The rat and the flier... the boy blinked and the sword nearly slipped from his grasp. The rat and the flier... together... here in a heartbeat, then gone, disappeared over the edge. His mind flashed with an image of the icy, foaming waves beneath and he nearly slipped on the ice as he darted forward, ducking away under an attack in the last second.
He saw not the mass of raging rats behind, not the flood of more or less useless information his echolocation spat out now, only the rat and the flier... his flier... falling over the edge together.
The last few feet he picked up speed and without a single moment of hesitation, he then leaped.
The wave of belated panic only hit him a few heartbeats into the fall and he instinctively darted around to catch the icy wall behind with his sword. The tip at first only scraped at it, then the tattered blade pierced the ice deeper and deeper until it was firmly wedged into the strange cold material, with the boy desperately clinging to the hilt.
A jolt of sharp pain pierced his lower body at the jerky break of his fall and his clam hands would release the sword any moment. His backpack hung on him like a rock and he voiced a violent scream but before he could let go, the sword gave way. Only a little at first, then more and more until the ice beneath cracked with a deafening rumble, and the boy plummeted into the icy waves beneath.
It had only been some ten or so feet yet when he was engulfed, the cold of the water numbed his senses for a heartbeat. He was an expert swimmer yet now his limbs were already growing limp and stiff, and the weight of his sword he still relentlessly clutched threatened to pull him under.
He was dragged along by the violent stream and voiced a pained cry as he collided with something. With the last of his strength, the boy got a hold of the some five-times-five feet wide ice floe and only then registered the rumbling behind had grown deafening.
In the last moment, he pulled himself up onto the ice and fiercely clutched the rim when the rumble turned into a crash. One... two... the boy counted dazedly and on three the tidal wave hit.
The tunnel had been large but the power of the enormous flood that hit now forced him and his little floe forward, he squinted yet the sounds told him the tunnel grew narrower and narrower. Like last time, he dazedly thought, it is forcing us forward... upward. Us... me.
His eye jolted open and he meant to search for his flier, he was here, he had to be – yet then his floe was flung out of a tight opening and soared through the air for a glorious moment, before hitting the surface of once still water.
His heart raced and he stared out onto the open sea in confusion. Only then he registered he knew the view. The waterway... he attempted to rise on his ice floe, to blink out onto the vast, glowing horizon. We are on the...
He released a shocked scream as another rumble sounded behind him, then a deafening crash. His floe was flung forward and only in his periphery, he registered somewhere behind him the wall must have given way altogether. The entire cave must have collapsed, he attempted to calm his relentlessly spinning head. The entire cave had...
A faint yet distinct sound had his head jolt up. Only now he registered more pieces of ice floated around him, most so small they would not carry anything, but some large as well.
But his hearing was unmistakable, he had – his head darted up to look ahead and his heart skipped a beat as he made out a piece of ice in the far distance, barely large enough to carry one individual. Yet to it clung two, a large rat with soaked brown fur and...
"DEATH!" His voice barely obeyed him yet the boy forced the name out of his throat. His eyes searched for a way to drive the wretched floe forward faster but there was nothing. "DEATH!"
His flier's head winced and in that moment the rat flung his talon at his face. Thanatos let out a high-pitched cry and his grip on the ice slipped. His claws attempted to dig into the ice yet moments later it cracked altogether, dropping both rat and flier into the icy waves.
"DEATH!" He barely managed to open his rigid fingers around the hilt of his sword and attempted to paddle with it, yet the natural current drove him forward faster than any of his own efforts.
His flier had spotted him and begun a weak attempt to get close yet the rat was on his tail. When Thanatos had at last come so close he could reach him Longclaw howled furiously and shoved him aside, extended a claw at the boy's floe – then voiced a pained shriek when the soaked blade landed directly across his face.
The boy's hand barely managed to close around the flier's claw and once more he sliced at Longclaw's face, leaving the rat to flail in the water as he sheathed his sword to pull his flier up.
The floe swayed but his arms wrapped around Thanatos' neck tightly, he would not let go. Angry tears rose in his eye, he would not ever let go again.
The flier's eyes fluttered for a heartbeat, had he even registered he was there? Then they fell shut and his body grew limp. Only with the strength of sheer desperation, the boy prevented him from slipping. His gaze fell on the broken wing, it stood off at a worse angle than before. His grip on the flier's neck automatically tightened and he could barely suppress the uprising tears.
