TWLA 04

With a little help from Jeremy's new 'girl that's a friend' Rain Maker, the three of them were cleaned up and in a fresh set of thin and sparsely padded 'frog suits' from the supplies.

"There's like forty of these things in here and they weigh less than a few pounds. If they weren't so tough and stretchy, I'd think they were like coated hosiery with impact foam sewed in."

Rain Maker looked at the neat stack of suits sadly and said, "They're made from something that came from here. Stuff that comes from here lasts longer. Everything else...

"Hey, if you're not against it, I'd say we're fairly safe down here. Why don't we take turns resting? King's still recovering and I think these crystals are helping with that. It hurt at first but I'm starting to feel much better."

Jeremy looked at the crystalline stones that pulsed a bit slower than they had in the beginning. "You're the senior here. If you think it's safer to wait til tomorrow, I'll take your word for it."

She nodded and said softly, "There is no tomorrow here. There's only an endless evening. The sun never moves. It just hovers, frozen, at the horizon... Time is broken here.

"We use The Hush to tell days. I think it's a little longer than a normal day and The Hush is a little shorter than a normal night but it's enough to serve as one. We used to think it was a good time to travel since the monsters and nixed hide then. But, it's not."

Seeing that she was going quiet, he asked, "What's The Hush and why is it not safe?"

She shrugged. "It's a quiet time. You'll feel it once and then you'll know. People who go out during that time, sometimes they just disappear. Sometimes you'll find a piece of them sliced off smoothly. I've heard a few turned into the kind of nixed that are scarier than the monsters.

"Most encounter nothing... most. The older ones will kill you for doing it without a good reason. It's a danger to everyone, they'll tell you. The fear... on those faces, I believe them."

Jeremy felt lost and confused. "Is the return trip a lie? Is it a death sentence?"

Rain Maker looked at the ground in front of her as if it was an endless chasm. "No. Be useful but don't be interesting. If you survive long enough, do enough, they let you come back. The only ones allowed to leave are the ones who can be made to forget, though... The only ones allowed to remember are the ones that work for them.

"The rest, they want them to go out and be 'good enough', good enough to be moderately happy and have families. They want future assets and... I really don't want to talk about this anymore. I'm sorry... Get some rest."

He didn't argue with her but he said, "Don't be shy... senpai. You need some rest, you get me up. I'm used to running on fumes if I have to."

"What does...that word 'senpai' mean?" she said.

"Japanese for upperclassman... Have you never watched like a single anime, er, cartoon from their country, ever!?" he said, a bit perplexed and feeling a little dumb for inserting a random weeb comment.

She smiled sadly. "Maybe. I could have forgotten or it could be something... newer that I don't know anything about... Speaking of forgetting, we should think up a code name for you before King wakes up. If he insists, you might end up with one you don't like."

"Why can't I just be Jeremy?" he asked.

She frowned. "Don't use your real name, ever again. It's... for your own safety. Others can say it and it's kind of a special thing to whisper it to someone, like a gift. But, just don't, for a lot of reasons."

A little weirded out but determined to keep things light after everything that happened, he said, "Once, when I was little, my friend called me Jay Jay. Will that work? Anything else that comes out of my mouth is going to sound like a lame gamer handle or something a chuuni... a weird superhero name. I never really had time for more than a few minutes of video games, a comic or a...cartoon once in awhile."

"Blue Jay... You're Blue Jay from now on," she said.

Chuckling he said, "I don't hate it but it doesn't sound that tough."

"You don't want a tough code name unless you want to earn it, over and over again. Get beat and you'll end up with one you really don't want... Get some sleep, please... Peaceful moments like these are rare," she said with a slightly ominous tone under the tranquil lilt of her voice.

It wasn't a hard request for him to fill. His eyes started feeling heavy the moment he had settled back in their cubby hole. A meal and a rag bath had wiped out most of the growling needs and discomforts of his body. He had been hanging on out of a need for more information to that point anyway. Getting settled into as comfortable a position as he could, he was quick to comply.

***

"Where are we? What's going on, Rain Maker?"

Jeremy woke up to a deep, youthful baritone voice speaking in a commanding but relatively quiet volume. For awhile he drifted back off as she explained the situation to King. It wasn't much later that he woke to the sounds of grunts and moans coming from his two new companions.

At first, he thought he'd woke to some very adult times being had but quickly realized that something was wrong. Both of them were half stripped down but it wasn't for fun. Small wounds were seeping blood from the exit of what looked like tiny dark splinters being pushed out of them. A foul scent wafted into the air from them as well as they continued trying to get their suits off.

