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The sound rang through the darkness, high and clear, the scraping, screaming song of metal against metal. Sparks leapt into the air when their blades met, shining fire-bright and casting their faces in grim relief. Wordless, silent but for the clashing of their weapons and the clatter of their armor, two figures swung and parried, dodged and charged.
No audience, no referee. Just the two of them, in a little patch of dirt marked out by a crude, uneven circle.
It was almost intimate, in a way.
Susie clenched her teeth, gripping her axe so hard her scaly knuckles blanched a pale lavender. Sweat dripped from her tangled brown hair, her heart pounding with furious adrenaline. An unpleasant, foggy ache swirled in the front of her skull, and she sucked down a few wheezing gasps of air in an attempt to catch her breath. With a guttural snarl, she dug her heels into the dirt and surged forward, trying to stagger her opponent with a shoulder check to the chest.
But he was already gone.
She stumbled right past him as he hopped out of the way, cursing and sputtering, arms wheeling in a desperate attempt to keep her balance.
Can’t keep this up, she thought, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand. He’s got me figured out. Every time I try to hit him, he just darts to the side or ducks just a little too low or puts that goddamn shield up so fast I end up rattling my own teeth with the impact.
Susie was a lot of things, but she wasn’t too stupid to know when she was beaten.
She tilted her head back, let out a long sigh, and stared up at the pitch-dark sky. The corners of her vision pulsed in time with her heartbeat, a throbbing bruise-purple haze filled with tiny, dancing motes.
“Are we done?” Her opponent relaxed ever so slightly, his sword still pointed squarely at her chest.
Susie was not too stupid to know when she was beaten.
She was, however, much too stupid to accept it.
Her lips curled back in a mirthless grin, her teeth gleaming in the Dark World’s eerie unlight like a drawer full of knives. With a grunt, she hefted her axe. The haft slammed down onto her shoulder, the dull impact snapping her back into her zone.
“The hell we are.” She swung her weapon into a low, two-handed grip and sprinted forward. The axe’s head trailed through the dirt, digging a deep, narrow furrow behind her. Her eyes narrowed, her mane flying out behind her in a great curtain, and she lifted her axe with a furious howl. The roar hummed in her ribs, in her bones, scraping at the inside of her throat as she swung down…
And completely missed. Her axe sank a good few inches into the soil, stuck fast in something she could only hope was a root. Susie tugged fruitlessly at the handle, but her opponent had already circled around her, a shining blur that was too fast for her to track. All she saw was a cold glint in the corner of her peripheral vision, all she felt was a sudden tight pinch at the base of her spine, and then he was gone. She tottered forward a few steps, the last shreds of hype and rage draining out of her, and then fell to the ground on her hands and knees.
“Good match, Susie.” A whisper of steel on leather. Kris Dreemurr’s sword returned to its sheath. “That’s one for me. What’s the score at now?”
“Shut up.” Susie rolled over on to her back, lying spread-eagled, and watched ghostly, pale stars glitter above her.
He wasn’t gloating. She knew he wasn’t. He’d probably genuinely lost count at some point.
God, he was so frustrating sometimes.
It had been a couple of weeks since Susie and Kris started sparring in the Dark World. Susie’s idea, of course, and it took more than a little bit of convincing on her part to get Kris to agree. They’d danced around the heart of the issue, at first. Susie tried to play it off as a way to blow off some of the stress they’d both built up studying for midterms, while Kris sheepishly said it was pointless, that she’d just destroy him effortlessly anyway.
And there I was, thinking he had a point, she thought, ruefully running a claw across her chin and ignoring the prickly ache growing from the spot where he’d landed his hit. Funny.
It wasn’t until they’d had a few more close shaves in the Dark World that Susie had finally had enough. She’d grabbed him by the back of his sweater the second the bell rang, half-marching and half-carrying him around the back of the school while he dangled from her claws in silent confusion. Then, before she had a chance to second-guess herself, she set him down and knelt in front of him, setting her hands on his shoulders and her eyes level with his.
“Alright, look.” Her voice was steady and deep, a purr that was far softer than her usual cheerful shouts. “You know I’ve got your back in there, right? And I know you’ve got mine. But if… and God forbid it ever happens, but if something happens to me, like maybe I get knocked out or someone else has me locked down or I’m just not fast enough to get to you when you’re in trouble… I gotta know that you can take care of yourself. So please, Kris. I need you to spar with me.”
