Alex Reynard

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Chapter EIGHTY

Some time later, Toby re-entered the arena.

Darkness shrouded Rhinolith, but the lights above the bleachers came on automatically at sundown. The pit was piercingly bright, every detail divulged. As Toby stepped onto the sand, he was alone. Most of his ire at their captive had dulled over the intervening hours. Drudgery will do that to a furson. Toby mostly felt pity for her now. But George was still deeply offended, so he was parked far back at the entrance. Toby thought it best to do this alone. Just in case the marten's mouth started running again and George couldn't control his urge to trample her into oblivion.

From across the pit, Toby couldn't quite see the cages clearly. Though the glove-construct was still wandering back and forth, as if maybe on its fourteen-kazillionth turn around, a secret exit would appear. As he drew closer, Toby confirmed the marten's cage wasn't empty either. Good. Half of why he was coming here was to make sure she hadn't escaped. In fact, as he got closer and squinted, her cage seemed... fuller?

The dart had worn off. She was standing up, clenching the bars in her paws, baring her teeth at him. Silent for now, but still radiating equal parts hatred and body odor. All the straw bedding on the cage's floor had been kicked out in a rage. 'Guess she'll have a hard sleep tonight.' Or maybe not. She could always use her own corpse for a pillow.

That was why he'd been confused at first: there were actually two of her in there. "Ha! You tried killing yourself out, didn't you? How many times?" He was forty feet away where he stopped. Close enough to be heard, but not within her attack range (he hoped).

She was not in a joking mood. Her eyes scanned him head to toe, reading for weak spots. "Thief," she addressed him. "Is this the part where you come back to rape me?"

Toby was so startled he nearly dropped the bag he was carrying. "What!? Of course not!! Why would you even-"

She gestured to her dead former self. "Or maybe her? You seem like the type."

The mouse made a face like a seagull had shat in his mouth. "EWW!! Shut up! No!!"

She grinned, glad she'd gotten such a good reaction out of him. "Why not? You've already fucked the whole city when it was helpless. Why not go further? Here I am in a cage. Just how you want it, right? Gonna dart me first? Then climb aboard and take everything else from me? Thieving maggot. Maybe you'll have your horsie pal standing by to watch? Maybe he'll ride you afterwards?"

Toby winced all over. "That's completely disgusting! I'd never do that!"

She slammed her palms against the bars, BAM. "What's disgusting is how dumb you think I am! That I'll buy your 'innocent' act! Like you've got fucking standards! It's fine to drop a load of plastic plague on us to make us easier to rob, but you flinch at the thought of getting your precious little paws dirty! Fucking scum! Spineless pansy! The men of this town would tear you apart like toilet paper! I sure as fuck could! Hell, my kids could!"

Toby shrugged. "Probably." No point in arguing. Talking to her was already making the imaginite hunt seem preferable.

Her anger flared at him for not taking up the challenge. "Good god, you're even too weak to defend yourself from insult. How did my city lose to you? You're a shitmark in my underwear. You're a worm. There's barely enough of you to keep standing."

Toby rolled his eyes. "Are you gonna talk all night?"

She shoved her face against the bars as hard as she could, the metal peeling her cheeks back. "Ohhh, if I had the choice, I wouldn't. You pathetic fuck. We could be doing much better things than talking. If you had any sperm in your sack you'd let me out and fight me. The arena's right here. Give me some honor. Or is that a foreign concept to a sidewalk-licking fuckfag like yourself?"

He shut his eyes and cringed. Her words were literally nauseating. He could feel his last meal shove against his esophagus. "Look, I just came here to give you something, then leave. You're making me sick with all this crazy stuff you're saying, so stop it."

Her eyes gleamed. "Y'can't make me."

Toby glared back hard. "Maybe not, but I know George'd like to."

A high, snarky laugh. "Oh, of COURSE! Little rat's too weak to hear a few true WORDS, so he has to call in his pet nightmare to shut me up! What a fucking playground bully you are, Mr. Thief! What a goddamned dandelion. No muscle on your bones, so you gotta enchant constructs to come beat up people for you."

"I told you to stop it," Toby growled. "You're the bully."

