4. The Reasons.

"The past beats inside me like a second heart."
― John Banville

It was a voice - female and vaguely familiar. Like one she hadn't heard in years.

"Connie! ...Lars!?"

But as she began to stir, the dream - whatever it was - easily got away from her. She blinked open unwilling, still-stinging eyes to find that the sky was beginning to color again. A scattering of stars were still visible but so were some gathering clouds here in the pre-dawn - and the reason she knew any of this was because she'd fallen asleep outside. It wasn't a huge deal and it certainly wasn't the first time; the evening prior had been fine, warm and breezeless, after all.

The peace of this moment couldn't last. It all came back to her - the events of the day before. Her failure at the Sea Shrine. Their quiet discussion in the firelight that evening - Lars' halfhearted attempt to get her to move on.

Their painful, halting acknowledgment that time was passing them by - a ceaseless, mocking parade.

All this - she remembered, heart sinking - after years of wasted effort.

The fire had burned itself out overnight, now little more than smoldering embers, scant plumes of smoke rising up briefly before scattering and dispersing in the gentle breeze. Leftovers from the night before sat untouched in a clay bowl nearby.

And there was Lars, also beginning to stir from one of his rare slumbers, across the firepit from her. Well, that wasn't true anymore. She'd noticed he had taken more and more to the habit of sleeping lately. She still had to ask him why, but at a guess the answer was most likely boredom. That made sense to her - by being awake all the time, he was actually subjecting himself to an extra half again the amount of waking hell she herself was experiencing.

That, and there seemed to be no point in him staying awake to keep watch; there never seemed to be any danger here on this little peninsula. No one had ever come here in the time they'd been lost here. They didn't want to get too comfortable, but it seemed more and more like there wasn't really any need for a lookout-

"Heeeey!? I know you're around here - I hope you are, anyway!"

Her eyes widened and she bolted upright, shunted rudely from her sleepy train of thought. It wasn't a dream. Someone had finally come to their quiet little peninsula, and they were calling out...

Specifically, for them.

She placed her hand on the hilt of the sword she was never too far away from.

Lars also instantly gathered his wits, grabbed the fire-poker-spear from the firepit and jumped to his feet, casting about with anxious eyes.

There was no one around that they could see - just trees, their little cabin, a squirrel darting away into the undergrowth.

"LAAAAAARS!?"

His eyes darted around at the sound of his name being called. Connie rose to her feet, hefting the sword with her as she did, and slowly approached the edge of the cliff. She was certain that the voice was further away than merely somewhere in amongst the nearby trees.

"Connie- no-" Lars whispered cautiously, but she dropped down as she got closer to the cliff's edge. This seemed to appease him. He followed her.

"CON-NIE!"

In trepidation, they grew bold enough to peer over the edge of the cliff and down on the beach, in the rising light, they could make out the shape of a person, lithe and slender and tall. She wore a flowing dress that came down to around her ankles.

In the low but breaking light of dawn, they could also see that she was green.

A green gem.

She spotted them immediately and her eyes widened in surprise. They watched in terror as... she smiled widely and waved an arm at them.

This strange gem even continued to yell up at them; "Oh, OH! HEY! I was hoping you'd stuck around!"

She took a full body-contorting, physics-defying leap into the air and smoked the height of the cliff as if it were nothing. The two humans wrenched themselves around in fright and clumsily scrambled to their feet as she sailed overhead.

The gem landed behind them and glanced around to assess the space these two had created for themselves. Ah yes. The humble firepit; a source of warmth, meals and a social gathering spot for early humans. The modest hovel - she didn't know a single gem nor human who didn't appreciate a healthy dose of the indoors from time to time. Some kind smoothed-down log-thing leaning against the wall of the hut? Well, that was a new one. She wasn't familiar with whatever those were.

She stood arms akimbo and smiled at their little slice of heaven.

"Wow, you two did all this!? It looks like you're really thriving here, with your little housing unit and..." she flicked her hand to indicate their mess. "The other things. That's great! Rose was so right about you humans, you're all so adaptable." She frowned, softly. "I... I envy that."

Intensely confused by all this, Lars finally piped up. "Uhhhh, excuse me..."