Kris glanced away, frowning, his chestnut fringe casting a shadow across his face. “I’m just worried I might hurt you,” he mumbled, fiddling with the sleeves of his sweater. “I mean, I don’t want to hurt anyone, but especially not you.”
It was almost enough to make her give up on the whole plan. She admired that part of him, that gentleness, that quiet kindness. That nigh-incomprehensible belief in the inherent goodness of people who had shown him nothing but the worst of themselves, like the King or Spamton or…
Well, Susie herself.
That was precisely why she took a deep breath and tightened her grip. The idea of anyone threatening that kindness was anathema. Even thinking about it made her feel sick, scared, and all the more determined to protect it no matter what.
“It’s just sparring, dude!” She slapped his back so hard he almost fell over. “It’ll be fun! It’s not like we’re fighting for real or anything.”
Good thing too, because if we’d fought for real I’d be going home in a damn matchbox.
It wasn’t like she thought Kris was completely defenseless. His lanky frame hid a wiry, agile strength. He was fast, even in the plate armor he wore in the Dark World, and he moved with a dancer’s grace and precision.
More than that, though, he was smart. She’d known that too, but until they started sparring she hadn’t really understood what it was like to have that intelligence used against you. They’d actually had a fairly even matchup for their first few bouts, a nearly fifty-fifty win/loss split.
That changed quickly.
The more they fought, the more Kris learned, and the more he learned the more impossible it became for Susie to land even a single strike on him. He’d dodge her swings by the skin of his teeth, only to immediately riposte and hit her from an angle that seemed impossible or slip behind her so fast it felt like he was cheating somehow. That fifty-fifty ratio turned to sixty-forty in the space of an afternoon, and to seventy-thirty by the end of the week. By now it was…
Well, it was high enough that Susie was in no hurry to remind Kris of the precise number, assuming he actually had forgotten.
She rocked herself upright. The spot in her back twinged again, and she winced, hissing through her teeth. God damn. Must’ve really put his back into that one. It was really starting to hurt, more than his usual half-assed taps with the flat of his sword. A little bit of secondhand pride bloomed in her chest. Heh. If his practice swings can sting that bad, maybe I’ve got less to worry about than I thought.
“Ugh. Okay. I give up. C’mon, let’s call it a day and head into town for some food,” she said, leaning on her knees and trying to gather the strength to stand. Her legs were weak, her guts queasy and feverish. It was like the time she had Kris spin her on one of the librarby computer chairs for a full five minutes, only somehow even worse.
“Sounds like a plan.” Kris started towards her, one hand already outstretched to help her up. “Just a quick snack though, okay? Mom’s getting suspicious about how late I’ve been getting home. If I miss dinner tonight, she’ll probably ground… uh, she’ll p-probably. Um... Uh.” The words trailed off into an incomprehensible mumble, and then into a strange, strangled noise that squeaked up out of his throat.
“Uh, Kris? You good?” Susie hauled herself to her feet, brushing a powdery cloud of moss dust off her butt. “Knock it off, dude, you’re creeping me out.”
“I… Oh God.” He was pale, so terribly pale it was obvious even through the alien colors of the Dark World. Even as she watched, the delicate teal of his features faded to a sickly aquamarine. “Just stay right there. I’m gonna go get Ralsei.”
Before Susie could say anything he bolted back up the stairs that led to Castle Town, his sabatons clattering against the stones. Susie stood there for a moment, dumbfounded, only to furiously bare her teeth when she realized what Kris was obviously plotting.
That little bastard.
He’s gonna go get Ralsei so the two of them can laugh at me, at how badly he kicked my ass! She lunged after him, ignoring the protests of her overworked muscles and the steadily growing pain in her back. Not on my watch!
Kris was shockingly fast, but he was running in a blind panic, nearly tripping over his own feet. She caught up to him in a few long, loping strides, grabbing him by the back of his collar just in time to stop him from taking a nasty spill up the steps.
“I swear to God, if you so much as breathe one goddamn word about this to Ral-” She paused, the growl turning to a confused grunt when she saw the look on Kris’s face.
She followed his horrified gaze, at least as best she could with how he was starting to struggle in her grasp.
Blood.
Lots of it.
Soaking through her pants and the back of her vest. Winding a long, wide trail behind her that terminated in a great red blot where she had been sitting just a few minutes before.
