HI HI HUMANS

I've somehow returned from the state of near-death which most of my exams have brought me to give you guys another chapter! I don't know if any of you have noticed, but I have been trying to update every week - roughly every Friday or Saturday (in Eastern Australian time, that is). Next week is also a busy week for me, though the next chapter is well underway, so just be warned, in case.

RECAP:
- A group of rebel fighters (composed of Matthew, Emilia, Lukas, Ayshe, Vlad, Kristian, Ines, Romeo, Kari, Elizabeta, Tino, Ali and Nelia) have decided to attempt to free the imprisoned bounty hunters/pirates in an attempt to unnerve Octavia.
- The bounty hunters and pirates + Vash have finally been reunited with Feliks, Tori, Gilbert and Roderich. Feliks has told Alfred about Matthew, but Alfred is fearful and reluctant to believe him.
- Arthur is still sick, and Matthias is still injured.

NAMES:
Ehren Edelstein: Kugelmugel
Ehsan Karimi: Iran
Aelia Gabras: Byzantine Empire
Dalisay Mendoza: Philippines

Resistance Headquarters,
Draak-Zafi Forra, Nyma
26th Maarch

"So, I can't even shower now?" Yao complained, letting his head loll back for a moment before looking back at the grumpy guards outside his door.

"You'll have the chance to clean yourself up on the day of your trial." One of them sighed, clearly quickly losing patience. "For now, you're to be monitored closely." Yao sighed overdramatically, slumping back against the wall.

"This is boring."

"Stop complaining."

"I want food."

"You only had breakfast an hour ago."

"But I'm hungry again."

"I'm sure you'll survive."

"You're mean."

Yao could see one of the guards was trying her hardest to not laugh, while the one he had been speaking with seemed to be performing some sort of meditative breathing exercise. He suppressed his own grin. Octavia really should have found people with more patience to watch him. He had spent hours caring for small refugee children back when Arshad was alive. He knew every single one of the most efficient ways to annoy adults. Yao sat back against the wall, tilting his head upward to gaze at the ceiling.

He hadn't been put in the same cell block as the criminals that Matthew and the others had kidnapped. He was instead being kept in a small, separate cell in a small clearing ringed by trees. Honestly, Yao would rather have been in the same cell block as the criminals. This cell got a lot hotter during the day, and he had hardly been able to think yesterday for the sheer heat emanating from the walls.

So far, the worst part of being held captive was not processing the fact that a large portion of rebels distrusted him, it was not being able to take proper care of his hands. Normally he took the time, every night, to clean them and put cream on them to keep their tough, leathery exterior somewhat moisturised. He could still use them, but their outsides grew tougher and harder, and in the worst cases, pain would shoot up through the outside layers of muscle. Without skin to protect them, they could get dried out and infected a lot more easily.

His hands twitched. Trapped inside his gloves, as they had been for the past few days, with no reprieve, they were starting to chafe and itch horribly. The pain was also starting to come back, and he kept attempting to flex them and get more blood flowing. He ached to remove his high-collared jacket and strip off his gloves to escape the heat, but dared not to. He knew what sorts of things he would be asked at his trial, though he wished he was wrong. Part of Octavia's central reasoning behind his being a spy was his penchant for wearing gloves and jackets with long sleeves and high necks.

His fingers slid along the right side of his neck. The mark was completely hidden by the neck of the black jacket he currently wore, but he could feel the raised scar tissue even through the stiff fabric. The mark had been carved into his skin about two months into his time on the Arbiter, before he had learned all of the different types of pain they were ready to inflict. It was a Yanish word, one which he knew well. Anyone with such a mark on their neck was immediately recognisable as a victim of the Arbiter's methods.

One of his other reasons for wearing such modest clothing was a much less important factor. Underneath the stiff fabric, he was actually quite muscular. However, as someone who preferred to be under rather than over-estimated, he enjoyed it when people were unable to accurately predict his strength and speed.

