The silence wasn't empty. It clung like ash—fine, choking, everywhere.
Gasgorin didn't reply immediately. When he did, he talked low, kind of offhand.
"He knew it was futile. Pouring water on a fire that just won't stop?"
He shook his head. "Yeah. He knew."
A pause.
"But he did it anyway."
His words didn't even rise above a whisper, but they pulled all of them in. The words dropped like stones into a silent pond.
"Again and again. Draw. Douse. See it flare up. Draw again."
The fire laughed. The gods looked away.
His teeth were gritted.
"But he didn't."
Gasgorin gazed out at the far wall, eyes abstracted.
"Because he noticed how the bugs stared at him when he did."
He released a slow breath. Not weighty. Simply… full.
"And that glance? That fleeting glimmer in their eyes? That tenuous hope?"
He closed his eyes.
It made the entire damn thing worthwhile. The isolation. The stupidity. The pointlessness.
He hesitated, shoulders barely rising.
"Because for a moment… they thought that someone had seen them."
His hand was palm upwards. As if to offer something he could not explain.
"And for him… that was enough."
The room was silent. No one moved. Even the shadows stayed on the walls as if to hear.
"He could've stopped," Gasgorin continued, softer now. "Any time. No chains. No curse. No law. Just… choice."
His fingers gestured toward nothing. An invisible door never walked through.
He could have allowed the fire to burn. Let the insects perish. Allow the garden to wither.
He stood again before the crowd, eyes ablaze.
It wouldn't have made a difference. They required him. He didn't require them.
The truth settled like a weight in the chest. No flourish. Just raw.
But he remained.
Because something in him snapped—and rather than closing it up, he left it open.
Another break. This one is longer.
"But as much as they changed. But as much as they forgot him or did not comprehend. He did not change."
His voice was steady now. Final.
The battle continued to be absurd. And he kept going anyway.
"He smiles," Gasgorin whispered, "and keeps going. Bucket in hand. Fire in his face. And he knows it's pointless."
Because he cursed himself.
Each word hit like a slow drumbeat.
Not by chance. Not by destiny. He chose to.
"Because he gave a damn."
He glanced down at his own palms—ink-stained, scarred. Fingers curled slowly into a fist.
And that's what broke him.
A breath.
"Not the fire. Not the gods. Not even the bugs."
But the decision to just keep going. To just keep doing something no one would ever get. Or remember.
His voice dropped, barely audible.
"Because in his heart… he was more of a bug than any of them."
The room didn't breathe.
Then, hardly above a whisper—so quiet as dust accumulated in a slant of dying light—
"That was enough."
Gasgorin glanced up.
And for an instant's flash, his eyes were not quite human.
"He was the God who bothered."
Silence lingered a beat too long.
That's one hell of a story," Veliranya interrupted with a dry laugh. "So what is that? Some sort of philosophical allegory or something?
Mellirion didn't even glance at her. Just blew out a breath and rolled her eyes. "It's not a tavern puzzle, Vel. Try thinking with something other than your loins for once."
The words stung. No venom, no emotion—just that cold, effortless precision she had always employed as a scalpel. Veliranya's smile wavered. Her hand fell from where it had been against her cheek. "Right," she said. "Forgot. Still the fool in the back row."
She turned away, blinking fiercely, lips compressed. But the pain was not new. Not from Mellirion. Not here.
She didn't answer after that. But the expression in her eyes stayed—between disappointment and hurt.
.....
The wave swept her under.
Veliranya was born in a strangled gasp, her body jerking in a spasm as icy water crashed into her chest and ears. The river tossed her around like a battered leaf—sky, rock, sky again. Her fists flailed wildly at the surface, closing around nothing. Torrent and cold and the noise of everything letting go.
"Mellirion!" She retched. "I—help me!"
Standing above on the muddy bank, Mellirion.
"Vel!" she yelled, her voice ringing out above the gust. "Cut it out—get out of there!"