Staining the moss crimson, making it puffy and sodden with copper-stinking wet.
Susie’s mind whirled with possibilities, some terrifying, some embarrassing, and many both at once. It was almost a relief when her paws, groping frantically all around her body for the source of the nightmare, found the tacky circle of raw at the base of her hips.
When her fingers danced through the space where her tail used to be.
She spotted the tail itself a few moments later, not far from their makeshift battleground. It was easy enough when you knew what to look for, when you could tell that it wasn’t some kind of weird purple worm slithering along the ground but instead something that had just recently been part of you, flopping and flexing away the last of its muscular energy like a landed fish.
“Oh.” She let go of Kris’s collar, swaying slightly as the situation (and the pain) finally started to sink in. He slumped to the ground, staring blankly at his feet. “So… That’s what was bugging you, huh.”
“S-Susie…! Susie, I…” Kris’s breath came in panicked, hiccupping gasps, and he clutched at the sleeves of his bodysuit. “I…!”
Susie was not a terribly sensitive monster, but even she could tell that something was seriously upsetting her best buddy. All the blood, maybe? I guess it is kind of gross. She coughed into her fist, forcing her way through the shock-fog muddying her thoughts to try and lighten the mood.
“Whoof! God damn, that’s gonna hurt like crazy tomorrow. Nice job, though.” It was, at that. A neat, precise blow right through the sweet spot where the bone stopped and the cartilage started. No wonder she hadn’t noticed until now; his cut had been so clean she’d barely felt it until minutes later.
It didn’t seem to reassure him much, or rather quite the opposite. He stared up at her, teary-eyed and mute.
Hmm. Alright, let’s try something different.
She rested her hands on the back of her neck, kicking lazily at a nearby bush (and turning away quickly when it disintegrated into a cloud of musty spores). “Hey, look at the bright side! Now Noelle’ll finally stop bugging me about whether I’ve got a tail or not, right?” She reached down to muss his hair with a chuckle.
Nothing. Kris took another deep, slow breath and curled in on himself, covering his face with a quiet moan.
Okay. Guess he’s not in the mood for jokes, either. Susie pressed a hand to her forehead and sighed. Is he scared of me? Scared that I’m mad at him, scared that I’m gonna hurt him even worse as payback?
The thought tore at her.
She hated it, hated the idea that Kris could even think that of her, but she couldn’t blame him.
After all, it wasn’t all that long ago that she would have done just that.
“Kris…” She sat down beside him, set one heavy paw on his shoulder and rocked him gently back and forth. “I promise I’m not mad. And I’m not gonna try and get you back for this or anything. Heh. Honestly, I probably owe you a bit more than just a tail for…” She faltered, her amber eyes darkening. “Well. Y’know. Everything I did to you.”
That, somehow, was the least helpful thing she had said so far. Even before she’d finished saying it, his gasps hitched, caught, spilled over into soft, whining sobs. “No, please… I’m sorry, Susie, I’m so sorry!” Kris blubbered, miserably wiping at his face as tears streamed down his cheeks.
I’m the absolute worst. How am I so bad at this?! She scratched her head, growling in frustration. C’mon, think, dumbass! Your best friend, your Kris is crying, and it’s all because of you! All because-
“It was an accident! Susie, I swear, I swear it was an accident!” He looked up at her, eyes puffy and pleading. “Please, I-I know how… how it sounds but-“
Oh.
That’s all it was, huh?
Susie reached out, cupping his hands in her own. She traced little circles on his palms with her thumbs, bearing down just enough that her claws tickled him without breaking the skin. So damn small, she thought with a wistful smile, then closed her fingers over his. His tears splattered on her scales, pooling together and rolling down her knuckles like a gentle rain.
“Kris. Look at me, buddy.” He didn’t, not at first, so she let go of his right hand and took his chin between her thumb and forefinger. “Look at me. It’s okay. I believe you.”
“Susie…!” His lips quivered, and for a moment it seemed like he was going to pull away, sprint back up the path into the dark-
And then all at once his hand was holding hers back, his fingers winding through hers and squeezing so tight she could swear she felt bruises forming.
“Susie, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to, I’m sorry!” he said, or something along those lines. He was crying hard enough that it was difficult to tell.