"I am!?" she sputtered. "Because I'm hurting your fucking feelings!? Tough shit, cumsucker! Have you ever felt pain in your whole life that compares to mine!? I doubt it! I'm just giving you what you deserve! I'll bet you've never loved anyone like I loved them. Or been loved that much either. I'll bet your life's been a lonely, empty hell. And you've deserved every moment of it."

The words reverberated through him like a shockwave. Toby kept his muscles rigid. He felt like he was fighting a hurricane. "Shut up. Stop it."

Nothing could have delighted her more than his pathetic little mew. She made exaggerated damsel gestures. "OR WHAT!? Go ahead! Call him over! Heeere, horsie!! Have him stomp my kneecaps backwards! Have him knock me around till I'm compliant. Will that get your rocks off!? Then you can drag me out and try to shove your pathetic raisin-dick in me!"

"I SAID SHUT UP!!" Toby howled. He hated the weak tremble even as it left his throat. Tears were forming in his eyes and he tried to suck them back in through sheer anger. He shoved his face against his balled fists.

But she didn't shut up, because she knew she was getting to him now. She was ecstatic. Her body was locked in this cage but her words were free. "What's in the bag, speckdick? Got sex toys? Gonna pleasure yourself while your henchhorse kills me? Jam a rubber rod up your ass and wish your own was that big?"

"You are the sickest-!!" Toby stopped himself before he could continue. There was nothing to gain in insulting her back. If it came down to nastiness, she already had him beat, so there was no point. "You wanna know what's in the bag?"

"My husband's cock? You couldn't resist it? Or maybe my little boys'?"

Toby's face was hotter than a forge. "It's FOOD, you awful asshole!!" He reached inside and held up a fistful of granola bars. "See!? I guess I am weak, because when I thought of you locked up in here, I couldn't stand treating you so bad. So I brought you something to eat and some water bottles! I don't even know why!! I sure as heck can't spare the imaginite to make this stuff, so I guess I'm just an idiot!!"

She wrinkled her nose, instinctively disbelieving him.

"Take it!!" Toby screamed. He slung the bag towards the cage. It was a good throw, putting it just within reach. "Not that you'd show any gratitude!"

She sneered at the bag. "You poisoned it. You must have."

"Fine. Think that. Starve." He wasted a second longer glaring at her, then turned around and headed back towards the entrance.

She called after him with a laugh in her voice. "Your trick won't work! You think I'll get desperate enough to touch that stuff!? How much did you piss in it, genius? I'm a fighter! There's nothing I can't endure! I'll beat you one way or another, even inside this fucking cage!!"

Toby whipped around to face her. His pink eyes shone from the wet sheen of tears. The words did not come to him consciously. They bypassed his filter and came straight out of his mouth. "If you're such a great fighter, then how did I beat you!? How'd I put you in there, huh? Maybe, just maybe, you're not in your right mind!!"

Her face went slack. Her eyes widened. She looked like she wanted to screech something back, but she had no more wind to speak with.

"Think about it!!" Toby yelled, then turned around again. His footsteps pounded the ground like he was stomping ants. "Good night!!!"

The sniper didn't say anything back to him.

Toby's whole body trembled with embarrassment and disgust. He hadn't thought it was possible for anyone to speak such disgusting, disgusting, disgusting things as she'd said. Even if she'd lost everything and blamed him, that wasn't any excuse. Or was it? If he'd been locked in a cage by his worst enemy and had only language to fight back with, would he say garbage like that? 'No,' he told his inner devil's advocate. 'Absolutely not. There's a line you don't cross. That was beyond inappropriate.' The only place he'd ever felt so uncomfortable was Dysphoria. He wondered if she'd feel honored to be compared to that place.

'But at least one part's true,' the advocate piped up. 'Honor probably does mean a lot to her. Part of her culture. She challenged you to a fight and you didn't even acknowledge it.'

He sneered. 'You can shut up too.'

'ARE you afraid she could beat you?'

'No!! I just have to get back to work!'

'Wouldn't it feel good to smash that sewer mouth of hers again? And this time, get to actually hold the hammer?'

'No. One hundred percent no. I don't even care if that'd satisfy some temper-tantrum side of me. I've got more important things to focus on than some jerk trying to bait me into a fight.'

'Are you sure?'

Toby tried everything he could think of to make the ugly voice go away. Counting. Song lyrics. Biting the inside of his cheek. When he rejoined George, the construct looked worried.