The strange gem turned to regard them, finally. She took a step toward them - the two humans immediately took a step back. Connie raised the sword, ready to strike if the need occurred - as did Lars with the spear.

But she was smiling widely, and this prompted them both to smile back, however nervously. She really seemed like someone they might want on their side. This gem seemed to know things about them - most importantly that they were here. In this time. At this place.

Perhaps she also knew why.

The stranger didn't seem to notice their trepidation.

"And you didn't even stray far, did you?" The gem smiled widely once again. It was a smile that, oddly enough, didn't quite touch her eyes. "Well, haha, lucky for me!"

Connie frowned at her as she gripped the sword handle tightly. "How do you know us?"

She chuckled - at what, they couldn't imagine. It was not a time for laughter.

"Oh, Connie. What are you saying? We will practically be neighbors."

Lars gasped in recognition, but Connie was still trying to piece it together. "But, we've never seen-"

Lars lowered his voice and laid a gentle hand upon his cohort's shoulder. "Connie - she's from Little Homeworld."

Connie squinted, and snapped her fingers. "Of… course!"

The gem frowned as Connie racked her brain.

"Yeah! Moldavite... right? One of the original Crystal Gems!"

Lars jumped in. "How- why are we here?! Can you tell us-"

"You don't remember?" Moldavite blinked, her expression quickly falling. "But, I-I will..." she frowned abruptly, as if confused. "We will speak down on the beach. You will both agree you'll help me. You'll say it's okay!"

Lars and Connie stood with blank expressions. None of this was registering. And the odd way in which she was speaking wasn't helping.

Connie shrugged, looking lost. "What do you mean? Will?"

"Is this some kinda weird game?" Lars asked, scratching at the back of his neck.

Moldavite frowned further, her forehead wrinkling up. "You'll want to help me go home."

"...What."

She grew less patient. "You will say it's okay and that you'll help me get home!"

"Okay, okaaay. Let's wind this back," said Lars, taking a small step forward, holding his palms out in what he hoped would be taken in a calming way. "Moldavite - Hey. Now, ahhh... where do you think your home is?" he asked with an upward inflection.

Moldavite's whole demeanor changed as she slowly put both her arms around her torso. She hugged herself gently. Her eyes were troubled and, one could imagine, so was her mind.

"Nowhere," she said at last in a quiet, empty tone.

"Somewhen," said Connie, eyes wide, stricken hard by the light of a sudden realization.

Moldavite collected herself after a moment and waved a dismissive hand in the rising light. "Yes, yes. And after I explain all this to you, you will be only too happy to say yes! Remember?"

Lars and Connie exchanged confused glances.

"No," came Connie's response, speaking for them both. "Moldavite, we don't remember any of that. How we got here is all a blank." She immediately found herself welling with emotion. "But you did this to us!? How!? Wh-"

She exhaled sharply through her nose as she felt an anger rise within her. It must have been obvious, because she felt Lars place a gentle hand upon her tensed shoulder.

"Okay," Lars swallowed a mounting terror as he took over the line of questioning. "You need to tell us what you said- will say to us, and maybe we can figure this whole thing out."

"Why don't you remember?!" asked the gem, emotional again, her irises shrunk small, her forehead furrowed anxiously. "It will be what humans will someday start calling A Saturday. I will ask you, on the beach - You'll understand! I'll ask if you would help me go home. You both will say yes!"

He waited for more, but he soon realized it wasn't forthcoming. "...That's all? That's what you said to us?"

"Yeah."

Connie tightened her grip on the sword handle and grit her teeth, but Lars was still surprisingly in mediator mode.

"Okay! This... is progress," he was saying. "So it seems like you didn't really tell us what 'going home' meant for you." Lars shrugged, smiling widely, eyes bulging as he tried hard to keep it together. "I can see myself thinking, 'sure, a quick portal to Little Homeworld to help someone get home because screw walking, right?'" His smile faded. "There's no way I'd have thought-"

But Connie was less patient. "We would've never said yes to being shunted thousands of years backwards through time!" she shouted.

Moldavite was taken aback. "B-but... you said-"

"No!" Connie furiously elaborated. "We couldn't have thought you'd ever mean to send us back to the middle of the rebellion! Next time you ask someone for a favor, maybe try a bit more context!"