Now, at last, she felt like she was back in familiar territory. She had seen Kris upset before, though (perhaps unsurprisingly, given the circumstances) never quite this upset. The best thing to do, she knew from experience, was to let him be, let him cry or sulk or just feel until he was ready to talk about it.
So Susie sat beside him, leaned against him and nuzzled his fine, silky hair and murmured quiet, wordless sounds of comfort into his ear. Eventually, his breathing slowed, his fingers releasing their frantic grip on hers.
“Feeling better?” she asked. A silent nod, and a particularly wet sniffle. “Cool.”
“I didn’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to hurt anyone but you… especially you, I promise I didn’t-“
“I know.” She did. Better than almost anything. Because she had given him every reason to hurt her, every chance to hurt her, and at every turn he’d refused.
And of course, I practically forced you to do it anyway.
I’m so stupid. “…I guess all this sparring stuff probably wasn’t real fun for you, huh?”
“It wasn’t that bad. Not until, well…” Kris giggled, his voice still clotted with emotion. “You know.” Suddenly, he startled, leaping to his feet. “W-Wait, forget about that for right now! We need to get you to Ralsei so he can heal you! Come on, he might even be able to reattach your tail!”
“Huh? Oh, yeah. I mean, maybe.” This time, Susie let him help her up. The stump of her tail was really starting to burn now, itching terribly in the chilly breeze that ruffled the paleglowing flowers lining the path. “Worth a shot, at least.”
“I guess we’d better go and get-” Kris swallowed thickly, his face turning a sickly shade of viridian. “Well. It.”
“Guess so. Y’know, dude… I can do this on my own. If you wanna take a break, go for it.”
“No.” Kris’s voice was even quieter than his usual low monotone, but it was resolute. “I’ll be alright. Besides, you’ve lost blood. I don’t want to leave you alone right now.”
Susie snorted, rolling her eyes. Always the gentleman, this guy. She stuck her elbow out, let Kris wind his arm through it, albeit more to steady him than to be steadied herself.
Guess it’s okay every once in a while. It did help a bit, if only because matching his shorter, slower strides gave her time to steady herself. By the time they made it back to her tail, it had long since stopped moving, lying limp in a black, sticky stain. Susie stepped forward, blocking Kris’s view of the scene with her back.
“Can you even fix something like this with healing magic?” she asked, poking at her tail with one claw. “Like, in Dragon Blazers 2, when the old dude gets his eye cut out by that one boss, you weren’t allowed to just Curahan that.”
“I don’t know.” A rhythmic clicking, as Kris wrung his gauntleted hands together. “Should we have put it in some ice or something? Or wait, is that for when you lose a tooth… Ugh, I hope we didn’t leave it too long…”
“Well, not like it’s that big a deal if he can’t reattach it,” she muttered, half to herself, lifting her tail by the skinny end with her thumb and forefinger.
“It’s not?” He shifted, fighting the temptation to peer over her shoulder.
“Yeah. I’ll just have Malius forge it into a weapon or something. Dragons always drop killer loot in games, right?” Kris didn’t laugh. “Kidding! I’m kidding. It’s fine, I’ll just have to wear longer jackets, hitch my pants up a bit more…” She shrugged, tucking her tail under her arm like a box of sodas. “Mom’ll give me shit if she finds out about this, so I just gotta make sure she doesn’t. Good thing summer’s over, right? It’d be a pain to try and hide this under a t-shirt.”
“I… You’re going to try and hide this from your mom by wearing a trenchcoat?” Kris asked, incredulous. “How long do you think you can get away with that?”
Susie shrugged, pushing past him as she started back towards Castle Town. “I mean, a week or two? How long do you think I need to get away with it, dude?”
“What?”
“What?”
A long, tense silence. The punchline to the whole situation was becoming more obvious by the second, but it was as though neither wanted to be the first to say it.
In the end, Susie went first, cocking her head as she stared curiously at her best friend. “Kris… You know that my tail… Like, you do know that it grows back, right?”
“I- What?! No! Why would I know that?!” Kris dragged a hand down his face with a haggard sigh. “Listen, if you’re just saying this to try and make me feel better, it’s really not working.”
“No way. You’ve gotta be kidding me.” Susie’s muzzle split into a huge grin, sharp as broken glass.
“I’m the one who should be saying that!” snapped Kris, a gentle flush creeping into his cheeks. “I-I thought I really hurt you!”