Not to mention, as well as likely exposing his deplorable physical appearance, no doubt he would be forced to expose a lot of details about his past, as well. He had been in tribunals like the one he would face in 3 days' time. Often, one of the first things to be asked of the accused was their personal details. Yao had never actively tried to hide anything about his life before his involvement with the resistance, but the idea of sharing it was strangely uncomfortable. The sorts of things they would ask concerned his life before he'd been struck with purpose, before he had understood the vastness and danger that the universe posed. Back then, he had been naïve, but not young. They would ask him about where he came from, to be sure, and their questioning would undoubtedly also include Arshad. He sighed. That was not a line of questioning that he was keen to answer, mostly because he feared the sorts of answers he would give.

But no matter what questions he was asked, his trial was bound to go badly, of that he was sure.

Roderich despised sickbeds.

For years, he had been unable to stomach spending time with the ill and stricken. Many people had written him off as unsympathetic because of it, but he cared less about people's judgements than he did about staying far away. If it was someone he cared about deeply, he would dismiss his own comfort for their sake, but anything less and he would flatly refuse to go near them.

Though this didn't count so much as a 'sickbed' as it did 'a sick person curled up in the most substantial mattress they had', he was plagued by discomfort and unease. Though he supposed that he did care for Arthur, to a certain extent, he had been edging further away from the captain for the past day. He could hardly stand to see the sallow, grey tone of his skin, or the worn smudges under his eyes. He had managed to acclimate himself to the smell of vomit, which had managed to pervade every inch of their cell – for that, he could not blame the other pirate.

Arthur was definitely sick, but with what, none of them were very sure. One of the rebels that they had travelled there with had apparently already dismissed heatstroke, and in any case, Roderich knew that heatstroke didn't supply symptoms like these. He sighed. In reality, all that Arthur's sickness was doing was reminding him of his own mother, Sera, who had died only a few years ago. It had been the ordeal that she went through which had so turned him off hospitals and the like.

The fact that it was Arthur that was now sick felt like some sort of cruel joke.

Hospital of Saint Cerak-sho,
Vanmerrk Sector, Reycass
7th Juillat, 4508CC

Roderich grimaced, glancing around with discomfort. He'd been here sporadically over the last few months, ever since she was diagnosed, but it never got easier to handle being inside this place. At first, it hadn't bothered him so much, but as time passed, the smell of disinfectant, underlined by a faint, sweet musk of death, had started to turn his stomach. The sterile, detached feel of the hospital didn't help.

But, by far, what bothered him most, was the sickness.

The sight of people, bed-ridden and suffering their various ailments, brought unease to his very bones. He knew that those with contagious diseases were confined to quarantine wards, and that he wasn't about to catch some sort of illness, but the air itself felt dirty – thick and clogged with muck.

It was unwise to open the windows, though. Reycass was a heavily polluted planet, as it had been for a long time now, and opening the windows to allow some fresh air was more likely to make the patients in here worse. The doctors and nurses likely didn't want to risk it.

He spared a glance upwards as a young Garvich nurse entered the small waiting area. She worked here almost every day, and Roderich had interacted with her on more than one occasion. She barely looked at him, nodding him through quickly. As he moved to pass her, she took his arm, talons digging into his skin a little.

"I should warn you," she said falteringly, "she's worsened." He was still for a moment, before nodding and continuing on. His mother's condition had been deteriorating for the past few weeks. He'd only been here a fortnight ago, however. If she'd worsened in such a short period of time…

Well, it was further proof that she didn't have much longer to go.

In a way, it was a relief. His mother was suffering, that much was obvious. The last he'd been to see her, her every breath had emerged laboured and rattling, and she'd paused more than once to cough blood into the metal pans kept beside nearly every bed in the ward. He hated to see her like this, but he's sworn to visit her.

"Every chance you get, Roderich, up until my last days, please. You make everything here bearable."