Somewhere behind him he registered the sounds of Longclaw, his mind flashed with an image of the rat clinging to a considerably smaller ice floe and yelling curses in their direction, and a wave of shame hit him.
He had wanted to deal with him here and there. The boy shuddered, and not from his wet clothes. He had wanted to ensure they would be safe of him. And now... his teeth clenched, now he was out there somewhere, and he was... His eye tightly shut and his face pressed into drenched fur. He had failed.
He could not tell for how long they had aimlessly floated over the waterway, he blocked it all out. All the sounds and images his echolocation attempted to send him, he wanted nothing more than for it all to go away.
And he could not tell for how long the floe had lied there either when he at last registered they had washed ashore.
The boy blinked and slowly raised his head, recognizing they had drifted down a river-like passage leading deeper into the mainland. In the same moment, the familiar blend of sounds and the distinct vibrance of colors hit him and his heart sank.
Around them now sprouted, of all things, the familiar glowing vines that marked the territory of the Underland-jungle.
He had to get up, he meekly thought yet all he did was lie still, face pressed into Thanatos' fur. His body ached, the half-healed stab wound beneath the bandage throbbed, and the cold of the floe beneath stood in harsh contrast to the searing hot around them. It would melt soon. He shut his eye tighter. It would melt soon and then...
He thought he would forever aimlessly drift in his trifling thoughts when at the back of his consciousness he registered the sound palette had changed. He frowned and attempted to distinguish what exactly was different when his echolocation sounded a shrill alarm.
In the last moment, he managed to roll off, draw Mys, and behead the arm-long twister that had lowered itself from behind. A heartbeat of nigh-unbroken silence followed before his surroundings shrilled with a deafening collective hiss.
Five approaching from behind, three from the left, two from the right, and in front. Leap over the one that approaches from the ground and dodge right, draw the sword, wield both blades backward, and twist in a circle.
He barely had the mental and physical capacity to follow through with what his echolocation suggested and more stumbled than elegantly dodged right. Somehow he managed to pull his sword from the soaked sheath and an image of Ripred flashed before him again. Of him and Ripred in the Vineyard of Eyes. Well, he had no time to apply the ignifer now, but he at least had two blades.
With the power of adrenaline, the boy released a hoarse cry and extended them. In the last moment, he stumbled towards the lying shape of Thanatos and beheaded a snake ready to dig its teeth into the neck of his flier. Then he began to twist.
He could not tell for how long he had spun yet he stopped only when his echolocation told him the twisters had given up the attack. He nearly fell over as he attempted to stop and dropped his sword before collapsing beside Thanatos. The ice floe had almost entirely melted now.
"Death", he meekly called, attempting to shake him awake, "Death, we can't stay here... who knows if they'll come back, I –", he closed his eye and panted heavily, wiping the sticky snake blood off his hands and face. His right hand automatically cupped the uncomfortably throbbing injury in his stomach. The bandage was soaked and crusted, he would have to change it soon or he would risk infection. His teeth gritted and he adamantly banned the pain from his head, it was insignificant. He couldn't afford for it to be significant now. Not now when –
"Death?"
Yet Thanatos did not seem like he had the strength to rise, or even answer. His lids fluttered, then fell shut altogether, and his wing was still bent in an unnatural angle. A wave of panic engulfed the boy as he stared at his flier, fervently attempting to think of a way to get him out of here.
His gaze fell on his stained hands and his jaw clenched, he would have to carry him. Fliers were large yet light but he still released a strained cry as he scooped up the joints of Thanatos' wings allowing the flier's head to hang over his shoulder. His feet trailed behind on the floor but this was the best he could do. The flier's eyes fluttered again for a moment but when the boy attempted to shoot him an encouraging smile he miserably failed.
His head spun from pain and fatigue, the bandage around his stomach had loosened and he would need to replace it soon. The wound beneath pulsed. He could not, the boy desperately attempted to rekindle any leftover adrenaline and screamed, despite the lingering threat of other creatures nearby.
We are lost, it flashed in his head as he slowly dragged his flier forward, away from the river and any potential twisters. With Thanatos injured in such a manner and me running on barely more than adrenaline and willpower, if we do not find shelter here somewhere, we are certainly lost.
For a second he mustered up the spirit to wonder how the thought of his own death suddenly invoked fear again when it hadn't in such a long time, but as much as the question stood out, he had no answer.
