She takes three more steps before the world catches her. Light floods her eyes from within, gold burning through pale irises until they seem lit by captured dawn. Her knees buckle. I reach her before impact and steady her against my chest while pain twists through her face hard enough to sharpen every breath.
Blood slips from her nose onto my collar.
She grips my arm with surprising strength.
“Do not ask me what I see,” she says through clenched teeth.
I hear the plea beneath the command. So I change again.
“I wasn’t going to.”
The lie is immediate and almost true by the time it leaves my mouth.
I guide her to a flat stone and kneel in front of her while the episode passes. Her pupils remain blown wide around the gold. Sweat beads along her temples despite the cold air. She hates being witnessed like this. That matters more than the content of any vision in the moment.
I clean the blood with a damp cloth.
Her hand catches my wrist halfway through. “Why?”
“Because you’re inconvenient to replace.”
“Try again.”
Because seeing you hurt unsettles calculations I prefer neat. Because every time you fracture, I want to understand the cost more than the result. Because the mission has ceased being the only thing at stake and I dislike not knowing when that happened.
I choose the version least revealing.
“Because cooperation survives better than humiliation.”
She studies me with pain-bright eyes and lets go. When the light fades from her gaze, dusk has already begun filtering blue through the trees.
We make camp among the white stones. She recovers enough to eat a little broth and insult my seasoning choices. I recover enough certainty to recognize I have less of it than before.
The mission depends on her willingness to guide, interpret, endure, and continue choosing this road beside me. Obedience would be easier to command and nearly useless in practice. Cooperation requires conditions I cannot fully engineer.
That leaves me in unfamiliar territory. I feed another branch to the fire.
Aeryn watches the flames with knees drawn up, profile edged in amber light.
“What are you thinking about?” she asks.
“I’m revising methods.”
“Should I be concerned?”
“Yes,” I reply, and mean it differently than she assumes.
She turns her head. “About me?”
“About the fact that I’m no longer certain where to apply pressure.”
The confession lands between us, dangerous because it is true.
She considers my answer, then says, “Maybe stop trying to press everything into shape.”
“That sounds suspiciously like advice.”
“That sounds like exhaustion.”