Out

"What were you thinking?!" Kefi slithered to Meraki and grabbed her by the collar. With her tail, she is much taller than her and held her up like that.

"What are you talking about?" Meraki asked, an empty look in her eyes while her face is flushed red from the pains she felt earlier.

"You know what you did! How could you do that? That woman could have died!" Kefi slammed Meraki to the trunk of a tree and the scales on her face glistened as her eyes burnt in fury.

"I didn't know you care so much about Aurora," Meraki answered, still with no emotions in her face.

"I do not care for death. I can kill anyone I wish to. But I have a rule, that is, to not touch my comrades. That woman may be annoying but she is so loyal to us."

"If I didn't do that, we would have lost."

"So what?! You put her life at risk! That isn't something I can tolerate. I like you a lot Meraki, but you overstep the line today."

"I don't see what's so wrong with it," Meraki answered, with a genuinely confused look on her face. "Jasmine would have caught her right? And I doubt that Aurora would have died from that fall. All I did was cut the net, everything else was beyond my control."

"You just don't get it, do you?" Kefi sighed, putting Meraki down. "Look, Meraki. I know you don't have emotions just an understanding of them. No matter how logical the solution seems, it isn't always practical."

"What do you mean?" Meraki looked at her like she is looking at a language she couldn't understand. "Nobody got hurt right?"

I don't know how to explain it to her for her to be able to understand.

Kefi softened a little after looking at Meraki's expression.

She really thinks that she was doing the right thing and I can't fault her for that. But … well, I don't have a right to reprimand her in any way, not with my own backstory.

Still …

"Meraki," Kefi said, going down to her level and resting her hands on her shoulder. She stared into her eyes and smiled, her white hair flowing with the wind as the scales on her continued to glisten in the land with no sun.

"I understand that, according to you, you just woke up one day with no memory of anything, not the life you had nor the person you were.

"You are familiar with everything but you do not feel them yourself. I know the confusion you are feeling, because I share a body with you, even if you don't know it yourself."

"Where's this all coming from?" Meraki asked, staring blankly at Kefi. "Did you do something wrong?"

This brat.

"I'm trying to sympathize with you here. Haa … You're making it so difficult for me to do even that."

"But, why?"

"What?"

"Why would you try to sympathize with someone? What are you going to gain from that?" Meraki tilted her head to the side, her dead fish eyes staring into her soul as though she was trying to understand her.

"You know? I used to wonder that too. It seems like such an annoying thing to do. But after my first ten thousand years of being alive, I learned a very valuable lesson. Which I shall impart on you now." Kefi circled Meraki and held her shoulders from behind her.

"Empathy is important." She said, with so much pride like she found the secret to the universe. 

"It took you that long to learn that?" Meraki asked, raising her eyebrow.

"It took me years of searching and failing and learning to discover this secret."

"You just got defeated in battle for the first time in forever and wanted to know the person's secret to their power and they told you something like 'it's because I have so many people I cherish and they are always there to keep me going', right?"

"H-how did you know?!" Kefi slithered away from Meraki and hid behind a tree, peeking out occasionally.

"Really? That was a wild guess from me though. Huh?" Meraki rested her hand on her face, scrunching up her nose.

"That's so cute!" Kefi shouted from behind the tree, pointing at Meraki.

"What are you going on about now?" Meraki frowned at her, irritation creeping in her expression.

"You … sometimes you can be cute too." Kefi slithered back to Meraki, grinning.

"Right. Now, you were saying something about empathy? What makes it so powerful?"

Kefi huffed, "Stop going back to that default face of disinterest, you don't look cute at all like that."

"I have no intention to," Meraki raised her hand to do air quotes, "be 'cute'. Are you going to talk about your enlightenment or not?"

"Fine, fine. When you grow older, the desire to look cute will come and you won't be able to ask me for help then."

"Sure. If you say so."

"Now, about empathy. With empathy, you can feel whatever the other person is feeling. It could be sadness, fear, pain, anything like that."

"Oh, so something like I've been able to do since we woke up," Meraki asked, sitting on the ground.

"No. Well, something like that but then, you don't really feel those feelings, right? You understand them but they don't feel like they are coming from you, right?" Kefi asked, sitting on the ground with her.

"Of course. Why would I feel like they are my own?"

"That's what empathy is. You share in the other person or person(s) pain and happiness like it's your own. It is like you are feeling them yourself."

"That sounds like a bad idea. Won't it just cloud your vision to make proper decisions? All those emotions swirling around you …"

"Well, you're not wrong about that. Many people have gone and made horrible mistakes when they just left it to their emotions to guide them. There was this time-"

Meraki held her hand up, "Are you trying to convince me that I was right or trying to disprove me?"

"Ah, right. I wasn't supposed to be agreeing with you. Oops." Kefi shrugged her shoulders with a guilty look on her face.

"Try again," Meraki said.

"Ok, so-"

___________

Meraki sighed as she trudged back to the others.

I understood nothing.

She looked at her hands and clenched them into fists. Resting that hand on top of her beating heart, she felt warmth spread across her body.

As much as she was trying to hide it, the entire time she and Kefi were separated, she felt so uncomfortable that she wanted to carve a hole into her heart cavity and fill it with whatever she could get her hands on.

The emptiness and the feeling of loss in that moment were stronger than even when she woke up with no memory, or entering a house she should be familiar with, only to turn up empty.

That feeling … sucked.

Kefi?

Yeah? Want to ask on how to be cute?

No.

Your loss then. What were you about to say?

… Don't ever do that again. Ok? I will try to learn empathy if you can promise me that.

Meraki could hear giggling in her head as Kefi tried to process what she just said.

Promise that you will try your absolute hardest?

Yes.

Then ok. Oh and Meraki?

What?

I hated that feeling too.

… I don't know what you are talking about.

Right.

__________

"Meraki! There you are!" Jasmine ran to her, pulling her into an embrace, worry thick in her voice. "After we noticed you disappeared, we thought you went to get Caris so Rose went in search for him. But he was alone."

"Is that where Rose and Caris disappeared to?" Meraki asked, looking around her.

"Yes. They will be back soon. Where were you anyway?"

Meraki shrugged her shoulders, "I don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know? Did someone drag you off? Your clothes seem more battered up than before. What happened, Meraki?" Jasmine is doing the same thing Aurora, and Kefi just before, did. Resting her hand on her shoulders and looking straight into her eyes.

"Why do people do this? Are you, by any chance, looking for signs of deception from me?" Meraki asked, not understanding as Kefi's explanation only made her more confused.

"What? No, Meraki. I know you are telling the truth."

She's being honest. The feeling around her tells me so.

"How? Does your Magic allow you to read the emotions of humans?"

That might be it, Meraki thought. After all, what else will explain the conviction she felt.

"Hmm? Reading human emotions? There is such magic? Feels like a simple deduction if you ask me. And no, unfortunately, I don't have such magic." Jasmine smiled.

"Then, how did you know?" Meraki walked closer to her, looking deep into her purple eyes.

"I just do," Jasmine said, patting Meraki's head. "Come, let's wake Aurora up now ok? We have a lot to discuss still."

As Jasmine walked away, Meraki could only stare after her and sigh before following after her to Aurora sleeping on the trunk of a tree.