The previously so uncomfortably pungent chirping of the jungle now provided his means to orientate himself, though, the further he went, the more he began suffering in the smoldering heat. Roots and plants continuously cracked beneath the soles of his heavy boots and vines nigh-constantly snapped shut in his face yet the worst part was how he had no idea as to where he was going. The only places he knew his way around in the jungle were the Vineyard and the nibbler colony, and as far as he could tell they were miles from that area.
Who even knew where they were, he angrily prevented Thanatos from slipping off his back and wiped his relentlessly pearling forehead. For all he knew, they could be in the most remote place of this world. To him, it would not make a difference.
He thought he must have stumbled through the jungle for days though in truth it could only have been ten or so minutes when he at last perceived the sharp edges of stone beneath the dense foliage for the first time.
He nearly cried tears of joy when his hand then placed on the hot yet distinct stone of a wall and the sight returned some of his energy. If there was a wall, maybe there was a cave too.
Only a couple minutes later he indeed stumbled upon a dense curtain of vines that concealed a narrow entrance. The boy voiced an overjoyed laugh and squeezed himself in, dragging Thanatos behind. He shoved the thin vines that grew from the ceiling and emitted a pleasant yet sparse light aside and sighed as he registered the somewhat cooler air in the cave.
Some ten feet in he finally dared drop Thanatos and collapsed beside him, then angrily tore the hot boots off his feet.
To rest... his lids fluttered and he dazedly clutched the flier's now dry fur. To... he jolted up at once. No, he could not rest. The ground beneath him swayed, everything spun, and he felt the sudden urge to gag but he suppressed it. Not now. Not when... "Death!"
He could not tell where he got the strength to lift his body from the wall and scoot over to his flier. What had remained of his spirits dwindled at the sight of his shut eyes, his barely moving chest.
"Death? Death, can you hear me?" When Thanatos didn't react a wave of proper fear hit the boy. "Death!" He reached for his bond but collapsed over him instead. "Death, speak to me...! I need to... to... treat your injuries... and reset that bone." He rose a little to assess if he had overlooked something. "But you need to speak to me...!"
An eternal moment of silence passed, then Thanatos' lids fluttered and his eyes opened to narrow amber slits. A low rumble came from his mouth and the boy thought he could cry in joy at the sight of his bond alive.
"Death, I know you want to sleep, me too, buddy, okay... I..." He managed to shake the bothersome weight of his backpack off his back and finger it open. The medical kit, his stiff fingers barely got a hold of his waterproof container. He scattered its contents on the ground, "I have a painkiller for you... here somewhere. Take it and sleep, but only if you promise you'll wake back up!" His hand found the large bottle, "Like I woke up, after we bonded, remember?"
"Of course I remember..." Thanatos' voice was hoarse and barely audible, but he spoke at all. The boy buried his face in his fur, crusted with blood. His hand still tightly clutched the bottle and slowly extended to hold it in front of the flier's face.
"It will help you sleep, okay? And I'll keep watch... I'll... I'll stitch you up and I'll keep watch... I promise."
The moment the words escaped his mouth he knew not how he would ever fulfill this promise. He could somehow see himself powering through tending to their wounds now, but how he was supposed to stay awake even a second longer he could for the life of him not tell. All he knew at the current moment was, that he would not allow his bond to die. He could not, not after all that, not by the claws of –
"I'll be here when you wake up", he mumbled and allowed himself to shut his eye for a heartbeat, "you'll wake up and I'll be here, I promise."
The flier's misted eyes fixated him, then the bottle, before he allowed the boy to pour a sip into his mouth. He had only a heartbeat to wonder how grave his pain must be for him to protest so little. Then his flier had drifted into sleep and for a second his words to Hamnet flashed in his mind – it will not change the fact that he does not care for me.
A cold shiver ran down his spine despite the heat and his jaw clenched. If you will not believe me like that, I will make you believe me. I will not let you die before you say you believe me. The words rang in his head and revoked some of his spirits.
It still took the exhausted boy nearly fifteen minutes to finish up cleaning and stitching up the flier's injuries to the best of his ability. Resetting the bone in his wing took the most effort and he found himself insanely happy Thanatos was out from the painkiller or he would have, without a doubt, experienced excessive pain. When he had finally managed it he found some leftover bones in his backpack to create a splint.