Not knowing what was going on, Jeremy hopped to provide a helping hand which ended up being grudgingly accepted by both. Rain Maker was embarrassed but King just didn't look like he enjoyed being helped by anyone for any reason. By the time he was cleaning wounds and deftly applying things from the first aid kit, they had both settled into a grim appreciation.

That turned into something a little more genuine in King. He suddenly stopped Jeremy and half barked at him to 'focus' on healing, to think of it more strongly while he slapped antiseptic and ointment around. Confused but curious, he did as he was 'asked'.

Tiredly, Rain Maker asked, "I didn't get that impression but is Blue Jay a healer, King?"

The young man slowly shook his head while he said, "Don't even finish thinking what you're thinking. He's a purifier... You hear me, kid? Anyone asks, you're a purifier, no matter what you find out you can do."

A little put out by the bossiness King projected, he said, "Mind letting me in on what I'm not supposed to let others know I might be? Considering I know jack all about anything, the least I should know is what I can do... And, can the 'kid' business. You're like what, three or four years older?"

King's eyes narrowed dangerously. It wasn't a comfortable feeling having the weight of that combination of strong personality and physical prowess focused on him. But, Jeremy knew when to stand his ground. King might beat him up but if he backed down, caved in, the guy would walk all over him. By that point, he thought he'd rather be beaten to death that let some dude steamroll him just because they were a little older and stronger than him.

King said, "What you are is interesting. That's the last thing you want to be... You don't want me to treat you like a kid, fine. Let me tell you man to man.

"Keep your head down, your mouth shut and glued to my side like we're joined at the hip. If you do that, I'll look out for you until you find your feet. I owe you that much.

"Show me too much spine, I'll snap it and throw you to whatever little petty prick of the month's trying to be lord of the anthill. I'm not a good person but I don't pretend to be one. If you can't deal with a little rough handling, suit yourself."

Jeremy adjusted his judgment. King wasn't a bully. He was a genuinely hard and callous person, probably a little crazy. People like King didn't care enough about the weak to bully them but he'd take what he wanted. It was just a matter of bad luck to be the one who had it.

He swallowed a little dryly and nodded at the young man. "I get you."

King's gold flecked green eyes must have saw what they wanted to see in Jeremy's because he shifted his intense gaze over to Rainmaker. "I know you're tired but we need a bath. Teach him how to close his channels before you rest."

She nodded wearily and began scooping a dugout to place a thin 'tarp' over. He didn't just watch her but hadn't been able to help much. The floor of the geode was hard and she had some kind of trick up her sleeve for scooping it up so easily.

Unsurprisingly, King went first. Unable to help himself, Jeremy sneaked a few curious peeks. He wished he hadn't. Comparisons weren't flattering. The knowing and superior smirk on King's face when he was caught made him flush with a little humiliated anger which seemed to only fuel the tyrant's amusement.

When it was Rain Maker's turn, he made some space and played gentleman as much as the situation would allow. King openly looked her over with mild interest before returning to his thoughts and pawing through the supplies. Through it all, she just looked numb. Without really seeming to appreciate Jeremy's politeness or acknowledging King's rudeness, she went through the motions until the job was done.

With a little surprise, he saw that she was emptying and refilling the tarp a third time. He tried to protest that he didn't need to clean up again so soon. And secretly, he felt pretty shy about being naked in front of Rain Maker. King's presence only amped the anxiety.

"I'm going to show you how to close your channels. You might be a... purifier but if you're drawing dirty magic through them all the time, you'll be tired all the time. They can get damaged too. Add those two things together and even a purifier can be overwhelmed and nix out," she said, motioning for him to remove his suit when he tried to get in the water with it still on.

Somehow, it didn't surprise him that King looked over with the same mild interest Rain Maker had gotten earlier. Trying to be subtle about it, Jeremy covered himself and slightly turned away. With surprising strength, she pushed him flat onto his back in the water.

Under the guise of giving him instruction, she leaned down and whispered, "Whatever you and those crystals did to bring us back, it didn't get rid of the twists inside. It just forced them into our human shape, put us back in control. Maybe in a place like this, that's better than trying to merely wash it away over and over again but it means it's still a part of us. Less dirty and less... wrong but it's still a part of us.

"Don't turn your back on a nixed unless you've got no choice. They attack the fearful and fleeing first. Even before this, King was a person with strong instincts. If he feels provoked or you send too many prey signals, he might... hurt you. After what you've done for us, he might even feel bad about it, maybe. But, it's not like that will give him... or me... the ability to take it back if it happened."