#kyra also says “RIP to Atlantis but I'm different”

[semperintrepida]

A chapter in which fraying threads begin to snap.

❧

I don't forget the dead, but there's a shift in the currents between us. We graze the goats on the mountain, we make cheese and sell it at market, and when we're together, we banter, almost like friends.

"If that's you being quiet, we'll have nothing to hunt but trampled grass," I say, as the sound of the branch you've carelessly snapped cuts through a forest filled with the golden light of sunset. We're searching for deer on the ridge above the stream.

"You've only yourself to blame for bringing me," you say. "I'm no hunter. I could be relaxing on the beach right now."

Since you arrived at my farmstead, you've never relaxed on the beach, not once. "Sure you would. You'd be kicking back, getting sand in your underclothes and eating from a big bowl of grapes we don't have."

"Better than slogging through this." You lift your foot from the soggy green moss along the stream bank we've been following, and wiggle wet and muddy toes in an equally wet and muddy sandal.

"I didn't know you were so... dainty."

"Hardly," you say. "I just prefer to stay out of the muck unnecessarily."

"Unnecessarily? We need the meat, since you won't let me cull the—"

"You need the meat because you eat everything in sight. It's a mystery where you put all of it."

I wave you quiet. "Make yourself useful by looking for deer sign, will you? The sooner we bring one down, the sooner you get to relax."