"I couldn't discern what she said to you, but I gather it was just as rude as before. You seem extremely tense, Sire Toby. May I suggest-"

"I don't wanna talk about it!" Toby snapped. "I just want to keep busy and not think about anything till I can fall into bed tonight, okay!?"

George recoiled in surprise. He let his friend storm past him, then fell into deferential step behind him. "Understood, Sire Toby. I was simply attempting to help."

The mouse winced, feeling even worse now.

***

Some time later, Toby re-entered the arena.

Another morning had come. The sun was blocked by hazy clouds. Nothing flew in the sky. Rhinolith's native fauna ate anything before it could get off the ground.

Toby had slept hard, but not well. George needed considerable effort to prod him out of bed. The mouse had been drifting in a dreamless black void where he didn't have to think about any of the things he'd have to do today. He wanted to go back there and stay for a year or so.

They ate breakfast. Toby packed another bagged lunch for their prisoner. George flew him to the arena to get this over with before they resumed their scavenging. The stallion decided on his own to stay outside this time.

The marten had been hunched over when Toby approached, but leapt to her feet at the first sound of footsteps. She stared at him.

Toby reflexively flinched.

But her eyes and posture were different today. Calmer. Maybe she'd tired herself out from shaking the bars all night, he didn't know.

He stopped in approximately the same spot as the night before. The mouse and the marten regarded one another.

She looked at the bag in his hand.

He scowled at her through tired eyes that were doorways to deep, deep wells of irritation.

"Is that-" she started.

"I don't wanna hear anything you have to say to me today," Toby shot back immediately. This was not the same whiny cry as last night. This was spoken quietly, but ironclad.

She moved back from the bars a little, her posture demure. She let a bit of silence pass, then said, "Not even if it's an apology?"

Toby didn't let his expression change, even though he was genuinely surprised by that.

The marten slid down the bars to a kneeling position. She looked at the mouse with chagrin. "I said some things last night, didn't I?"

No reply.

She pointed behind her to the empty bottles and crumpled wrappers. "I ate it all, by the way. Wasn't poison, obviously. Thank you. I didn't expect that. I... thought for a long time about it, actually."

Toby crossed his arms. "Oh really?"

She nodded. "Yeah. I started to consider that, maybe someone who'd think of their prisoner's well-being... maybe you're not what I thought at first?"

'It's a trick,' the nastiest part of himself said.

Toby looked into her eyes. They seemed clear, and honest. Not bloodshot and bulging like before.

Her voice had been desperate when they'd first met, and now it was again, but in a wholly different way. "I just... Please. I'll listen now."

He knew he could use another ally. Especially one who knew this city and might be able to help him finish up here sooner.

The marten pressed herself close to the bars and reached out as far as she could. Not in aggression. She was asking to take the bag from him. Or maybe shake hands.

Toby looked at her open palm. A wordless plea. His heart stung, remembering the horrible words she'd said to him before. But with all she'd been through already, if she could come around to forgiving him, he knew he'd be a bigger jerk not to offer the same.

He sighed. It felt foolish to trust her, but he wanted so hard for just one good thing to come from all the suffering he'd been living lately. "Fine." He let go of his reluctance and walked closer, holding out the bag. "I have no idea what you like, so I just guessed. I can make something else next time if y-"

splat

A huge wet slug landed right across his eyes. Moist and warm. Toby froze dead in his tracks. Slime trickled down his nose into the corners of his mouth.

For several moments he was paralyzed by revulsion. Then all the skin on his body gave a cumulative shudder that broke the spell. He was leaping back, flailing, screaming, willing to do anything to get that putrid worm off of him. The unspeakable thing fell to the ground with another damp splat. Toby could still feel it, the floppy, damp weight of it. He felt like he wanted to shower in fire. It had leaked slime all over his face. Soaking in his fur. Trickling into his ear canals. And now he could smell it. Foul. Unbelievably rank and sour.

The marten started laughing.

Toby frantically wiped his eyes off and opened them. Lying on the ground at his feet was a filthy grey sock filled with clear, frothy, bubbling fluid. A sock full of spit. She must have been saving it up all night. Oh god, he could picture it. Thin, oozy strands of mucus dangling from her lips into the stinking pouch. And now that stuff was on him. She'd doused him in the perfume of her rancid halitosis. Her germs were crawling their way into his tear ducts.