But she was insistent. "You SAID-"

Connie stomped a foot. "That's not FAIR. You told us jack, and then you ripped us from our lives!"

Lars was trying to retain a modicum of calm - he wasn't sure about provoking a gem, but he couldn't help but ask, "Why'd you even take us?"

Moldavite's reply came in the most casual tone ever, but it made their racing thoughts grind to a screeching halt.

"You will be the sacrifice."

Connie breathed in sharply.

"The recipe will call for organic energy," Moldavite continued without breaking. She shot a glance at Lars, who was looking like a deer caught in headlights at this point. "Well, I will be on the fence about you, but it will seem to have worked." Here, she chuckled lightly. "Good thing, too! By my calculations, I will need the potential energy of hundreds of humans who might not even survive the process if the one magic one I'll have on hand isn't going to work."

"Moldavite," breathed Connie, but other than that, she had no words.

Lars, meanwhile, was reeling. "WHAT?!" he shrieked.

"What are you complaining about!?" Moldavite seemed a little caught off guard. "At least I'll make sure you won't be lonely! I will think carefully about who would be best as your companion - a fighter who knows about wilderness survival - it's the perfect combination! I will even make certain you are both of opposing genders - that's what humans like, right? Body parts that, y'know? Fit together? For the proliferation of the species?"

Lars' wide eyes flicked over to Connie briefly to find her countenance had dropped. For a moment her face showed pure hopelessness instead of anger. She shook, sword rattling in her hand.

"Why are you acting like this?" asked Moldavite, confused. "Aren't you happy?"

"No!" shouted Lars.

"Huh?"

He pointed at her as he spoke. "It's not that hard to understand! You can't just decide to pair two people up out of nowhere-"

"And don't strand people thousands of years in the past," Connie growled through clenched teeth

Moldavite sighed. This isn't what she was wanting to talk about at all. She decided to just move on with it and interrupted them by pulling something out of her gem in a flash of light, and she held it up so they could see it. It was small. And cute.

A small, cute hourglass.

And Lars and Connie instantly fixated on it.

"Listen," she said, with a serious tone to her voice. "I will build this in order to have it bring me back here."

Lars was stunned. "What!? You can just MAKE these things!?"

"Oh! No, no! It's very difficult - the required components will be almost impossible to source, even in the age of abundance that was Era One, which will be long over of course by Era Three. But I am very smart and will manage to find a workaround; this thing only works with.. additional ingredients."

Connie swallowed. "The sacrifice."

Moldavite became emotional once more. The two humans were beginning to find it scary how quickly she could swing back and forth, especially as the stakes climbed higher.

"And I need you again because it wasn't enough! Time is just slipping away again! I need to go back there! I just want to stay then!" She choked back a sob. "I'm several hundred years away from corruption again. I can't do it! Not AGAIN."

Connie took a step toward the gem, lowering her sword finally. She tried to speak gently, tried to remove the quaver from her voice - but it was still there.

"But you were uncorrupted," she tried to reason with her. "Everyone was. And you were with all your friends. Things were better. Will be better!"

With sudden tears in her eyes, Moldavite replied, "They won't be."

"Okay," Connie conceded, tense. "Maybe, yeah, it can be hard. I guess things must change a lot after being corrupted for thousands of years. But you can't do this! You can't just keep using Lars for his weird gemganic energy. You can't hold us both hostage like this."

"I-"

Connie raised an eyebrow, struck by an errant thought. "Also… wait. Doesn't all this mean that there are two of you here? How does that work?"

Moldavite shrugged. "I shapeshift and generally stay out of her way."

Connie grappled for words. "Th-that… How is that the same!? That's not even sustainable-" She found herself floored by yet another implication. "If you go back again to avoid yet another corruption, there'll be three of you! Then four, five... One hundred, one thousand!? What then?!"

"I don't care! I want to be THEN."

Connie abruptly found herself washed over once again by an intense anger at everything they'd just learned. Her thoughts spun out of control, picturing the havoc that untold legions of insane Moldavites could wreak upon the timeline - not to mention an equal number of floundering, helpless Larses and Connies. She gripped the sword handle so tightly that her knuckles paled.

Five years. She'd lost five years of her life to this unhinged, maniacal plan.

