What sort of thoughts whirl through Gon's mind? It has always been a little bit of a mystery, even to the people who know him best. Killua, who considers himself to be one of these, snorts and scuffs his shoe against the nearest shadow, one that slides over into a slope and allows his movement to hide. Within the dark, he can feel the space his foot refuses to touch, that flawless curve of rock that arcs out away from his temper to exist as an invisible seam between the cave-wall and cave-floor. Feeling a little angrier, he relaxes his ankle, letting his foot stretch out a few vital centimetres, just enough to graze solid rock. It barely makes a sound.

But Gon still turns to face him with all the quickness of a nervous animal. And he frowns, just enough to radiate obvious disapproval.

'Don't do that. We promised that nice historian that we wouldn't do anything to damage this place. It's pretty old, remember?'

And so is my trust in you, thinks Killua, even though sometimes it might be best, if it wavers, just a bit.

As if Gon picks up on this, he smiles. And it makes Killua bristle at the sheer unfairness that Gon, for all his mystery, has a better grasp of Killua than Killua will ever have of him.

'It's fine Killua. I'm not angry at this girl. Well...' Gon's eyes slide away for a moment, appearing dark and unfathomable. 'She's eaten a lot of people. I'm mad about that. But I don't think she had anyone tell her not to, or even to give her an ultimatum, like we would.' He frowns and the tiny shift in his expression is enough to bring his thoughts racing back into his eyes.

Killua can't help but feel apprehensive, watching the way they gleam as the alien trace of these thoughts play out under the strain of light that flickers and shifts like a shroud around them. For a moment this almost dies, the shadows racing in to engulf them, until Killua's concentration reasserts itself and he produces more light from his fingers in a mere snap and crackle of electric blue.

Gon swallows. 'Besides...'

'You have to apologise to someone else, right?'

Gon shoots him a harried look and Killua enjoys it, this thrill that he can still jolt Gon into surprise.

But then Gon smiles. And like always, it gives Killua the power of half-baked belief, if not a strange urge to try and shove the sun back into the sky, even when the darkness hesitatingly crawls around them both like this.

'Yeah. You're right. I do.'

Both of them turn into the awaiting darkness, into the tunnel, where further on, if they concentrate, they can hear skin scraping against stone.

The queen awaits.

Youpi wakes up. His head hurts.

'Ow,' he says. Or perhaps grunts. He's not quite sure. And honestly he doesn't care.

Within seconds the world is swirling back into colour, a dull, dingy one and he bucks up, feeling his muscles grind and strain against more of this irritating, cloudy grey.

'Yo,' says a voice and Youpi's head whips round, fast enough to hurt – he feels, more that hears the bones in his neck giving out a squeak of protest. For a minute he cannot believe what he is seeing.

Morel lifts his palm and waves. Then his mouth opens and out pops a series of smoky rings, small shapes that drift into a largeness that wavers and shakes apart like the trailing smoke of a chimney. Youpi watches them limp across the air in front of him, his eyes wide and disbelieving.

'She's safe,' Morel finally says. 'Though I suppose that means little, given the circumstances.'

A nearby smoke puppet leans forwards and mimes knocking against the rock coils that bind Youpi, as though it were nothing more than a slide of wood. It reinforces the point, however.

'A buddy of mine crafted that for us,' says Morel mildly. 'Though not a good enough buddy to consider doing such work for free. I'll have to make him buy me a drink the next time I see him.'

Youpi starts to feel something churn within his gut. It takes him longer than it should to recognise the feeling as rage. But for once, he clamps down on it,, hard. He seizes it, a struggling, flighty
things and pushes it up to the forefront of his mind, allowing it to shape his perceptions, to let it dull the pain he feels in his stiff limbs. He is not the same ant who forced down Morel and his men before. He is not as strong, for one thing.

Also, now he has patience on his side. He wonders how much Morel has.

'I do not think you're lying,' says Youpi, thinking things through furiously. 'Otherwise I would never have woken up at all. But I do have the...' He hesitates, wondering which words would the best to use. 'I cannot tell if you are telling the truth about everything,' he settles on firmly.