How could he deny her that? His own younger brother, Ehren, was too small to really understand what was happening. He had gotten frightened the first few times he'd come to visit her, not recognising her properly. It had made his mother cry for hours afterward. Ehren had gotten over it, of course – he was a resilient little guy – but Roderich had decided that it would be better if he stayed away when their mother was going through a particularly bad day.

Like today.

He flinched almost instinctively as he entered the ward. There were about 10 beds in this particular room. They hadn't been able to afford anything much fancier, given how expensive their mother's treatment was generally. His mother had fought when he'd said that she was going to be taken care of. She had argued vehemently – stated that their money was to be saved for Ehren to go through school, and to keep themselves housed, clothed and fed. Roderich had ignored her protests and paid for her treatment for three months, before her tearful begging became too much, and she was transferred off the treatment – known to most as 'malthecs', whatever it meant – and sent to this ward to let the disease run it's course.

His mother had never judged his decision to work as a pirate on the side of his university studies, and had always simply stated that it was his money to earn, and his to spend. She had grinned happily when he recounted the thrilling escapades which he had gotten caught up in while in Arthur's service. She had chastised his father when he'd started to yell at Roderich for becoming a criminal. But his mother… well, Sera Edelstein never shrunk away from reality.

He braced himself as he entered the ward, moving automatically toward her bed, unable to hold back the small noise of dismay which escaped his throat when he sighted her.

Chalydrantis was such a vicious disease.

But his mother, despite the pain that she was undoubtedly in, sent a smile brighter than any supernova in his direction, and he managed to weakly return it as he sat beside her, staring in dismay at the newest damages wrought on her body. She smiled, less vibrantly this time, drawing her blankets closer to her. Even with them masking her frame, he could tell that she was frightfully ill.

Chalydrantis was like that. It attacked every fibre of your body, in every way that it could.

It had started with fatigue and weakness, in his mother's case, followed shortly by her breathing difficulties, and fainting, and her bringing up blood. The disease caused large growths similar to tumours inside the body, but, unlike cancers, were not deadly for their role in making organs shut down. They certainly did that, too, but their greatest capacity to inflict damage lay elsewhere. The growths released a constant stream of toxins into the bloodstream. They affected a lot of things. Most notably, the toxins seemed to be drawn towards keratin. It led to pale skin, dark blotches on the nails, and, the most well-known of all –

"It doesn't look that bad." He lied. Sera smiled warmly, running her worn, skeletal hands through her hair. Once, it had been a rich shade of dark blond, but now, racked by the disease as she was, every strand on her head had turned grey. It wasn't even – there were patches of hair which were closer to white, leaving her entire head mottled and strange. Roderich swallowed. So, this was why his mother had asked to see him. The colour of a person's hair only started to change when the toxins' concentration in the blood was reaching lethal levels.

At the very least, his mother's suffering was almost over. He clenched the edge of his coat in his hands.

"Is this it, then? Is this going to be the last time I see you?" he tried to keep his voice steady, but it shook nonetheless. His mother took his hand. She didn't chastise him, or say that he shouldn't cry. He was a man of 23 years, but she didn't tell him to let her go.

"I'll be alright." She said. "Your father will be with me, and it will be painless. I'll be free of this tired and wrecked vessel." She gestured to her own body, smiling sadly. Roderich bit his lip, trying desperately to keep himself under control. If he was weaker, or even just a little younger, he would have succumbed to tears already, and sought her comfort. But the time for that was over. Now, it was his mother who needed his comfort.

"Do you want me to come by on the day? I can bring Ehren, so he can say goodbye as well." She smiled.

"I would like that. I don't want either of you to stick around, though. If you do, I don't think I'll have the conviction to go through with it." She laughed weakly. "It's just a little injection, but…" she shrugged. "It's a lot." Roderich squeezed her hand.

"Are you certain, ma?" he said. "It's your decision, no matter what."

His mother just looked at him, and opened her arms. He reciprocated her embrace without hesitation.

"Oh, Roderich." She said, sounding teary. "I love you so, so much. But…" she drew away, smiling through her tears, "I'm ready for the next adventure."