Lars was much the same. He forced his words through grit teeth. "Time moves forward, dude, and so do all of us."

Moldavite frowned at them. "But you're not 'moving forward' at all. You're longing for a different time, too."

Lars paused to consider how correct she was for a moment before shaking his head. "That's not the same!"

"How!?"

He frowned. "How are you not getting this? You yanked us bleeding from our lives, man. That's not cool."

"Take us back to our time!" came Connie's impatient demand, causing Lars to jump. "Right this instant!"

"It doesn't work like that. It can only go back."

As she held the hourglass aloft and raised her eyes to it. Her gem began to glow.

She smiled - a long toothy thing snaking crookedly across her troubled face. "And we are going back... right now."

Shonk!

Moldavite gasped suddenly as the light emanating from her gem died. Glancing down, she saw it-

Connie's sword, sticking out of her chest. The young woman's own chest was heaving from the effort, having thrown it from where she stood while the gem had been distracted.

Moldavite tightened her grip on the hourglass and it broke in her grasp as the humans looked on, helpless.

The broken pieces fell to the ground as the sand fell away into the wind.

Moldavite sobbed. "I was happy, then," she cried, tears spilling from her sad eyes. "The rebellion was the best time of my- We were whole. Complete! Humans call it family. A-and... but it didn't last. A song from the diamonds." She rose her eyes up to the grey clouds, blotting out the rising sun.

"A light, from the sky-"

Her eyes leaked out big globs of tears and she lowered them to regard the humans in front of her. They were watching - wide-eyed, stunned. Ragged beyond words.

"-I will wrong you both. I'll know it, but it will be worth it, to go back there. To then."

Connie felt tears prick her eyes. This gem was helpless now, so she took a small step forward. "Moldavite. You didn't really think you were going to keep using Lars forever, did you?"

"I did." She exhaled, long and shaky. "I will have every intention. And you will be right to not believe me when we speak, because I-"

Here, she hesitated briefly before the rest of what she was saying hissed out of her, raw like fire.

"I still do."

Moldavite gave one last shuddering sob which hung on the air amid the haze as she released her form. Her gemstone, the sword, and the ruined pieces of hourglass swatted harmlessly to the ground.

Connie inhaled. "WHAT DID THAT EVEN MEAN!?" she screeched, despite feeling more drained than ever. "We tell her yes, but also... we don't believe her!? What the actual f-"

Lars hurried to calm her. "Connie! Chill, alright! She's obviously cra-"

His words were cut off as a sudden bright light took up their attention.

The gemstone had started glowing and began to float - before they could do anything, Moldavite's glowing white marionette spilled out and began cycling through her forms.

Lars looked on, alarmed. "That's... fast?"

Connie's tired eyes narrowed as the noticed how erratically the newest regeneration was coming along. "Oh no-"

The final form touched back down onto the ground and before them once again stood Moldavite, but different.

This version of her was very obviously in pain. She was wide-eyed, disfigured from a rushed reformation, her style of dress now was haphazard, ragged - her fingers long and thin. She was already crying, straight out of the box. She advanced upon them, screaming at them, a mess of despair.

"YOU-YOU POOFED ME?! YOU DESTROYED THE- H-HOW COU-"

Slice!

With grit teeth, Lars pulled his spear from her torso and again, quickly this time, Moldavite poofed into a thick haze. He darted forward to snatch the falling gemstone out of the air.

"Gotchya!"

Worried, Connie had an idea. "Bubble it, Lars! We gotta keep her safe."

He shook his head, eyes wide, blindsided by this weird demand. "I can't bubble! Not a gem!"

She wore a look of deep concern at the glaring problem here. "...Oh."

In his hand, once again, the gemstone began to glow. He cried out, let go of it and staggered backward in alarm. It began to float up and away from them, once more.

Connie ducked down to grab her sword from where it had clattered earlier in the dirt.

The second reformation was even worse than the first. They imagined it was close to her old, corrupted form perhaps. But what she was going through in this moment was obviously the result of a different kind of affliction.

This time, she advanced on them menacingly, wordlessly, in an uncontrolled rage. She smacked Lars' spear out of his hand and rounded on Connie, who was already exhausted and shaking. She threw herself to the side, managing to avoid a swipe from the out of control gem.