Morrel raises an eyebrow from behind his dark glasses in a curious flick of black that does not show as much surprise as Youpi senses he feels.

'That's the nature of an interrogation,' says Morrel. 'The person asking the questions controls what information to give the victim as a form of incentive. I can already guess what might cause you to give whatever secrets you're keeping to me; I just have to hone that down into something manageable without putting my team into something of a disadvantage.'

'Does that mean you'll give me proof that she's alive?' asks Youpi bluntly.

For the first time, Morel looks genuinely troubled. It's all in the twist of his mouth as he lifts his pipe up, just high enough to poke through his lips and let a coil of smoke drift free. The queen, Youpi knows, makes similar distortions with her own mouth, curling and bending the line of her lips all too easily into sulks and the low onset simmer of a childish temper.

'Hmmm,' says Morel. 'I'm going to be honest with you about something. The truth is, I'm not entirely comfortable with this. At the end of our battle with you, all those months ago, when you chose to spare our lives, you showed something distinctly human. I'm weak against such gestures.' He lifts the pipe away from his mouth completely and grins uneasily. 'You and me, as interrogator and would-be informant. It's a bad match-up.'

'I don't care,' says Youpi bluntly. 'You humans blew up my king while I was busy feeling sorry for you. I won't make that mistake again.'

'A mistake, huh?' Morel bites down on his pipe in thought. 'You know, I'm not a father. But I can't imagine it's much fun for a kid, being raised by someone who thinks it's a waste of time to empathise with people.'

Youpi stares at him. And then, slowly, the corners of his mouth start to tweak, start to pull apart, until Morel is exposed to his satisfied grin. 'Who said anything about 'people'? The only one I empathise with, is her.'

'Hmm,' says Morel softly, almost in a murmur. 'I'm really not happy about any of this at all. And yet, you being alive and saying such things to me...I can't seem to feel bad about it either...'

The queen's first impression of Gon is...well, she's not sure. She's been choked by him, after all. She should feel nothing but fury. She knows Pouf would want her to. Instead, she opens her mouth and lets her voice flow out, hoping to sound calm and unruffled.

'W-w-why haven't you killed me-e? People like y-y-you killed my father.'

Well. So much for that.

For his part, Gon hesitates. And then slides down in front of her, as though they were nothing more than friends. The queen flinches back, as much as she is able to, her body buckling with strain as the unnatural coils of rock pin her arms to the floor. Even her tail is encased within its cold cling.

Gon smiles, ignoring Killua's wary eyes at his back as he settles down into a more comfortable position. His legs cross over each other with a small thud. He looks as though he's about to sink into an eager form of mediation.

'Yes, we did. But your father was going to kill a lot of us if we didn't.'

The queen pauses to digest this. 'I suppose that's fair,' she admits grudgingly. 'But still. You made Shia-Pouf very sad by doing so. And I'm not sure I can forgive that easily.'

Gon's smile widens. It becomes warm and bright and for some reason the queen feels like flinching back further, as though she needs to shield herself.

'You're angry for the sake of a friend,' he says slowly, the light in his eyes growing focused and hot. Their intensity reminds the queen of the sun outside, the way it glares out on a hot day to steal a portion of the sky from view.

But Gon seems to ignore her temporary blindness, mulling things over for what seems to be less than a second before he starts to talk again, his voice rushing out in a cascade of excitement.

'Okay! I've decided! I want to talk to you properly.'

The queen's attention is directed to Gon's side, down the tanned crawl of his arm as it hangs out of his short sleeve, for at the very end his fist glows with a tight, firm light, one that appears slightly orange and more molten than candle-flame. It licks the air instead of fluttering, the way real sunlight would and to the queen, it pulses, much like a heart.

Beside her, Gon mutters. The words seem to be addressed more to himself, than her, as though he's casting some form of spell, each word carefully timed to the rhythmic beat of light. And the queen can't help but let her eyebrows rise as the other teenager, the one with tuffs of spiky white hair that gnaw at her memory somehow, dashes forward, his eyes widening into rabbit-like terror.