Veliranya kicked, struggled against the current, and pulled herself half the way to the shore. One arm outstretched, shaking. "I can't! Just—get me out!"
Mellirion held firm. Her fists were clenched at her waist. Her voice cracked.
"You'll drown, Vel! Come out, please! I won't lose you too. Not like—"
"Pull me out then, Mell!" Veliranya cried out, but her cry was engulfed—swallowed up as if she were underwater even before she was plunged under once more.
The river overflowed. She ached all over.
She appeared once more, water trickling from her burned eyes—and stopped.
Mellirion wasn't Mellirion anymore.
She was taller, stretched out of proportion, a lean, tall insect shape looming above the riverbank—wings quivering, limbs twisted the wrong way, that face of her sister mask-like on the head of a mosquito. Mouth opening and closing. Eyes glassy. Repeating the same old words.
Veliranya lost consciousness, her mind racing in her head.
The beast didn't extend. Just stood there, yelling the correct words with the incorrect mouth. Fear without movement. Concern without arms. The current swept her again.
The river engulfed her.
Veliranya sank fast—limbs slack, lungs tight, ears filling with silence too deep to be real. The current faded. Everything faded.
And then, beneath her, the riverbed opened into a vast, endless dark.
There was a man.
Still. Waiting.
Silver hair surrounded his face like moonlight strands. His face was sun-kissed, his body broad and muscle-sculpted, as though he'd borne weight for too many years. Red eyes met hers—tired, unblinking. He'd been there forever, it seemed. Waiting. Drowning among others, and never shifting.
He said nothing. He didn't need to.
The riverbed beckoned to her. It was not serene. It was habit-forming.
She wanted to be with him.
Her legs kicked. She swam down, deeper, toward the man, into the dark. She was supposed to be swimming up—toward air, toward life—but gods, she couldn't. Not with how quiet it was down here. Not with how steady he was.
She leaned toward him.
And he raised his hand.
The water trembled—like the world shifted with his movement. Within an eyeblink, something intangible ripped through the gulf and pulled her in.
His hand was on her neck.
Tight. Cold. Absolute.
Veliranya gasped—
And woke up choking on her own breath.
.
She sat up, drenched with sweat.
For a moment, she had no idea where she was—only the galloping of her heart and the damp stick of her clothes. She blinked repeatedly, trying to catch her breath. Everything was wet and wrong. A shiver ran down her spine as she touched her skin with her hands. It was sweet. Simply sweat. Yet her body shuddered as though she'd brought the riverbed with her.
Her eyes swept the room. Walls. Bedframe. Familiar—but that didn't matter. She slapped the bed next to her, half mad, half on autopilot.
Blank.
Good. No stranger. No drunk mistake. No lowborn holding on to her sheets again.
She breathed out, shivering, and wiped at her forehead with the back of her wrist. Her hands refused to cease shaking.
The riverbed man—he was there once more.
Always standing. Always watching.
Occasionally in her dreams. Occasionally just… there. In the corner of a corridor. A reflection in the mirror. A figure she knew too well to mistake.
Never chased her. Spoke barely.
And when he did, it was always the same.
"Snap out of it."
"Choose wisely."
No name. No past. Only that look—unblinking, ageless, unshifting. Red eyes searing with something more intense, more profound, than disapproval.
Veliranya sat up against the wall, sheets wrapped around her waist. Her skin was damp. The air was heavy in the room, too silent, like the silence after a scream.
She pulled her knees toward her and growled, "Are these dreams trying to warn me or what?"
Her voice broke in abrupt darkness. It was not her voice.
"Choose carefully."
she repeated, slower this time. "What if I don't?"
The memory flashed—his face close to the surface, his eyes following her down. Not cold. Not angry.
Scared.
There had been desperation in his eyes. Not for him—for her. As if he'd witnessed this scene before. As if he knew precisely what occurred when someone lost control.
Veliranya wrapped her arms around her knees and buried her face in them. Her heart was slow, heavy, and irregular.
She did not know if she was afraid of what the man might be. Or scared he was right.