Toby howled in mindless abhorrence. He slapped at his face, trying to scrape the slime away. His claws gouged ruts in his skin.

The marten slumped against the bars, cackling her ass off. She had tears in her eyes.

Toby gurgled. A lifetime's worth of germophobia all caught up to him at once. At least on Earth when he'd been sticky with fluids they were his own. He'd never been baptized in anyone else's! The saliva seemed to clone itself the more he tried to wipe away.

He realized that he already had his right palm pressed against his head, ready to fire.

A shudder shot through him. 'No!'

No. Even though he'd never felt so nauseated in all his life, he wasn't about to embarrass himself by taking the coward's way out. He wasn't going to kill himself to get away from a bit of drool.

He turned his palm towards her.

She was keeled over laughing. She'd never see it coming.

Toby's blood pounded in his ears. He looked at the moist gift lying in the sand before him. Listened to her piercing, screechy giggle. Humiliation clutched his whole body like a vice. Each breath was hot as jet exhaust. She wasn't even afraid of his retaliation, because she'd already won. The proof was dripping down his cheeks.

His arm trembled.

The weight of the hammer inside sang to him. It would feel so good to let it fly. Crack her head right open like an eggshell. He wanted to. He WANTED to.

He suddenly felt horrified at himself.

'I cannot let myself be that.'

Toby kept the hammer where it was. But his anger was not about to give up that easily. So he compromised.

The marten yelped as a water bottle careened off her forehead. A moment later, a granola bar hit her in the nose. She laughed even harder, seeing the little ratthief's face all screwed up in petty rage as he chucked breakfast at her.

He emptied the bag at her, then tore it in half and threw the tatters at the ground. He turned and retreated to the exit.

She cut off her gigglefit long enough to shout out at his back. "You and your stupid questions! 'How'd I beat you?' Well if you're so much better, then why're you wearing my gobbings!? Fuck the hell off, rat! Anyone can make a lucky shot!!"

Toby ran faster towards the pit entrance, trying to outpace her goddamned voice. He hoped he could find a shower somewhere so he wouldn't have to tell George about any of this.

***

Some time later, Toby re-entered the arena.

This time, George was at his side.

Mid-day. The sun hung overhead like a bloated yolk. The mouse and stallion's shadows were inky dots beneath their feet. Toby walked rigidly across the sand, still fuming. Hours had passed and he hadn't cooled in the slightest over her 'prank'. George had finally gotten him to talk about it after seeing his friend constantly scrubbing at his face. After hearing the story, George suggested immediate disembowelment for the marten. Toby vetoed this. He said he was still committed to being the better furson. He admitted though, he was starting to forget why he ought to.

So. Once more he was walking towards her with a bag in hand. This time he would not be dumb enough to get in range for another game of snot-bag toss.

He wondered how many more times he'd have to do this. Three times a day, for how many more days? He looked up at the sky, wondering where Ectopia Cordis was and how long it could possibly take Red to run from there.

The glove construct was still pacing around mindlessly and the marten was still in her cage. Her extra corpse was beginning to smell. It had been shoved as far to the back of the cage as possible.

Toby derived a bit of schadenfreude from her current predicament. It looked like when he'd flung the bottles of water, one of them had landed juuuust outside her reach. The sniper was flattened on the floor of her cage, shoving her shoulder against the bars, stretching as far as she could. The water was a few tantalizing inches away from her scrabbling clawtips. Beads of sweat rolled down her forehead.

"Too bad," Toby said.

She hadn't noticed them coming, and the embarrassment of this showed clearly on her shocked face when she looked up. In a flash she was on her feet, holding onto the bars. Her dismay lasted only a second, replaced by a wicked grin. "How'd you like my surpr-"

Toby cut her off. "George, if she moves, light the cage on fire."

He clopped his hoof in a salute. "It would be my fervent pleasure, Sire!"

The marten's jaw dropped. She glowered at the ratthief. "You wouldn't. You're too chickenshit."

Toby shrugged. "Exactly. That's why I'll let him do it." He raised his hands to forestall any snappy retort. "And whatever you think of me for that, I'm just protecting myself. I know you've got another sock." He glanced at the corpse. "Three more, actually. You're not getting another chance. Simple as that."