His dragging the flier through the jungle had not exactly helped any of his injuries yet apart from that he finished his work up fairly quickly. Throughout his champion career, tending to wounds had become a fixed part of his daily routine, and he found most of it he could do automatically.
When he then processed the flier was all taken care of and he had done everything he could every fiber of his body wished to collapse and give in to the badly needed rest, but then his hand found his own bandage.
He gritted his teeth and groaned, then ripped it away and nearly emptied the whole bottle of root bitters he had snatched from where Kismet had hidden his stash over a spare cloth.
The stitch marks were still visible around the stab, and it had not closed up entirely yet. So when he pressed the soaked fabric to the injury he could not suppress a pained cry. He panted, gritted his teeth until his jaw hurt, and waited for the pain to fade until he tightly tied a fresh bandage.
That was it. The sealed bottle of alcohol slipped from his fingers as the last of his strength left him and he collapsed beside Thanatos. This was all... everything important. His eye shut tightly and his face pressed into bloodstained fur. I promised I would stay awake. It was the last thought he could conceive before he slipped into the dark oblivion of sleep.
"Henry...?"
The boy jerked up from where he had lied, curled against Thanatos, when he perceived a strained yet recognizable voice next to his ear. He had been asleep, he processed, and a wave of searing shame hit him. "I –", he gazed into the misted yet open eyes of his flier, "I know I promised I'd keep watch, I'm sorry I –"
"No, Henry, forget it, for goodness sake", Thanatos cut him off, "of course you couldn't, I mean you..." He rose and stared at the boy, then eyed their surroundings with disbelief. "You... where are we? How did we get here?"
"The jungle, we are in the... I had to carry you", the boy mobilized all his strength to raise his aching and stiff body. "There were those twisters at the beach and I didn't know where to go but I found this cave and... and...", he broke off and nearly collapsed again.
"You carried –", the flier's eyes widened, "you... but you are barely in any shape to be up, let alone..." He stared at the boy intensely. "Wait... why are you... even here?"
They held each other's gaze for a heartbeat then the boy turned his eye to the floor. "I jumped after you. I had to... I mean, you..."
"You JUMPED after – agh!", Thanatos winced as he leaned on his injured wing and stared at the boy with even greater disbelief, then looked away.
"Yes I jumped after you!", he cried and sensed tears rise in his eye, "I had to, I mean I couldn't just let you die after I had gotten you into this mess in the first place, I mean I... I couldn't", he cut himself off and pulled his leg to the uninjured part of his chest, "I couldn't... kill him, so I endangered you, I never meant to, I just wanted..."
"Of course you couldn't kill him", Thanatos hissed through clenched teeth and eyed his wing with disdain, "what the hell were you thinking, you had just promised you –"
"Because he... they will always find us!" Thanatos winced from the boy's desperate cry, "If I don't kill them now they will never stop, they will never leave us... you in peace. Longclaw would have hunted you to the ends of this world and now that he has Tonguetwist with him they can... can...", he broke off and attempted to combat his own excessive trembling. "So I had to kill them and you didn't want to join me so I had to do it alone, and I thought if I did this we... you would be free, and..." His torrent of words abated and Thanatos thought he had seldom ever seen the boy so defeated.
"You... nearly died."
"So what!" The flier winced at the boy's desperate shriek, "Who cares if I die!" For a moment his determination to live from last night flashed in his head and he briefly wondered if something had changed. "I can't...", he sobbed and clutched his leg tighter, "I can't live, not if all I can ever do is cause those I love pain. So I might as well die trying to bring peace to the one most important to me in this whole world!"
The flier barely managed to shut his agape-standing mouth. "But you..."
"Yes I do love you, okay?", he cut him off, "I'm trash at showing or saying it but I do, and I would do about anything to prove that. Anything! So what more do you want from me?!"
He could not prevent the first tear from escaping his eye, "Y... you know what, nevermind, it doesn't matter", he sobbed. "It's useless, I'm useless", he furiously tugged at a crusted bandage around his wrist, "I may have been your reason at some point but that doesn't mean I still can be. I try, you know?" He angrily wiped at his face but the tears streamed relentlessly, "To be useful. To not be a parasite. But apparently, I can't even do that right anymore. I can't –"
"Wait, you..." Thanatos stared at him with widened eyes, "you... did this to prove you cared about me?"