Connie landed hard in the dirt and by chance caught sight of Lars, his eyes pure light, gulping down a deep breath. She knew what was about to go down and quickly pressed herself into the ground, plugging up her ears with her fingers.

The ensuing concussive blast skidded her back in the dusty ground a few yards, but Moldavite - the true target of the blast - flew backward with the force and crashed into a nearby tree.

Ears ringing and a little disoriented, Connie staggered upright, hands still on the sword.

Moldavite was easier to poof like this and once again her gemstone thudded into the dirt floor.

Casting about frantically in the dull light of this overcast dawn, she was hard-pressed for any obvious practical solution. They couldn't keep poofing her forever.

"W-we gotta embed her somewhere so she's safe," she said quickly. "What've we got?"

Lars racked his brain. "We got that pot, the water jug, those mugs…"

All useless.

"Make something out of that glue stuff?" he suggested.

"No time! A mirror?" Connie's weird bout of hope was borne of obvious exhaustion.

He spread his arms wide before indicating how garbage he looked. "Do I look like I have a mirror!?"

Suddenly, he lurched forward, swooping to grab the gem from where it lay on the ground. Then, to Connie's surprise and utter dismay, he shoved it in his mouth. He swallowed it, but it didn't go down easy. A long struggle later, however, and the deed was done.

Then, as if experiencing quick-onset remorse for his action, his eyes went wide. He clutched at his throat and held his breath.

She watched, tense, hand on sword hilt.

A few awful moments passed until at last, Lars burped.

"…I, uh. I think it worked."

Connie blinked in disbelief. It was the oddest thing she'd ever seen anyone do. "What the-"

"It was all I could think of! Either that, or have her reform in low budget Pink Dimension," he said, shrugging, his brow a knot of furrows.

Connie shuddered at the thought of her, like that, roaming aimlessly forever in the dark stillness of the cold world on the other side of Lars' head.

"But, I mean, I'm magic right? I might be okay."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "You will tell me if she starts taking over your brain or something."

His mouth dropped open and for a long moment the only sound he could make was a ragged gasp. Then, panicked, "THAT'S A THING!?"

"I don't know! I've never seen some idiot straight-up SWALLOW A GEM before!"

Lars looked very disturbed and brought his hands up to clutch at his head and face for a moment. Connie continued to keep a weary eye on him.

"I'm fiiiine," he groaned when he noticed her concern. He lowered his hands from his face and shrugged. "I'm just… freaking out."

This put her a little more at ease. She even gave a difficult smile as a thought occurred to her. "How did it taste?"

This time his face was deadpan. "Shut up."

At least he seemed a little more relaxed now. This was a source of comfort, however fleeting.

"Oh no," she gasped as a sudden realization hit her. It didn't feel good. She fell to her knees, dropping the sword to her side.

"Uh, Connie?"

"We should have let her do it," she said grimly. "W-we might have been able to grab it off her. What's the bet she was lying?! What's the bet it could've taken us home!" She blinked as another thought hit her over the head as if with a sledgehammer. "And even if she wasn't lying, we'd still have had another shot at the Sea Shrine…"

Lars soon found that he couldn't handle living in a reality where all this had been possible until only a few short minutes ago. His brain began working to disprove everything she was pitching. It was surprisingly easy.

"If we're out cold when we land, she has time to go who knows where before we wake - like last time." His forehead remained a mess of wrinkles, from earlier. "The Sea Shrine just happened - we finally found it and ruined it in less than a couple hours!" He was pacing, his eyes darting around, the cogs ticking over hard. "If we forget every time it happens, we would've forgotten all this. We'd end up wasting more of our lives doing the same thing all over again."

Connie closed her eyes and grit her teeth. The memory of that... so painful. So recent. Her eyes still felt red from it, her tired heart still raw.

Lars continued talking. "And that's not even considering Moldavite! Even if the thing wasn't broken, we... we can't let that crazy binch back out to activate it. We can't trust-"

The remainder of his words died on his lips. Out of nowhere, Lars arched his back and tensed his fingers, yelling into the sky as he slammed the tip of the spear directly into the ground.

"AAAAAAAAAH!"

Birds left the trees nearby in a frightened flurry as the air vibrated around them - a result of his concussive power, often tied to his emotions.