She mock-pouted. "Aww. But I already did once. And that's all that matters."

George growled at her disrespect, but otherwise kept quiet. Sire Toby could handle this on his own. And the instant that was no longer true, he would step in to correct the situation.

Toby grimaced like he had a headache. "I actually believed you when you said you were sorry."

"Yeah, what a fucking moron you are!!" she hissed bitterly. "Why would I ever!? After all you did to me!"

"I never did anything to you." Toby said firmly.

"COWARD! LIAR!" She slammed her fists against the bars. "You put me through hell! It would have been better if I was alone in that attic, waiting for you! But I wasn't! Because I could see the streets from my window. I could see dozens of people all giftwapped in your plastic slime. Three of them were mine. My husband. My Ronnie. And my Cale." Her voice trembled. "Every. Fucking. Day. For WEEKS. I had to look out that window and see them huddled together, petrified in death, like a fucking garden statue!!"

Toby hung his head. "I am honestly sorry to hear that."

"No you aren't," she snarled with infinite bitterness. "You're only sorry you have to stand here and face the consequences. You didn't count on anyone staying alive to look you in the eyes and spit in your face, but here I am!" She did spit. It landed far from its mark, but the point was made. "They knew. They stood and made a wall of themselves. For me. Not because I was Mommy, but because of my eyes. My job's always been to sit and watch and shoot. They knew, if anyone in the city could hide and wait it out, it was me." Her breath hitched. "They gave themselves to make sure Rhinolith would survive, even if it was only through one of us."

Toby felt guilt churning up his breakfast.

She couldn't stand the ratthief's crocodile tears. "I wish my arm was long enough to rip your heart out like you did to mine. Every day I had to sit there and look out my window and see them. Knowing if I stepped outside, their fate'd be mine. Everything I wanted, just out of reach. Just like you're doing to me now, you worthless clot. Every day I had to hold myself back from throwing down my rifle, abandoning my post, and running to my family to join them in death. God damn you for that."

Toby closed his eyes. "They're not dead."

"DON'T GIVE ME FAKE HOPE, YOU FUCKING MONSTER!!!" she exploded. "FUCKING THIEF! THIEF OF EVERYTHING! YOU TAKE AND YOU TAKE AND YOU TAKE AND LEAVE NOTHING BUT ASHES! YOU'RE A LIVING BLACK HOLE! AND WHEN I GET OUT OF THIS CAGE, I SWEAR, I'LL DO WORSE TO YOU THAN YOU DID TO ME! I'LL MAKE YOU SUFFER FOREVER! ETERNAL FUCKING TORTURE'S THE ONLY FITTING PUNISHMENT FOR WHAT YOU DID TO ME!!"

His reply was quiet. It was taking all his control to stay calm. "I never did anything to you."

"LIAR!!! LIAR, LIAR, LIAR!!! BURN IN HELL, YOU SOULSTEALING THIEF!!!"

"I never did anything to you," Toby repeated. It was lost in the sea of her screams, and he didn't care. It was the truth. All her volume didn't change that. He spoke just to have the words be said, whether she heard them or not. "You won't listen to me, because you need someone to blame. I understand that. But it was never me. And I gave you the chance to help me stop Scaphis and have your family back."

Tears spilled down her face and made her eyes reflect sparkles."DON'T YOU GODDAMN SAY A WORD ABOUT THEM! THEY WERE BEAUTIFUL! MY HAPPINESS! MY FUTURE! MY REASON TO KEEP GOING IN THIS HORRORWORLD! YOU STILL DON'T HAVE THE BALLS TO ADMIT TO WHAT YOU TOOK FROM ME! YOU'RE THE FIRST PLACE COWARD OF ALL FUCKING TIME AND SPACE!!"

George whispered to his master, "Please, Sire Toby, let me silence these falsehoods."

Toby shook his head. "What'd be the point? Let her talk. We know the truth."

