[=10]“So?”

A single word. It came from Azalea, who was just as lilting and ethereal as her voice. She and Vipin were alone, in the midst of a clearing, at the end of the forest—Vipin loomed. In his stay in limbo, he had regained much of his lost beauty. Some of his scars had faded and others had defined themselves. The markings on his sides shimmered white, and his eyes were forever that calm, mild blue. So common, but entirely too beautiful, and entirely too wearied.

“We’re going to stay here, indefinitely,” he responded, after a pause. He was staring off into the trees, his gaze drifting idly, searching. For what, he knew not. Searching for answers to questions he still did not know, perhaps. The wind hissed through the leaves, as if to deter him.

Azalea seemed surprised, if not bewildered. She looked around, quickly, like a joke had been played, or like she had misunderstood. When she looked back, Vipin had not moved. His jaw was clenched. The dame struggled over her words, and they came in stumbles. “But…Her. And Magnet, and Spade and Devi, and Vessel, and Chanse and Ketan—“

“We know.” Despite himself, Vipin wore a smile. It was vague, and sad. Azalea had seen it many, many times before. “We know, and we know very well. Of course. But we’ve done all of them, collectively, more harm than we could ever do good. They watched as we ruined ourselves over things we could not help. Not only them, but the others. The bystanders…the friends. Them, as well…it’s better like this. We never fit into that world. We tried. And we couldn’t.”

His eyes fell to the ground immediately before him. Poppies. They had been wrapped around his antlers so many times, in times of mourning, in times of battle. They mocked him.

They were martyrs, he and his sisters. They fit into the gray world of limbo, not the stark black-and-white of the other. They were not inherently good or reputedly evil. They were a wash of gray.