Connie snapped her head up to look at him, wide-eyed. He continued to vent as the rumble died down.

"Things were finally good! I had everything I ever wanted, and it all went away because of her!"

Connie's voice came out low. "At least we know what happened now. At least it wasn't us... being idiots. Clowning around with gem artifacts."

"What does that matter - how it happened?! We're still screwed!"

Despite her own profound weariness, she attempted to try to allay her friend's sudden temper. "We... we just gotta keep looking. We're in Era One, right now - the golden age of gem history! There's bound to be more magic time-dealies lying around, maybe. What if they come in threes? If we just-"

He listened, teeth clenching tighter with frustration until he spun on her, blinking back hot tears.

"And YOU. Listen to you! You are going to waste your life away looking for it, aren't you?! You are going to wind up just like her, weird and insane - willing to do anything for a crapshot at something you'll never have again!"

She felt her breath catch in her throat. She dropped all the patience she was struggling to keep together in favor of narrowing her eyes at this jerk she was with. "Hey - shut up, Lars!"

But he wasn't finished talking. As he continued, each word he said rent chunks from his own slow-beating heart.

"You should go," he was saying. He was calmer now, and his voice was lower, but his eyes were intense. "You gotta find somewhere... someone. Start a family, or something." He hesitated, his breath catching briefly in his throat. "You can't keep risking yourself. Not for me. Not for this. Don't you want a life? A-a full and complete life?"

She looked insulted as well as angry. "I am not living out my days in the dirty past. We're still getting out of here. I know we are!"

"But-"

"Besides, don't act like I'm the only one who can do that! You can, too."

He rolled his eyes. "See, I kinda remember we agreed to not screw the future up. I'm sure pink dude living among people is going to screw with the future at least a little - even if anyone was gunna accept me as a human. We've been back here for years, now! FIVE years, according to your tree-thing! We have no chance of getting home. Unless we wait it out, which I can probably do since I might be able to live that long, maybe, but you-" he shrugged and quickly found himself losing steam with this rant, a sadness welling up within his chest. "You... kinda, uh."

They stared at each other a long moment on that breezy clifftop. The only thing that passed between them was a lone drop of rain which splattered into the dust. It was shortly followed by another, then more. They both looked around - they knew it was supposed to be light and getting lighter, but it seemed almost like night - grey rainclouds billowing out over the choppy ocean as they were.

But rain was only water, and though their little log cabin was somehow waterproof, it was too small to argue inside of.

"I might make it back," Lars said finally. "But you definitely won't."

A tear threatened to bead in the corner of Connie's eye, but she blinked it back and clenched her jaw.

"And. I'm... sorry." He sniffed and wiped his face with a bare forearm. He then glanced sheepishly at her in time to see her stand up and stumble forward. All of a sudden, her arms were around him, her body pressing into his own through damp clothing.

He returned the gesture and they hugged tightly in the thudding rain.

"Lars," she murmured after a while.

"Yeah?" came his soft reply.

"I want you to take my body to Rose when I die."

He bit his lip and pulled back from her. He'd sort of suspected he'd someday hear this very sequence of sounds tumble from her mouth, but here she was saying it like it was nothing.

"Connie..."

She stood back from him too and brushed an errant hair from her face before rubbing her hands together in a vaguely anxious way. "I know. I hoped I'd never have to say it, but that's-" she swallowed as she met his eyes again. "That's what I want."

He spread his arms wide. "We have no idea where or how to find her-"

Her hands became fists now.

"I want you to try. You have to!"

"You-you come back different, y'know," he stammered, realizing his resistance might be coming off wrong. "You never go hungry, need sleep, feel hot.. cold. Then? There's the water thing. The idea that you might've just stopped aging altogether. The powers - sure, those are cool, and you're tougher - like, way tougher, but."

Pausing briefly to collect his thoughts, he narrowed his eyes at her. "Do you - can you comprehend what it's like? To... to still be living, while your body no longer has basic physiological needs?"

He noticed her look of sudden surprise and immediately rolled his eyes. He was defensive now, all attitude. "Yeah Connie, I know a six-syllable word - surprise fact for ya!"

She was quick to correct him. "No, no. It's not just that. I mean, what is it like?" She scratched at her arm. "You've never actually told me."