'Gon!'

But Gon's fist is already in a tight, clever curl, as it shoots forward like a jack-in-the-box to shatter the rock that holds her down; all with a force that feels no more bruising than a conker knocking against the ground. It's almost perverse in its gentleness, the rock slipping from her flesh as though it shares the same softness as weakened eggshell and the queen watches, with amazement, as it falls into pieces like wet plaster.

'No fighting.' Gon raises a finger against her face and the queen peers at it, slightly cross-eyed. 'Listen to what I have to say about your parents first.'

The queen, nods, slightly startled, but deciding to give way to the curiosity that floods her at this statement. 'Alright.'

To his side Killua sighs, the terror wiped from his face as though it had never been there. He settles down with a grumble that manages to drag out a few quietly muffled swear words, eying the queen all the while. She stares at him; for even though his posture screams of relaxation, from his crossed arms to his kicked-up feet, something inside her goes very, very quiet before becoming very, very alert.

But even so, excitement creeps through her veins. And so she finds herself leaning forward with an odd, hungry gleam in her eye, one that has nothing to do her appetite. 'I already know my father was a king. A great one. All others were imposters.'

Gon sighs again. Then winces, as though recalling something unpleasant. 'What about your mother?'

'My guess would be a human,' she says slowly. 'Inconsequential.'

And here Gon fixes her with a steady eye. 'Hmm? Really? From the way I heard it, he gave up everything, even his title, to spend his last moments with her. You don't do that for someone inconsequential.' Then he bites his lip, as though forcing down an old shame. 'Would you like to know her name?'

The creature before him twitches, her tail swishing in imitation of an angry cat. 'Names are for those without titles,' she says, though she sounds a little wary.

Gon grins slightly, at the doubt he hears creeping into the other's tone. 'Her name was Komugi,' he begins. 'I can't tell you her full story; but I can tell you everything two good friends of mine told me.'

Komugi, learns the queen, was a blind peasant. She was born with a name instead of a title, but later on, became the holder of both. Her title she won through skill and effort and it is one that follows her for years. She played the same game the queen herself had been drawn to and she played it well.

The queen's fingers curl. It is...strange. This urge to play against her, this woman she now has a name for, to see if her human mind would be a challenge to usurp. What is it like? She wonders. To win a title from a real champion? To tear away something they feel with their heart and not their body?

Gon grins at her.

'What?' she snaps out.

'You want to know more.'

And even though the other teenager doesn't make a single motion towards the coiled lines of her fingers, not even with his eyes, the queen forces them to straighten out. She places them down along the firm line of her thigh with a force that barely shows.

'I wish to know more about her skill,' she says coolly.

Gon frowns, starting to rock up and down on his heels like an overeager child. 'You're missing the point,' he whines.

The queen eyes him dispassionately. 'Why do you do that?' she asks. You're wasting energy needlessly.'

'You could have said the same about Komugi devoting her life to gungi,' says Gon levelly, his eyes suddenly very, very serious. 'It didn't pay well. And the in the end it earned her the attention of your father. Without that she could have lived a long life. But in the end, she chose to stay with him.'

'Well, I'm grateful for that much, I suppose,' the queen acknowledges, titling her head to the side in a way that makes Gon twitch. He has no way of knowing how much like a small, playful kitten she resembles, curiosity welling up in her tone and making it soft. 'Without that I would have never existed.' But then her eyes turn narrow and sharp, staring at Gon with a raw, animal intensity, the likes of which, the man hasn't felt for a long time, perhaps not since he torn Neferpitiou apart with a blow. 'Why risk your life to come here and tell me these things?'

Gon takes a breath. 'I owe her.' He said. 'She was the first innocent person I ever threatened. And that was something that I...that I never thought I was capable of. And I can't apologise, not properly, because she's dead. So I guess I feel as though I owe her something.'

The queen is silent for a while, digesting this. Then she asks: 'and my story? How will my story end?'

Gon breaks out into a smile so wide that it is positively blinding. 'Don't you think that's up to you?'