The marten's eyes lit up like bonfires. "The truth!? You still think you have it and I don't? MY heart knows the truth, you pigshit! The truth is that I spent the last weeks of my life in a Hell worse than Dysphoria because of you! I watched my family die and couldn't even bury them, because of YOU! All for what!? Imaginite!? A fucking robbery!? You ruined a whole city's happiness just for some fucking MONEY!? What kind of insect could ever dream that up!? What kind of pathetic, heartless, worthless, sewage-drinking RAT!? A rat with a dick the size of a peanut! A rat who won't fight! A rat who has his faggoty pet pony do all the heavy lifting! A ratthief who dumps his pink jizz all over town so no one can fight back when he steals from FAMILIES AND CHILDREN!!! THIEF!!! CHILD-KILLER!!! MURDERER!!! HOW'D MY SPIT TASTE, YOU COCKSUCKING PISSJUG!?"

Her volume had been rising to throat-shredding levels. The force of it, the heat of it, almost knocked Toby back. He felt like he might shatter at how much it hurt to have someone hate him this much. But as his guilt writhed around his guts like a biting cobra, and the marten reached her apex of insult, something unexpected happened.

Toby felt something within him burst and go dark.

Just like that. Like the fizzle of a dead bulb. One moment he felt like a mountain of empathy was weighing down his shoulders, splintering his bones... and then it passed. And now he didn't know what he felt. It wasn't forgiveness. It wasn't hate. It wasn't sadness. It wasn't anything. He searched his insides and felt hollow as a glove. He just... didn't care about any of this anymore.

He looked up at the marten's face. Tears streaming from her eyes. Mouth wider than an erupting volcano, still pouring out lava flows of hatred towards him. And none of it touched him anymore. He heard the words, sure. She was calling him a coward and a murderer and a faggot. She was calling his dick small again. None of it mattered. He was done with this. Just, done.

He looked directly into the marten's eyes. They shone like beacons of Hell, guarding an endless ocean of grief. Toby said to them, softly, "I don't care."

"WHAT!?"

"I don't," he said hollowly. He sounded as surprised as her. "I wish I did, but I don't. You're rude and I'm sick of you and that's it." Still looking her dead in the eyes, he held the bag of food out to arm's length, then let it drop in the sand.

He turned to George. "We can go now."

The marten strangled the cage's bars. Veins popped out on the backs of her hands. "I'M NOT DONE WITH YOU!"

Toby had his back turned. "I'm done with you though."

She didn't think it was possible to hate him more. Her chest felt like a forest fire. Her hatred tripled, quadrupled, exploded tenfold. "SO THAT'S IT!? YOU'RE JUST GONNA PROVE ME RIGHT!? ALL YOUR LIES ABOUT SHOWING COMPASSION! YOU COULDN'T BEAR TO LOCK ME IN HERE WITHOUT FOOD! AND NOW YOU'RE LEAVING ME TO STARVE!? FINALLY SHOWING ME YOUR REAL FACE!?"

Toby's expression didn't flicker in the slightest. "Yes," he said over his shoulder. His voice was a robot's. All emotion canceled. "Sorry."

She glared daggers at him. She tried to kill him with sheer will. She strained her shoulder reaching past the bars, wishing his neck would slip into her fingers. If she only had her rifle again! "GET BACK HERE!!!"

"No." Toby continued walking.

The marten looked down at the bag in the sand. She could see droplets glistening off the water bottle. She had dumped out all the water he'd already given her, certain it was a trap. She'd thrown the granola bars into the stands. Now suddenly she was painfully thirsty. "You can't do this!" she shouted desperately. "You said so! You can't!!"

"Did."

"You CAN'T!!!" she screamed. It was beginning to dawn on her that he had been her only hope of getting out of this cage. If he left now, she was here indefinitely. Dehydration was a slow, bad death. "PLEASE!! Come back!! I'm sorry! I'll believe anything you say! Just kick the bag over to me! I'm done insulting you, I promise! I'm THIRSTY! I'm HUNGRY! How can you not care what you're doing to me!?"

George remained beside Sire Toby at a steady trot, but spent a moment to turn his head to her. "You have no worry of starvation, Madam. There is an ample supply of meat with you in your cage already." The smile he gave her then was perfectly befitting a living nightmare.

Her face went pale in horror.

George nodded in satisfaction, then returned to his trot.

She began screaming everything that came to mind. Aching pleas mixed with spiteful insults. Sometimes both in the same breath. She screamed until she tasted blood in the back of her throat. But nothing was making them turn around and come back. They were no longer responding to shame or threats or promises. They were walking away.

The bag of food and water was right there. Still in sight. Out of reach.