Roderich knew that he had been acting out emotionally lately, but he could hardly find it in him to care. He felt like there was a timer held inside his chest. Only a day left to go…

Only a day left until his mother's heart ceased to beat like his did. When he thought about it, he realised that it was a constant of his life. Every moment up until tomorrow afternoon, his mother's heart had bravely beat alongside his own. It had beat long before he was born and he had thought, given his new area of work, that it would probably continue to beat after his own no longer could.

The idea of his mother – his vibrant, friendly, kind and quick-witted mother – dying left a chasm in his chest. He could act unfeeling at times, but he loved his family. He loved his father, and his younger brother, and of course he loved his mother. Hell, he even loved his wild and unfortunately inbred cousin. He cared about his family, because he was privileged enough to have one which cared about him in return.

His low mood had been noticed by the others. Arthur, a sharp-tongued blond with an accent reminiscent, oddly, of Xexei, had been giving him curious looks for the past few days. Despite the age gap between them both – Roderich was 23, while Arthur was only 20 – Roderich never bothered to defy any of the captain's orders. He was more of an associate than an employee, but he still did what he was told. Arthur, as it currently stood, didn't have any other friends. They were sharing an apartment with a bad-tempered arms dealer called Erikk, but they both ignored him for the most part. Arthur had easily picked up on Roderich's sour mood – likely due in some part to the sour look on his face, and had been prodding him all day for details.

In the end, Roderich brought it up himself. "I'll be out tomorrow afternoon, so don't wait up." The second part was unnecessary – Arthur wouldn't have been bothered to wait up for Roderich anyway. The blond, who had been raising a mug of tea to his lips, froze with it poised halfway between the table and his mouth, a frown crossing over his features.

"Alright then. Any particular reason why you're going out?" he asked, resuming to sip his tea. Roderich shrugged, feeling oddly angry that Arthur had asked.

"None of your business." He snapped. His voice came out with way more venom than he had intended, and Arthur's eyebrows skyrocketed up his forehead.

"No need to get fired up." he said coolly. "It was just a question."

Roderich nodded sharply, and they didn't talk much after that.

Arthur ended up following him the next day.

Evidently, his behaviour had been caustic enough to arouse some of the pirate's attention, and the purpose of his visit to the hospital had made the blond curious. Roderich only realised that Arthur had been following him when the pirate tapped on his shoulder right outside the entrance.

He didn't remember much of what had been said – his memory had chosen to focus on his mother's last moments rather than the argument the two of them had had outside. In the end, Arthur had somehow ended up trailing Roderich through the hospital's halls, and Roderich had let him.

They had lingered for a moment outside the ward, before Roderich had moved inside, knowing that it would be the last time. Arthur, upon spotting the sign on the door, had paled and gaped, evidently realising at least one of the reasons for Roderich's rotten mood. But he had still followed Roderich inside, staring around with an expression caught between shock and horror, overlaid by an immense wave of pity. Roderich had never seen the pirate pity anyone, and he would have picked him up on it if not for the situation.

Roderich's mother had been happy to see him, and surprisingly happy to see Arthur. She'd extended a hand from her place in bed, and introduced herself, saying simply that she was glad to meet him. Knowing what he did of his mother, she had meant it.

Arthur had been uncomfortable and out of place, and had scampered out of the ward only a few moments after Sera had explained why Roderich had come to see her that particular day. Roderich had managed to get a few minutes with his mother, to say their final farewells, before the doctor had entered, smiled kindly, and informed them that they were ready.

By the time Roderich had left the hospital, it had been dark. To his immense surprise, Arthur had been lingering outside. He hadn't left, though it had been over three hours since he'd left the ward. The pirate's eyes were troubled, and unease was fraught throughout his entire body, but Roderich had cried enough tears, and didn't expect the blond to comfort him.

