AN: .. I needed some closure..!

We are the reckless,
We are the wild youth
Chasing visions of our futures
One day we'll reveal the truth
That one will die before he gets there...

.

The fire sent out a sphere of light and made a barrier keeping out the dark. Fireflies floated between the trees, and the silhouette of Mt Zaleho rose up above the Daath woods, like a handprint in the dark. The sky was purplish with clouds and the veil of miasma.

Luke was snoring quietly, as usual. Tear was curled up efficiently in her bedroll; Natalia lay back to back with the Melodist. Guy was also asleep, slumped with his back against a tree and his sword in his lap on top of his blanket. The Colonel was sitting cross-legged by the fire on his mat, reading a book.

Anise lay on her back, Tokunaga cradled in one arm, and stared at the clouds. The smell of bonfire smoke ingrained in her clothes was a comfort; a reminder of meals shared and good times snatched between deadly boring days of travel punctuated by scraps with thieves and monsters. Though, as Anise was coming to realise, the worst of the monsters turned out to have names and faces and spoke to you gently of saving the world and following the Score and prosperity and peace... and coerced you into spying on your friends, forced you to bring them close to death, and took away the life of...

She felt all her muscles clench up with the effort of keeping the hurt inside, and pulled Tokunaga to her chest. She rolled over onto her side and faced the dark forest. Creatures went about their night business with no regard for the vortex inside her. Insects chittered over the stream flowing a little distance away. The fireflies drifted. A breeze glittered through the leaves and blew the fire so that the warmth collided with her back and the pale smoke streamed around her and off into the woods.

Hugging Luke in the chapel had been nice. Anise was discovering it wasn't enough. Tokunaga was a good cuddler but he wasn't enough, and she couldn't puppet him into holding her without attracting Jade's attention. But it hurt... It really hurt. Ion was dead. And she had killed him. And no one was angry with her but they should be, they really should be, and Anise found herself wishing someone would shout and scream at her and call her all the names she was calling herself. Traitor, spy, murderer... She realised she was shivering. Was this something close to how Arietta felt? No wonder she was so gloomy all the time...

Ion is dead, and you caused it... You were supposed to be a guardian... You failed. You are a monster... Anise curled up tighter, arms around her legs with Tokunaga stuffed against her chest, and her forehead pressed to her knees. If she made herself small enough she might fall between the stones and disappear into the core, a tearful handful of memory particles streaming on forever... Ion would want her to live, but Ion should be here too living with her... A hole yawned inside her chest and she felt herself tipping down.

Something scrunched behind her, and the warmth of the fire lessened. Someone was behind her. Someone had sat down behind her. Someone had lay down beside her and had put a long-gloved hand around her and was pulling her close to a thin chest. Anise didn't uncurl, but she shuffled herself backwards until the fire's heat was replaced with the reassuringly solid, human warmth of the Colonel. Surprise shrank the hole of sorrow for a moment. It was the first time she hadn't initiated the contact. And so held, Anise realised anyone looking from the fire side probably wouldn't notice her and would just assume the Colonel was sleeping. Still balled up in her pain, she loosened her grip on herself, and her eyes filled up. 'Ion...'

He shifted with a small grunt and worked his other arm around her from beneath, and tugged her up so her head rested beneath his chin. The breeze teased his long hair over her with the smoke. 'It's my fault,' she managed, after a little while. 'And I know it. I regret what I did but I accept the responsibility. But I didn't expect forgiveness to be... so hard to handle...'

'Oddly enough, kindness is often the hardest to deal with,' he said softly, a trace of his customary flippant tone still present, though she sensed he was being serious. 'You probably think you deserve to be hated for what you've done, don't you?'

She nodded, curling tighter. The words were somehow sharper when said aloud. 'I'm a m... I don't understand how they can still trust me...'

'Anise... There was nothing you could have done. Even if you had admitted to us that you were reporting to Mohs, he would have found some other way to kidnap Ion and force him to read the Planetary Score.'

'Wait, are you saying the Score predicted this? That there was no way to avoid it?'

'Not at all. I'm saying that you must not take responsibility for Mohs' actions, as well as your own. Your own are regrettable, and the remorse you feel is quite proper. But you have confused your grief for Ion's death with responsibility for it – with the person, not you, who forced him to use his powers beyond his physical limits. And you are forgetting that Ion probably had this in mind as soon as he realised what was happening. He could have escaped. And Tear is cured, is she not?'

Anise nodded again, wiping her nose on Tokunaga's long-suffering head. 'But Ion is dead...'

'He is,' said Jade. The devastating simplicity of the quiet statement forced Anise to bite down a sob. 'Mourn for him, but do not forget whose fault all of this really is. Then you will understand how we feel about it. About you.' With this he tightened his grip, enveloping her and pressing his face into her hair.

'Now then!' As suddenly as he had appeared he withdrew, snaking his arm out from beneath her and scooting back over to the fire. 'You're probably not going to get much sleep tonight. There's some fruit parfait left over.'

'Oh Colonel, did you save seconds for me?' Anise managed, sitting up and wiping her eyes on her sleeve, feeling some of the life come back into her voice. 'I'm a growing girl you know.'

'Luke fell asleep before he could eat his share. I put it aside beneath that red cloth by the provisions. Waste not.'

'I won't waste it! Thank you!' Anise scrambled closer to the fire as Jade took up his book again. The fire flickered in his glasses and illuminated his face. His lips twitched in a smirk as he registered her gaze but he didn't look up.

Anise finished the dessert and put her bowl aside to wash later. The Colonel was still reading.

'Jade...'

Silence, and the wind in the leaves, and the steady, sleepy crackling of the dying fire...

Anise crawled around the fire to be nearer to him and lay on her side facing the glowing wood. Warmth settled around her like warm water. Sorrowful, but safe, Anise felt her eyelids pulling gently down.

'Wait for me...' she murmured, as sleep began to take her. 'I'm... a growing girl...'

Nothing, but the wind above and the fire before; the stream in the forest behind and the rough earth beneath... The little sphere of light kept away the monsters and banished the dark, for one night at least.

.

And if you're in love, then you are the lucky one,
'Cause most of us are bitter over someone.
Setting fire to our insides for fun,
To distract our hearts from ever missing them.
But I'm forever missing him.

Lyrics from "Youth" by Daughter.