He settled down and chewed on his lip for a moment as he considered what to say.

"It's weird," he said, finally.

Connie felt a little disappointed. "Is that all?"

"I mean - no, but you're asking me to sum up my entire existence and compare it to some old status quo th-that I," he hesitated, frowning, "-I no longer-" he trailed off, his search for words coming up empty now. Then again, they had never come easy in regards to his condition. He lowered his eyes. He needed a… something.

A prop, to fiddle around with as he thought.

He ducked down to pick up the spear that had been smacked out of his hands earlier and, standing again, jabbed idly at the ground with the butt of it as he spoke.

"Look. It's not bad. But it's not... good. And it's definitely not the same."

She narrowed her eyes to study his face. "But you'd rather this than real death, right?"

He blinked. She got him with that one. The look that swept his features told her what she needed to know, and he knew it.

"..It's just weird," he added, anyway.

Connie exhaled slowly. "No. Being in the past is what's weird, Lars. I need you to remember that."

"You've been wronged really bad. She brought you here for me, and that's so messed up. If there's no other way, I just think you could at least be happy if you-"

"Stop! She wronged you too. Her plan was to just use you, over and over, as her own living power bank while she gleefully ruined time - all because she couldn't move forward when things were finally good."

He glanced to one side, looking unhappy. "Well, yay for us - we saved the world, I guess. But that's over. So, now what?"

She knew he was only going to keep pitching it, but she wouldn't have it. Shaking her head, she reiterated, "We're in this together."

He lowered his tone somewhat. "Just consider it, I mean, a normal life-"

"Listen to me," she said, glaring at him.

His magenta eyes were pools of sadness at the sight of hers - deep warm and brown - suddenly piercing into his as she explained herself to him.

"I am not cutting my losses. I am not giving up, or leaving you. You can't make me. I'm getting out of this, and so are you. One way or another. Will you do it?"

A silence passed between them. Lars swallowed and nodded.

Connie slowly released the breath she was holding. "Then that's all there is to say."

Suddenly, as if on cue, Connie's stomach rumbled.

"Except for that." She groaned as she folded her arms over her stomach. "Ugh. I'm starving."

"Oh yeah," Lars said quietly. "There's-"

They caught sight of raccoons making off with the pitiful, soaked leftovers from over by the firepit.

"-Still food," he finished, cringing, voice hollow. It was one more Thing to top off a messy pile of Things.

As the last raccoon disappeared into the woods, both Lars and Connie finally became acutely aware of how emotionally drained the events over the last day had rendered them. Connie in particular - eyes still red from the day before, baggy from the ongoing stress of her whole existence. Half of her ponytail had fallen out during the events of the morning; her clothes were hanging from her thin frame, still almost glimmering with salt crystals from the day before.

Yes, she'd managed to fit a rough exhausted sleep in, but it wasn't nearly enough.

They'd expected to be home by now. Neither of them banked on still having to endure all this after having found the Sea Shrine, but here they were - less confused, but still lost in what was quickly feeling more and more like a cruel and meaningless world.

Connie at last glanced up at Lars with expressionless eyes. The rain continued to pelt them.

"Wanna help me hunt a raccoon?" she croaked.

He frowned down at her. "You look horrible."

She could have easily had him up about this random burn. She could have pointed out that he didn't look much better himself. But as it happened, she couldn't bring herself to do either.

Lars tested the spear tip with a finger. Good - still sharp. He didn't feel tired either - he rarely did anymore, at least not in the physical sense, but he forced himself to ignore the void that had opened up within him. He rubbed away what little dark magenta blood had seeped out of the little cut with his thumb.

He turned back to face her, his voice low.

"I'll get breakfast. Just... have some water, go inside, get out of the wet. Try to catch up on sleep, okay? I'll wake you when-"

Wiping rainwater from her tired face with a bare forearm, Connie called out, "But-"

He shook his head. "I won't go far."

Connie, hesitant, was still full of concern for her friend. "What about Moldavite?"

Oh yeah. That unpleasantness. "I need her out of my body, but that can wait. We'll make something out of wood pitch glue later, I dunno."

He shrugged and turned away from her to face the dreary, wet woods.

"I'm fine," he muttered. "Please. Get some rest."