They ended up walking together, silently, downtown. Arthur had jerked his head towards a small, niche café, and they'd somehow passed a few hours there, sitting in silence, nibbling at some food, and ordering a few drinks. Arthur seemed almost as discomfited as Roderich did, and not a word passed between them for the entire evening. They'd been similarly quiet with one another for the next few days after, until Roderich had walked into their cramped kitchen one morning and asked if they had any milk left.

They had never spoken about it, not once. Arthur had never tried to offer condolences, for which Roderich was grateful, but he had been a constant presence in the days after. It had…helped, more than words with any therapist could have.

As it turned out, Arthur hated hospitals almost as much as Roderich did.

He was afraid. Roderich would never admit it, even on threat of death, but he was afraid.

Octavia frowned at the table. Her conscience teemed with anger and shame, but the part of her brain responsible for logic and reason was urgent, and pressing.

Ehsan and Aelia had gotten caught up in another argument on the matter. In the end, the decision was hers to make, but it was still a dangerous decision to make.

They were human. Living, breathing human beings…

But they were criminals – bounty hunters, if Elizabeth was to be believed – and they could endanger the entire resistance.

When she blinked, she saw Arden on the backs of her eyelids. She saw body after body after body. She saw her sister again. Octavia clenched her fists. She didn't consider life lightly, no matter what some people might think. At the end of the day, she was just loyal. She was loyal to the resistance, and would prioritise it above any individual.

They had captured Elizabeta, and degraded her while she was their prisoner. Not badly, no, not so badly as other criminals were known to do. She shut her eyes, shaking slightly.

She could see his face, the criminal who looked like Matthew. There was a strong chance that they were somehow related, if not brothers (she understood that Matthew had had one). It was why she hadn't alerted the captain to the fact that the rest of the band had showed up. The idea of seeing the boy's heartbroken face tore her resolve half to shreds. But Matthew understood what had happened at Arden – he had been there, for saints' sake.

Perhaps, given time, he would be able to forgive her.

She lifted her head, facing Dalisay, nodding briefly.

"Tonight. Do it late tonight. Not here. Take them out…out into the forest, and give them proper burials, please. They deserve that, at the very least."

The Lysi woman blinked, but straightened, offering a short salute as she briskly walked away. Octavia didn't miss the deeply troubled look on the woman's face, nor the shocked silence which had descended onto Ehsan and Aelia.

She had held this position only for a few days, and she already felt like every part of her was being strained far beyond it's limits. It was no surprise that Yao was the way that he was. But, there was one thing that many of the rebels were right about – she was no Yao.

Octavia sank down into her chair, put her head into her hands, and cried.

Kristian just about leapt out of his skin when Ayshe came careening into their small tent, yelling in alarm and sending a duffel bag flying in her haste.

It didn't take them long to assemble everyone. It took even less time for Ayshe to explain that Octavia had chosen to execute the prisoners tonight, rather than in a week like they had originally believed.

"Shit, shit, shit! This is bad." Romeo said, wringing his hands and looking antsy. "We planned everything for tomorrow! We worked our entire plan around guard shifts for the 27th! How the hell are we supposed to save them now?"

There was a moment of loud talking, before Matthew held up his hands. Miraculously, everyone quietened down. He was frowning, but Kristian could see the faraway look in his eyes which indicated that he was planning something.

"We'll do it tonight." He said simply, as though the mere concept didn't pose a huge number of risks. "We will get them all out of that prison tonight, and we will hide them. None of them, nor any of us, are going to die, you hear me?"

There was total silence, before Nelia spoke up. "How are we supposed to do this?"

"We don't have a solid plan, it's true, but we can still do this." He said firmly. "I know that we can. We'll have to do a bit of improvising, but if we're careful, I think it could still work."

He ignored their continued protests, brow scrunching up. Kristian stared, feeling dismay surge up inside him. He wanted to help these prisoners. Vlad had visited them with Lukas, at one point, and from what his boyfriend said, they didn't seem to be legitimately bad people. they had certainly done bad things in the past, but they didn't seem to be evil at heart.

Kristian bit his lip, about to protest, on the (very reasonable) grounds that it was simply too dangerous, when Lukas spoke up.