She smacked her forehead, howling with laughter. “Bwahahaha! Come on, man! It’s like the one thing everyone knows about dragons! Didn’t you learn it in health class or whatever?!”
“No, surprisingly enough Miss Alphys never taught us about dismembering our classmates.” He sat down on the steps, dropping his chin into his palm with a huff. “I can’t believe this.”
“No wonder you were crying so damn hard. Heheh, that’s hilarious.” Susie planted her hands on her hips, beaming as she realized that she had a rare opportunity to be the one teaching Kris about something for a change.
“Well, guess it’s up to me to give you the rundown, huh? No helping it, then. Yes, dragons’ tails can grow back after being cut off. Last few vertebrae are gone for good, but they get replaced with cartilage. Like a lizard’s tail, y’know? It can pop off pretty easy, especially if you’ve lost it before, which I have.” She chuckled ruefully. “First time’s a hell of a shock, let me tell you.”
Kris’s eyebrows shot up as he leaned forward, curious despite himself. “Oh, really? What was it like?”
“I don’t remember,” she lied smoothly.
She did, of course. She’d been very young, up way past her bedtime and watching a horror movie marathon. Normally, Mom would never have let her do such a thing, but that night Mom had been working the graveyard shift and so Susie was home alone. Add an early fall thunderstorm to the mix, a particularly nearby strike of lightning and a sudden power outage, and little Susie had learned the hard way that dragon tails could self-amputate as a defense mechanism. Mom nearly fainted when she got back home, when she opened the front door only to be greeted by the sight of her daughter screaming her lungs out in a puddle of her own blood.
“Anyway,” she said, eagerly changing the subject. “You can tell I lost it already ‘cause the pattern on the scales is different from the rest of my back. Here, check it out.” She held her tail out towards him, snickering as he turned away with a grimace.
“Interesting.” He twirled a strand of hair between his fingers, staring intently past it at nothing in particular. “Can I take a look at your back to compare?”
“Oh yeah. Here, I’ll sh-” She was halfway through lifting the back of her shirt and tugging down her pants before she realized what she was doing, her cheeks flaring a livid vermillion. One paw pulled the hem of her shirt back into place, the other swinging in a furious arc as Kris ducked out of the way and laughed. “Cocky little freak!”
“Almost had you. Okay, jokes aside, how else would you lose it? You make a habit of having your friends come after you with longswords?” He sounded genuinely interested, the horror of the incident itself seemingly forgotten for the moment.
“No!” ‘Cause I didn’t have any friends. Not until I met you, she thought, though she didn’t say it. He hardly needed another reason to get smug with her. “I’ve lost it four times, counting today. Once in middle school, when it got caught in the bus door. Once a year or so ago. Slammed the door when I was arguing with Mom, and…” She shrugged, flipping her hair out and avoiding his gaze. “A-anyway, it’s not hard to lop it off by accident, is all I’m saying. So don’t beat yourself up about it.”
Kris was silent for a moment. A warm, faintly earth-scented gust of wind carried his bangs to one side, so Susie was able to see the distant, thoughtful look in his eyes. “I’m glad,” he said hesitantly.
She folded her arms, leaned against the haft of her axe, and was just about to congratulate herself on a successful lesson on dragon biology when he continued. “I’m glad, but I still hurt you, Susie. And I’m still sorry about that. Doesn’t matter if it grows back. I mean, it does matter, and I’m glad it will, but still.”
Frigging softie. She blew a quick, cheerful snort through her nose, puffing two little lighter-flicks of flame that glowed gold against her scales. “It was an accident, right? Don’t even worry about it.”
“It was, but…” He looked up, tapping one of his sabatons against the cobblestone with a quick, hollow beat. “Why’d you believe me when I told you it was an accident?”
“Why?” It was an odd question. Like asking her how to breathe, what the color blue looked like, how her tail knew when to grow back. Something so basic, so fundamental that there were just no words for it.
Because he was a complete dork who wouldn’t hurt a fly, not even with his life on the line? Sure.
Because he was kind, so kind that he’d accepted someone like her without a second thought? That was it.
Because she admired that part of him? Respected him immensely for it? Loved him because of it, so deeply that it felt like her heart would burst some days? Of course.
It was all of those and more besides, a litany of reasons, a storm of feelings that boiled down to one simple, indelible fact.