She dove to the floor and started trying again to reach the other bottle.

By the time Toby and George passed into the shadow of the archway, the mouse had searched himself top to bottom and found nothing but emptiness. He hadn't just been taunting her. He didn't care. He meant it. No lie. Whatever part of him had shared the pain of her story, it had vanished in a puff of smoke. He pictured her a week from now, sprawled at the bottom of her cage and bony from hunger. No guilt arose to turn him around. He pictured her dying again and again, leaving fresh corpses to gather flies. He found he was okay with this. He would be living up to her worst accusations, trapping her in that cage just like she'd said he trapped her in her sniper's perch. 'Oh well' was the only response he could dredge up. He simply did not give a shit one way or another.

And it wasn't even the devil's advocate part of himself throwing these tests at him. It was his core self, because he wanted something to spark a response. He wanted to be wracked with guilt, because at least guilt was something. This echoing, dusty void where his soul had been a moment ago... it felt wrong.

It felt like something was broken.

Permanently?

They were halfway down the branching hallway now. "George, I feel a little sick," Toby understated. "Do you think we could just sit down for a while and not do anything?"

"I think that would be fine, Sire Toby," he replied. There was a note of approval in his voice at their decision to leave the prisoner behind.

Toby didn't think he wanted approval. The mere idea of it made him nauseous for real. Suddenly, he wanted to be away from here. Far away. Maybe that wouldn't numb this feeling that something inside of him had gotten lost somewhere irretrievable. But maybe it would distract him from it. "Can you just... fly me somewhere else? I don't want to think of this arena anymore."

A nod. "We can do that as well."

Toby opened the door and the two of them stepped outside.

A moment later, the wind was in Toby's fur. Cool and soft. Like a cleansing wave. He did not want to feel cleansed.

He still felt nothing. Perfect apathy. His only care was towards the apathy itself. He didn't care what would happen to the marten. He didn't care what had happened to her. He didn't care that he'd never learned her name. And he didn't care if he harvested any more imaginite today. All he wanted was to sit down and not think or feel anymore.

He asked himself if he was okay not moving again forever. The answer that came was yes.

He asked himself how he felt about abandoning his quest to confront and punish Scaphis. Yep. Fine with that too.

He asked himself if he was okay with leaving his friends trapped and alone and memoryless.

...

He asked-

'I heard you the first time.'

He searched inside the hollow paper shell of his chest, and did manage to find a small twinge of pain at that. He recalled their faces. The twinge hurt more.

That reassured him. Maybe whatever he'd broken wasn't irreparable. Maybe he'd just been working it too hard and he needed to switch out the fuse.

He relaxed a little, glad to find something inside that told him he wasn't going to end up a blank mannequin for the rest of infinity. He looked over his shoulder. George had been zooming away at his usual speed, but Toby could still make out the faint speck of the arena.

Something struck him funny. A sickly laugh croaked out of him.

George cocked an ear; alarmed by how unnatural it had sounded. "Sire Toby?"

A pained grin came to Toby's face as he delivered the punchline. "George, you're flying right now."

The construct tilted his head, extremely puzzled by the obviousness of the remark. "...Yes?"

Toby's teeth went grinding back and forth. "You're flying. We could have just swooped over and air-dropped that bag onto her cage. We could have been doing that all along. Ha ha. None of what we just went through was necessary. It was all pointless. I put myself through all of that for nothing."

George winced twice. First at how such a simple idea had eluded him. Secondly at how his poor friend sounded so demolished. "Your reasoning is correct, Sire Toby. Though..." he hesitated, not wanting to give hollow comfort. An idea occurred. "Perhaps it was not pointless after all."

Toby blinked a bit, but his expression still stayed neutral. "How so?"

"Maybe some part of you needed to confront her," George suggested.

The mouse considered that. He grimaced."I don't see how. It was probably just bad luck and me being stupid. I dunno." The idea gnawed at him. "If I did though, then... why?"

George tried to sound reassuring. "To face her accusations? To make certain they were untrue?" He shrugged. "Why did I confront my herd?"

Toby was about to respond, then went quiet.

He held onto his friend's ashy, flaking bones, looking at the smudged sky and the city below.

The wind rustled through his ears. He couldn't think of a single thing to say.

-***-

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