joked, "Now I really have a limp, don't I?"

"Oh," I said dumbly. My mind was racing.

I carefully removed my knife and its sheath and set it in the grass then swung my legs around and put them in the water. It was surprising warm, and made my legs feel light weight. I waded further into the water and my feet squished into the mud at the bottom. He reached out his arm and I pulled myself closer. The water didn't come much further than my armpits, but still it was an odd feeling. It was nothing like being in a shallow stream.

I reached under his arms, and he slung his up around my wings and over my shoulder. I felt slightly nauseated as I thought of the second shirt still tucked tightly into my belt.

At first it was easy to move together through the water, but as it became shallow, he started to use me more and more to brace himself.

When we got to the edge of the bank and the water was only up to our knees, his full weight was on my shoulders every other step. He was taller than me, and was lean, but still he was heavy. The bank seemed steeper than it had on the way into the water, but the mud turned into dirt. I was doing everything but dragging Sam and myself up the slope.

Out of the water, I could see that his pant leg was ripped from the bottom up to the knee. His leg ended suddenly just past the knee and just hung there, not long enough to reach the ground.

It was a novel sight, but I tried to look away quickly. I could imagine the curious eyes that bored into me, and I could only imagine...

As if reading my thoughts, Sam said, "It's okay to look, I promise. I was just born like that."

I started. "So, you're cursed?" I asked, but I felt too forward, so I tried again. "Are you cursed?"

He looked back at me and met my gaze. "Are you?"

I was scared, but he was only mildly curious. How could I know if I was cursed? I couldn't but there was no other explanation. The constant mental links with strangers and family. My wretched back.

"I don't know," I said finally.

Sam leaned on me and took a step. "Neither do I."

The sun was well on its way to noon, more importantly than the sun glaring in my eyes, it was getting hot. We would be wise to not finish traveling to the city until the sun started going down. We were walking in the direction of the Red City, but it was several kilometers away.

Still, as we walked, I had another question.

"Do you think it's somehow more humiliating to get yourself out of the pond by yourself and to the Red City than to stand upright and rely on another person and shuffle awkwardly like this?"

But as we kept haggling along, he didn't respond.

The pace was so slow that I truly didn't know if we could make it to the Red city in a day. I tried again.

"Is there no way that you can crawl or something?" I finished the last words quietly.

"Perhaps not," he replied casually, but his feelings about the matter were stony and rolled into my head like thunder.

It was a bad subject to stay on, but when he offered nothing else, we walked in silence.

My impatience was growing. I need to get back to the Red City as fast as possible so I could gather my things and head north. After five years, an extra day mattered little, yet my mind was racing. I could make it to the city before the sun got all too high in the sky, and I could push through the late morning heat.

Oh, but it would be so cruel to leave him.

He was hardly using me for any weight support now. As I walked slowly, he only used my shoulder for balance. It was significantly faster than the progress we had made in the water.

We walked, and we walked, and we walked.

The sun climbed higher. The temperature rose. My knee and hips were staring to ach from the fall, and my shoulder was straining against the pressure of Sam's hand.

His breathing was barely audible but ragged.

I could see the Red City getting closer, yet we were still a good distance away. Grassy fields and crops spanned the distance between us and the signature, hazy red buildings. Trees dotted the foreground, offering sparse shade. The sun was blazing down. We were only about half way between the pond and the city, and finishing the trek now would put us well into high noon. I made a decision.

"Next tree," I told Sam, "let's stop."

He took a deep breath and let it go. "Yes, let's do that."

We veered a little in our path to a lone mango tree and stopped. I slipped out from under his hand and dropped myself gratefully to the ground. Sam leaned against the tree for a moment and lowered himself too.

I settled myself so that as the sun traveled, I'd hopefully still be in the shade. After rolling down my shirt sleeves, I pulled out my second shirt and draped it over my face. I had briefly considered putting the shirt back on now that we had stopped, but he had already seen what he had seen. The discomfort was not worth it.

"If you wake in the evening first, wake me too. Otherwise, I'll wake you up," I mumbled out from under the cloth. I was desperately thirsty and staring to get hungry, but I knew the unripe mangoes hanging over us would be sour. I heard him rustle around for a few minutes as he got comfortable, and I waited for his emotions to settle.

After a short time, when he was still awake, I shrugged to myself. Resting was better than sleeping for his part, but after yesterday, I needed to sleep.

It felt like only minutes before my eyes opened from a dreamless sleep. I was thankful for that. To set my emotions out on display when there was nothing I could do to stop it irked me. I had found that when I didn't remember my dreams, the feelings weren't as deep.

I had woken to Sam shifting by the tree, and I turned my eyes towards his direction, even though my face was still covered. He was anxious but overall rather content.

"Are you ready to get going?" I questioned him.

He shuffled again.

"I've been ready."

I flipped my shirt off my face to eye him, but he was smiling lightly. There was no sign of condescension.

I sighed. "Let's get to the city before it gets dark."

Sitting up, I peered at the sky. The sun had dropped quite a bit and I silently thanked Yulimer for all the familiarity of sleeping during the day.

My shirt was rough as I pulled it over my head and over my back, carefully adjusting my limbs into a practiced arrangement. The longer I went without the second shirt, the more it ached and hurt to put it back.

From cripple to monster to back again. Still cursed, no matter what I did, but one was more ostracizing than the other.

I tucked the shirts into my trousers and rolled up my sleeves. Ready to go.

Sam was already standing, so I stood and offered my shoulder.

"Let's go home," I said.