“I trust you, Kris.” she said, half-chuckling, both hoping and fearing that he’d realize just how honest she was being in that moment.
He stared at her just a little longer, expressionless, then nodded slightly to himself, lips twitching into a shy smile.
“Thanks, Susie.”
Then, before she could say another word, he turned, striding towards Castle Town and the distant towers silhouetted against the horizon. “Let’s go. If Ralsei finds out I let you bleed all over his lawn he’ll freak out.”
Susie jogged up behind him, stripping off her vest and using it to wrap her severed tail. “He’s gonna freak out either way.” She snapped her fingers. “Hey, if you didn’t know about dragons’ tails, I bet he’s got no goddamn idea. We could probably scare the hell out of him. Y’know, if we wanted to.”
Kris lit up, grinning impishly. “Heh. Now there’s an idea. Let’s do it. How’s your fake-crying?”
“Eh… not great, honestly.”
He rubbed his chin. “Okay, let me rephrase. Do you think you can fake-cry well enough to fool Ralsei?”
“Oh yeah. For sure.” She cackled, clutching her tail to her chest, the wicked glee already warming her heart. “This is gonna be great!”
She was so caught up in those thoughts, in practicing bringing tears to her eyes and imagining the look of despair on Ralsei’s face, that it took her a while to remember the question she’d been meaning to ask Kris since the end of their match.
They had just passed through the castle gates when she paused, her brow furrowing. “Hey, Kris. Question.”
“What’s up?”
“I was wondering. What parts can humans grow back?”
Something about his reaction made her stomach churn. Something about the way he froze halfway up the stairs, the way his gauntlet tightened on the banister, even though his voice was light and easy as he spoke. “Oh. Humans don’t really grow anything back, actually.”
“Huh?”
“Well, I mean, we grow some stuff back, hair and nails and so on. Like Noelle’s antlers, kind of. Cuts and bruises heal over time too, just like for monsters, but beyond that…” He shrugged. “No such luck.”
Her mouth suddenly felt very dry, and bile stung sickly-sweet at the top of her throat. “So what, if you lose an arm or a leg, it’s just gone? Like, gone forever?!”
“Uh, yeah. Same as you.” He frowned, taking a few hesitant steps back down the stairs. “Susie, what’s wrong?”
It’s not the same, you dumbass, because I’m covered in scales and you were using the flat of your blade, while I was- “What about fingers or toes? C’mon, something like that must be able to-” But she knew the answer without him even having to say it. A cold, greasy sweat broke out all across her back, and she leaned against the wall, her head spinning. “Oh God.”
Kris jogged over to her, setting a hand on her arm, but she slapped it away, baring her teeth with a snarl. “Ow!”
“You remember when I told Ralsei we were gonna be sparring?” she growled, breathing as deeply as she could as she tried in vain to keep her cool. “He tried to make us go to the Party Dojo, use the practice weapons they’ve got there, and I told him-”
“You called him a weenie. I remember. So wh-” The sentence turned into a strangled cough as Susie latched her claws under his breastplate, lifting him off his feet and slamming him into the wall.
“Why didn’t you stop me?! You could’ve gotten hurt! You could’ve died!” she seethed, puffing little plumes of sulfurous smoke from her nostrils as she pressed Kris harder into the wall. “You dumb bastard, what if I’d…” Her fingers started to shake, her claws skittering across the inside of his armor, a hollow rasping like a bug trapped under a glass. She squeezed her eyes shut, images every match dancing through the black, lingering on every time the blade of her axe came within a hair of his throat, or his wrist or knee or-
All it would have taken is one mistake, and making mistakes is the only thing I’m any good at.
One mistake, and I could have hurt him in a way I could never take back.
I could have broken him, permanently.
I could have…
“But you didn’t.” Kris reached up, put his hands on her cheeks and smiled gently. “I knew you wouldn’t. Because I trust you too, Susie.”
Totally genuine. Completely guileless. A smile that she knew deep down she’d always have and that she constantly worried she’d never deserve.
He trusted her, trusted her so completely that he would have gone to an early grave smiling just like that, refusing to believe her incompetence even as it swung razor-edged through his neck.
It was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.
It was the most horrible thing she’d ever seen.
She set him back on his feet, set her hands on her hips as she turned away, looking up so the tears clouding her eyes wouldn’t spill over. “Okay,” she said at last. “I’m only gonna say this once, so shut up and listen to me.”