"Guys, I know this is going to be incredibly dangerous. Of course it is. It was going to be dangerous already. Isn't that what every day of our lives is like, though? We're all here, we're all a part of the resistance, because we want to fight for people's freedom. By doing this, we might not be liberating an entire planet, but we will save the lives of seventeen people who don't deserve to die. We have to do this. We can do it." Lukas' voice had an odd, almost ringing quality to it, but Kristian felt his words imbue hope inside him nonetheless. The Fynknian was right – they could do it, and they would.

Everyone else was nodding in agreement as well. Kristian noted that Vlad, though he was obviously in agreement as well, was frowning slightly at Lukas. Kristian felt unease creep up on him. He had seen that look on Vlad before. It wasn't an angry expression. If anything, he looked now how he looked whenever he disapproved of something. Kristian had seen every expression to cross Vlad's face, but this one was less common. Vlad tended to be light-hearted and hard-working, and was more likely to join in on some prank or plot than he was to get the perpetrator in trouble. It was unnerving to see him like this.

As they all dispersed, with Matthew furiously revising the plan with Elizabeta, Ayshe and Ali, he could see Vlad talking to the young Fynknian. He was tempted to walk a little faster, to catch whatever it was that they were saying, but stopped himself. Vlad was perfectly within his rights to talk to Lukas. And why wouldn't he? The guy was talented at demo, far more than Kristian could ever dream to be, not to mention that he was smart, witty, and attractive to boot.

Kristian stopped in his tracks. Dear god, I'm getting jealous of Lukas, he thought. He knew, objectively, that Vlad wouldn't ever betray him like that, but after what had happened recently, with Ismeta, maybe Vlad had gotten it into his head – justifiably – that Kristian just wasn't worth the effort? Not to mention, Vlad had been oddly interested in the 18-year-old recently, asking Kristian and everyone else all sorts of questions about the guy.

Irritation clawed its way up his throat, and he found himself clenching his fists. He normally wasn't the jealous type – it was an ugly quality, as his mother had always said – but the two were walking rather close together. They looked like they didn't want to be overheard.

Kristian's eyes strayed towards his watch. He and Vlad had planned to go and spend a bit of time together in the woods near the shooting range. But he had a class coming up, and even though he and Vlad probably could have still stolen away for 20 minutes without being missed, he supposed that it wouldn't hurt to be punctual for once. Besides, the conversation between Vlad and Lukas was getting a little heated, and he had no intentions to get caught up in it.

He turned on his heel and left.

"All I'm saying is that it's manipulative to use your abilities like that." Vlad said, frowning.

"That's the point, Popescu." Lukas retorted, rolling his eyes. "I want this mission to go ahead, and no-one seemed ready to agree."

"Still, though, shouldn't you use them for something more important?" Vlad asked, starting to sound exasperated. "I thought they were supposed to be sacred or something like that."

Lukas snorted. "Maybe they were sacred a few millennia ago, sure. They're respected now, definitely, but…" he sighed, "it's hereditary, Popescu. It's a psychotic fluke of a gene with murky origins. Maybe it was sacred among the earliest of my ancestors, but now people recognise it for what it is, mostly – a gene. It manifests itself stronger or weaker seemingly at random."

Vlad frowned, and Lukas sighed again. "Everyone was still determined to free those prisoners. They just needed a bit of encouragement." Vlad shook his head.

"You're still a manipulative prick." He said. Lukas shrugged.

"I never claimed to not be." he responded simply. Vlad grinned a little at that. It was nice, in a way, to have more people knowing about him and Emilia. Vlad had confronted him, to tell him that he had worked it out, only a few days earlier. He'd seemed a little awed, but had quickly gotten used to the idea. Unfortunately, his sudden interest in Lukas had not gone unnoticed. Speaking of…

"Your boyfriend's angry at you, by the way." Lukas said. It hadn't been hard to detect the confusion, anger and hurt radiating off Kristian in the last few days. It had been especially potent just now, however. Vlad frowned, pivoting on the spot. His boyfriend had already wandered off.