The boy stared at him for a moment then lowered his head. "A parasite has no place in this world. So all I can do is die for a cause worth dying for."
A shiver ran down the flier's spine as he was taken back to his resolve to find a cause worth dying for, before the boy. "You... realize you are contradicting yourself, right?"
"What?"
Thanatos sighed. "You call yourself a parasite and insist on dying for a... for me, something a parasite would never do. Not that that makes it any better, but still."
The boy's mouth opened yet out came no sound. His mind reeled with the flier's flawless logic. But if he acted not like a parasite –
"You are not... a parasite."
His head shot up and he unbelievingly stared into the flier's narrowed eyes. "I told you this before. And you told me", he winced from pain as he attempted to drag himself forward, "you told me you wanted to wipe the slate clean. What happened to that, hm?"
The boy's jaw clenched. "What if we can't wipe the slate clean? Because...", he stared at the floor, "because if I really just can't learn, what if it ends even worse next time? What if we end up –"
"Henry you are talking nonsense." He glanced down at Thanatos who had given up trying to move and stared up at him with visible discomfort yet also so much affection it sent a shiver down the boy's spine.
"But... we don't get third chances", he mumbled and averted his gaze again, "seconds yeah, but not –"
"Who has ever said anything about a third chance? For all I'm aware, this is your second chance, and those are perfectly valid."
"It's...", the boy hesitated, "I said you found out why Ares let me fall back then. Because with him too, I was being a parasite. So this –"
"This is our second chance now, what happened with others is not the point."
"You... you really mean that?"
For the first time in forever, the flier spotted a glimmer of hope in the boy's eye. "Of course I do", he shook his head, "and I also meant it when I said I wanted to wipe the slate clean. There is little I want more, as of the current moment." His jaw clenched at the thought of the boy putting himself in peril on his behalf. This is not how it works, he desired to yell at him, you're not the martyr here. You can't be.
"So I want you to repeat your promise." Thanatos' stern gaze pierced the boy, "That you will never do anything of the sort again. Not without me, at least." He stiffened as the boy remained silent. "Don't you get it?", he finally spat out, "I can't afford to lose you too. Not after all that has... has... I know that now, I...", he released a shaky breath as his mind took him back to his time away from the boy. The time he wished to wipe from his memory for it had been much too like everything before the boy.
"I love you too. As much as I have ever loved anyone I ever considered family. And now you're all the family I have left. And I am not giving up on you. Not even if you have given up on yourself. No, especially in that case. And if it is the same for you", he took a deep breath, recalling the messy scribbles from Henry's log, "all this arguing has no point, does it?"
He stared at Thanatos from a widened eye for what felt like forever, then at last a genuine smile spread on Henry's face. "I promise." Yet the smile faded swiftly. "Only if you promise too, though. No more feeling or acting inferior or unworthy." He swallowed and sniffed. "I can try if you can."
The flier gazed at him for a heartbeat, then sighed. "I can... try."
"I'll smack you if you slip back into it."
"Sounds like a deal. I'll do it too."
Henry finally pushed off the wall and slid closer until he could curl up with his head on Thanatos' back. "Isn't that how it goes?", he mumbled, "Our life and death are one." His hand instinctively searched for the flier's claw and suddenly it was like he understood. "Are one... we two."
"No me without you", Thanatos mumbled, "and no you without me. Not anymore."
"No me without...", his grip on the flier's claw tightened, "because our life and death... because we are one." The words, despite how quietly he had spoken, rang piercingly loud.
"Because... we are one." Thanatos had nothing else to add.
Neither of them was able to tell how long they had lied nestled together, listening to the eerie jungle palette outside and watching the faint shadows the hanging vines threw on the walls.
"How long... have we been out, earlier?"
Henry shrugged. "Not sure. It hardly matters, I mean..." He felt no desire to move yet he also sensed the soreness of his throat and the uncomfortable heat creeping in from outside. "I have to get up", he mumbled and slowly rose, carefully watching for his fresh bandage. "I have no food and only so much water. We'll need lots of water soon."
"But you can't –"
"I'll be fine." Henry desperately fought to keep all pain out of his face. "One of us has to go out there, and it's definitely not going to be you." His jaw clenched at the discomfort in Thanatos' expression, despite the flier's attempt to hide it. The painkiller must have worn off.
