Die. Respawn. Repeat.

He-Who-Guards had known this question would come eventually. He’d even been ready for it. What he hadn’t been ready for was… well, himself. He’d thought it would be a quick and simple explanation, and instead he’d been sitting by the campfire for the past hour and a half, trying to decide on an explanation he thought was satisfactory.

His answers, it turned out, didn’t even satisfy himself. Did he still want to go by He-Who-Guards? He-Who-Protects felt like it described him. The name was him, in a manner of speaking.

“I do not feel ready,” he finally explained, frowning at himself even as he said the words. It still felt like it wasn’t enough.

“Just let us know when you’re comfortable,” Ethan said, studying him. He seemed to sense that he wasn’t comfortable talking about it, at least. Ahkelios didn’t quite have the same sensitivity.

“Why not?” Ahkelios asked. “I hope it’s not because you feel like you can’t live up to it. Because you are! You have been.”

Guard couldn’t help but smile a little at his friend’s reassurance, at least. “It is not that,” he explained. “There is a lot that ties me to this name. I do not feel ready to move on.”

He didn’t even know what had happened to Whisper. He couldn’t be sure that she was alive, but he couldn’t be sure that she was gone, either. It felt like there was a chapter of his life that hadn’t been closed yet.

Part of him also just liked the way He-Who-Guards sounded more. Was that a foolish reason not to change his name? Silverwisp society would dictate that he do so, and yet…

Well, he wasn’t exactly beholden to them. None of them would even recognize him in the body he was in.

“I was just curious if you wanted us to,” Ethan said. “But whatever name you’re comfortable with, you know?”

Ahkelios opened his mouth, then snapped it shut again when Ethan nudged him, looking mildly embarrassed. Guard chuckled.

“Call me Guard, at least for now,” he said warmly. It was good to have friends like these, he decided. “I will inform you if and when I am ready. Otherwise… I know who I am, and that is enough.”

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Ethan nodded. He stood up from the campfire, stretching. “Sounds good,” he said. “I’m going to turn in for the night, I think. I’ll see you two—”

“Ethan,” Guard said. Ethan froze. “You will be awake at six in the morning this time, yes?”

Ethan sighed. “Must we adhere to this schedule?”

“If you wish to learn to fight with your Chromatic Threads as I do with my chains?” Guard asked. “Yes.”

“Fine,” he said. Ahkelios snickered at him, and Guard reached out to flick his arm.

“You will be needed as well,” Guard said sternly.

Ahkelios groaned.

Guard found it strange, in truth, that Gheraa opted not to join them when they had their little campfire talks. He supposed he didn’t mind it, exactly, but at the same time, he wondered if he needed to push a little harder. ȒÀƝÖΒËṡ

With anyone else, he would have. With an Integrator…

He frowned at himself. He could not use that as an excuse forever. No, he would ask Gheraa to join them tomorrow. Ethan had tried already, but it was likely that Gheraa needed to hear from one of them, and Ahkelios was less likely to ask between the two of them.

For now, he had two things to do tonight, as he did every night.

The first was to check up on Aris. She had uploaded herself into the proxy servers in Isthanok not long after their arrival in the Quiet Grove; fortunately, her processing speed meant they could communicate in more or less real-time, even with the time disparity between the Grove and Isthanok.

“You are doing well?” Guard asked.

Aris didn’t exactly roll her eyes, but she did send him a file that contained exactly that impression. “Guard, you do realize that you’re basically asking me this every fifteen minutes?”

Guard paused. “I did not consider the time disparity,” he admitted after a moment.

“I’m fine. I’m looking into the projects Whisper left behind and anything that might tell us about where she is now,” Aris said with a sigh. “I will update you when I have news. Please stop contacting me. I mean no offense by this, but you aren’t my dad. Get a child of your own if you want to parent someone.”

The connection closed. Guard didn’t react for a long moment.

Something about what she said had resonated with him in a way that was… disturbingly painful. In a way that was real. He didn’t know what to make of that, and after a moment, he forced himself to move on.

The second was Ethan’s Void Inspiration, which had not stopped pestering him ever since it had discovered the quantity of Firmament he possessed. He didn’t mind feeding it. Part of him wondered if his soul would have deteriorated so much if he’d had something like this to begin with.

One of these days, Guard thought, he would need to speak to it and understand what made it tick. Perhaps make Ethan speak to it, too. For all his strengths, the human still had his faults; this was one of them.

“Here you go, little one,” Guard said quietly, feeding it a thread of Firmament. It chomped eagerly around it.

Even this made him feel a deep sense of loss. One that had nothing to do with the Firmament he was losing.

He just wished he knew why.

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