A quiet clattering, like opening a drawer of silverware, as Kris wordlessly folded his arms and leaned against the wall.
“It means a lot to me that you’d say that you trust me, man. But if all you’re doing is saying it, then don’t bother.” She heard him stiffen, heard him take a quick half-step forward, and held out a hand. “No. Shut up. ‘Cause if you don’t trust me to listen to you when you think I’m being an idiot, when you think I’m making a dumbass mistake, when you think I’m putting your fucking life in danger, then how the hell can you say you trust me?!”
“Susie, I-”
“Shut up! I trust you, Kris! I trust that you’re…”
Smarter than me.
Better than me.
Able to see the things I can’t, the things I won’t.
Wanna know how much I trust you? So much that I can even trust myself a little bit these days, ‘cause I know that if I start slipping you’ll be there to calm me down, to let me know when I’m going too far.
She shook her head, sighed out the self-serving self-pity. Before embarrassment or pride or anything else could get in her way, she whirled, strode over to Kris, and swept him into her arms, hugging him so hard she was practically mashing him into her chest.
“Please, Kris,” she whispered, her voice shaking. “I’m begging you here, dude. I’m scared. I’m scared something bad’s gonna happen to you because I’ll be too stupid to stop it, because I’ll be so stupid I do it myself. So please, even if you think I won’t like hearing it, don’t hide this kinda stuff from me. If you think I’m making a bad call, tell me!”
Kris didn’t move, didn’t speak, just hung limp from Susie’s claws for long enough that her heart started to pound, long enough that she worried she’d finally crossed some kind of line.
“Okay.”
And she felt his arms wrap around her, a wave of relief sweeping through her so strong and quick she thought she might get drunk off of it.
“One thing, though. You’re not stupid.”
She snorted, a sharp, oven-hot breath that ruffled his hair (and, judging by the sudden sour smell, might have singed it a bit). “Hah. C’mon. Quit screwing around. I’m pouring my heart out to you here, man.”
“I’m serious.” And he was, an unusual note of reproach in his tone. “There are things you don’t know, options you don’t consider, but the same’s true for me. If you’re stupid, then I’m stupid too, just in different ways.” He laughed softly. “It’s like how we do different things in battle. Just like the job system in Dragon Blazers 3. There’s things we’re good at and things we aren’t. So… If it’s okay with you, I want to ask the same of you. To tell me what you think, even if I disagree.”
She hugged him even harder, clutched at the back of his head and pressed his body into hers until she’d squeezed every last bit of air out of his lungs. She nodded furiously as the tears finally spilled over, pouring down her cheeks as she laughed.
She promised herself then that she’d always have his back.
It wasn’t the first time, but the others had all been in the context of the Dark World, of their adventures and battles, of saving his life.
That day, for the first time, Susie truly believed that she could help him with anything, even the things you couldn’t (or at least, weren’t supposed to) solve with an axe.
That she could be with him in the light, as well as in the Dark.
“Of course. Of course I will.”
It was a long while before either of them spoke again. When her legs finally got tired of supporting the combined weight of Kris and his plate mail armor, she slid down the wall, still holding him close as he sat on her lap.
“Susie,” Kris said. “Remember how you just said I should tell you things you might not want to hear?”
She nearly burst out laughing at the quiver in his voice. That’s fine. It’ll take some getting used to, for both of us. “Yeah. Lay it on me, man.”
“And you really promise not to get mad?” There was a note of genuine fear there, and she couldn’t help but feel a bit sad about that.
Still, there was only one way to start fixing that. “I promise. I swear on my soul, even.”
“Okay.” Kris took a very deep, very slow breath. Heh. His voice sounds so funny when his cheeks are all pressed together like that.
Pressed together…? It felt like she was forgetting something very important, or like there was something about the last little while that she hadn’t bothered to think about.
“Have you thought about wearing a sports bra when we train? I think it might be more comfortable for you.”
“Uh?”
“I’m only bringing it up ‘cause my face is right in between-”
Kris walked home alone that night, and he was very late for dinner. In the end, though, Toriel decided to give him a pass, just this one time. Of course she worried about her son, and of course she wanted him to be safe, but she just couldn’t bring herself to ground him.
After all, even if he wouldn’t explain why, he looked so happy when he got home.