"Shit." He groaned. "Really?" he ran his hands through his golden-brown hair. "Yeah, that's my fault. He's probably already gone off to the class he's teaching."

Lukas raised an eyebrow. "Well fair enough, then. Were you going to keep him away or something?" judging by the intense shade of red which overcame the other man's face, he had indeed been intending to do something along those lines. Lukas rolled his eyes, and clapped Vlad on the shoulder. "Good luck wooing him back." Vlad scoffed, but quickly set off in the direction which Kristian had likely gone.

No doubt, Lukas would be able to tell how well Vlad had succeeded by dinner tonight. If he failed, they would likely both appear quiet and be giving each other the cold shoulder. If he was successful, Lukas doubted that he would see them at dinner at all. He smiled at the thought, albeit a little sadly. The two of them were sweet, really, and it was obvious that they genuinely loved each other. He had made more than one comment about being invited to their wedding. They mostly blushed and scoffed at the suggestions, but he knew it was more likely than not to happen one day.

Having been on the run for so long, and living such a dangerous life, Lukas had never been with anyone romantically. In the places where they'd stayed a little longer, some people, both boys and girls, had expressed some interest. But given their situation, he had never been able to do much more than mentally entertain the possibility. The only time when he'd come so much as close to a semi-real relationship had been when he was about 14. He and Emilia had been staying at a homeless shelter on Incanda. He'd met a pair of twins there; Amin and Kana. Both of them had been dark-skinned, dark haired and endlessly witty. He'd enjoyed spending time with both. Amin and he had gone about exploring the city, talking about the burdens of having to be older brothers (though Amin only counted as the older sibling by about 4 minutes), and taking care of their younger sisters. He and Kana had talked about books and travel and the most bizarre of their dreams.

He had liked and gotten along well with both of them. Things had become a little more awkward when an argument had started between the two of them. It had been a few months by the time he realised that the argument had been about him. He had positively floundered in that situation, because he found that, as both of them liked him, he also liked both of them. In the end, it had been Amin whose determination had won out over that of his sister's, and Lukas had shared his first kiss with him. He'd always still been enraptured by Kana as well, though. But that was as close as he'd ever gotten to a boyfriend or girlfriend. He would never bother denying that there was a part of him that wanted one desperately. Lukas knew that he was selective, even verging on demisexual – he had only started to be attracted to either Amin or Kana after a few months of knowing them, though he'd also had experiences of immediately being attracted to people – but that didn't mean that he thought no-one was worthy of him.

He was relieved that no-one seemed to think he was completely undateable. Kristian had thought that he was dating Kari for weeks before he dismissed that rumour. Kari was a sister to him. Admittedly, she was incredibly strong and intelligent, not to mention that she was so kind and supportive of him. It was also true, as Vlad had pointed out, that she was very beautiful. But he wasn't dating her.

That wasn't to say that he wouldn't, though. He flushed at the thought. He did recall having quite the crush on her when he was little. Perhaps it hadn't entirely dispersed, as he'd initially thought. Lukas spared no thoughts for the age difference between them, either. Yes, she was five years his senior, but he had never believed that age (unless it was reaching into paedophilia territory) should be a barrier to love. He paused, slapping his flaming cheeks. Why was he even thinking about this? Lukas sighed. It wasn't even that he had strong romantic feelings for Kari. He had just been feeling his loneliness a bit more recently, especially given that he spent so much time around Kristian and Vlad, who endeavoured to demonstrate their love via disgusting public displays of affection.

He pulled his jacket closer around him. The sun was sinking beneath the horizon already. His eyes widened. He'd stupidly been musing for what must have been close to an hour now. Matthew had told them to all be ready at all times to start freeing the prisoners, and he had been walking about, thinking like an idiot.

Lukas hurried off towards his tent. He didn't have the time to be stressing over stuff like this. He had a real job to do.