Henry turned and rummaged through his backpack. For a second he contemplated whether it was worth offering Thanatos another sip from the painkiller, then he figured if his pain was anything less than unbearable the flier would refuse anyway. Instead, he fetched his water bags, one of which he tossed at Thanatos, what had been left in the other he emptied in a couple sips. It had been the one he had used for wound cleaning.
"You will... be careful out there, right?"
This time, the exiled prince managed a genuine smile. "Oh yeah. I think today is one of those rare days when I'm not in the mood to put myself in danger more than necessary."
Henry ended up being gone for more than an hour, mostly because he had nothing but his own lacking intuition to guide him through the jungle and he had not thought to mark his way back either.
"Death, it's incredible! We must go, now!"
"Henry you are back", the flier's head shot up from where he had lied and he stared at his bond accusingly. "Have you any idea for how long you –"
"Yeah, I know, I'm sorry", Henry muttered then his grin returned and Thanatos' eyes widened at the three large fish he tossed before him. "But I found the perfect temporary shelter. It's about half an hour from here but it has ready access to water and there's a grove full of these only some hundred feet from it." A cloth filled to the brim with the orange fruit Hamnet had picked for them last time fell beside the fish.
"Hey, you look like something's chewed you up and spit you back out." Henry plopped down next to him and eagerly took the first bite from a fruit. The delicious juice ran down his chin and for a moment he felt like he was in heaven. Then his gaze met Thanatos and his worry returned. "You want more of the painkiller?"
"I like my head clear, thank you."
Henry peeked at the flier as he began peeling the skin from one of the fish. The effect must have faded entirely now and he sensed Thanatos' discomfort in the air like a suffocating cloud of mist. "You sure?"
Thanatos shut his eyes, then determinately pulled himself up and scooped one of the fish up whole. "Yes."
"Alright", Henry's jaw clenched as he watched his flier nearly collapse back to the floor, eyes misted with pain again. "But if you need it, I have the bottle right here, okay?"
He did not respond and the two finished up their meal quickly. As soon as he had drunk the last sip of his water Henry rose to his feet and opened his mouth, then closed it again as his gaze met Thanatos. The flier stared at the floor and the exiled prince dropped the bag he had picked up again.
"Perhaps you should –"
"I'll find a way to move you, don't worry." He began rummaging through his backpack again and despite his cheerful tone, his mind reeled with something close to panic. "I mean if worst comes to worst I'll –"
"This is awful", Thanatos cut him off and shook his head, glaring at his broken wing. "I can't even move on my own, I mean... I am not even –"
"Oh shut up, will you?" Henry pulled a large bone from his backpack and eyed it pensively, "You know what, for all the times I've been a useless weight on your back it's about time you play the part. Just watch."
The flier's open mouth shut. "You..."
"No I don't mind!", Henry cried and pulled himself up, "It's what I'm here for." He hesitated for a moment, then stepped forward, "If you think I'll think any less of you for being temporarily put out of action I still haven't gotten the point across, have I?"
"That you... do care about me?"
The exiled prince hesitated, then a wide grin spread on his face. "So I have gotten it across. Good, because I was going to yell at you until you believed me, but apparently I don't have to."
"Kismet, she..." The flier watched with intrigue as Henry tugged at the vines, "She showed me some of the logs you had asked her to throw away."
Henry froze mid-movement. "Has she? I was... it was... I mean..."
"I am proud of you."
A moment of silence passed, then Henry's grin returned. "As you should be. Wait until I show you what I can do now. I bet it exceeds even your echolocation abilities!"
"I can't wait."
The exiled prince plopped back down and lied all his remaining bones out in front of him. "But...", he hesitated, "Kismet... do you think she knows we're okay?" An image of the wise rat he had grown to respect so much over the last... he shook his head, eight months, flashed before his inner eye. He had not even said goodbye.
"We could send her a message as soon as we can", Thanatos remarked, "but from how she sounded when I departed, she knows very well we're fine." He paused. "She could not have wished for a better student. That is what she wanted me to tell the "conceited brat". I'll go on a whim here and assume she meant you."
Henry laughed. "She's awful at dealing with her own feelings, isn't she?"
"Well you're one to talk", the flier scoffed. "Or I, for that matter. Couldn't all these recent problems be summed up into "we do not know how to communicate our emotions properly if we are being honest?"
Henry froze and looked up, then grinned. "Yeah, seems accurate."