Don't Starve: What This World Has to Offer

by Moonweaver50

"The Reign of Giants will come and go - Shipwrecked will he, we'll never know - When finally, the end of lives - Begins with the fall of five" A world fraying apart from the seams would do anything to save itself. The Host, The Young Heir, The Martyr, The Sister, and the One True Heir. Don't be afraid. This is what is meant to happen. This is what you're meant to be.

72. Chapter 72 Integrity - Part 4

Chapter 1 of 5

A Cold Reception

Wilson's POV

The days fell into a strange sort of pattern after the first one. The sun would rise behind a sky thick with clouds, casting just enough light to see in the occasions that it wasn't raining hard enough to obscure that limited vision. Thunder would crackle from somewhere high above us as we crowded in our meager shelter. Winona would glance into the sky when lightning flashed, a strange expression falling over her face and her hands fiddling with small objects from the ground or each other. After the first night, Wilbur never let Webber leave our temporary campsite alone, so the two of them would often disappear at some point in the day only to return with little to show for it.

It had been some time since I was this hungry.

The hard-packed dirt was laden with clay that was far too thick for much to grow other than short, thick grass. On the rare occasions that the animals weren't hiding from the weather, only Wilbur would return with a successful kill. Webber's hunting skills must have totally diminished for him to be failing as much as he was as of late.

Or, as my suspicions ran, he was eating while out and failing to catch enough to bring back. It annoyed me, that he could possibly be as selfish as that, but it was only a theory anyway. After all, I never saw him eat when he got back.

All the while, when the others were asleep, Winona and I would feed strips of dead bark into the chiminea and toss around ideas and theories.

"Survive and thrive" was a very vague goal.

"Maybe he just... wants us to settle here," Winona said one night. Her voice had snapped me out of my concentration and I had to blink a few times to remember where I was. I wasn't wrong in thinking the nights lasted much longer than they were supposed to. If there was still twenty-four hours in a day, then only about three of those hours were daylight. That left twenty-one hours of darkness. Twenty-one hours of fighting to keep a weak light ignited from an ever-dwindling supply of kindling while pushing off sleep and trying to figure out how to move on. Maxwell made it clear that we weren't supposed to stay here.

"Why would he want us to settle somewhere?" I scoffed. "You're not suggesting we just give up already?"

"I'm not saying that. I'm saying that maybe he wants us to... I don't know... become self-sufficient. Get comfortable. Then, as soon as things seem to be going right, then bam! We're dragged out and thrust back into empty wilderness."

I hummed thoughtfully. Next to the root I was sitting on was a stubby stick, and a few feet away was Webber's strange sword. Without much thought, I retrieved the two items and started sharpening the stick with the blade. If nothing else, to keep my hands moving.

"That sounds like something Maxwell would do," I conceded after a few moments of silence. "I remember hearing somewhere that there was a torture method like that. You lock someone in a cell that's totally silent and every time they start to fall asleep, you introduce something loud and irritating to wake them up. So that they can never truly get comfortable."

"Wait, was that really a thing?"

"Don't know. Sounds awful though, doesn't it?"

"Suitably awful for William," Winona agreed. She started picking at her cuticles, face creased in thought. "If that's the case, we outta start making a more permanent base camp here. I don't know about you, but I've done enough scouting at this point to know there's not really any better shelter nearby. "

"There no food around here. We have to move on sooner or later."

"There's plenty of food. We just have to find a way to get it to come out of its shelter."

I leaned my head back and let out a loud groan, dropping both the stick and the sword. "They're too good at hiding. We'd basically have to smoke them out if we wanted to even consider that."

"We could," Winona said. "I mean, if we could get a somewhat dry day we could try using a torch..." Her voice faded out as she looked up. Her face creased in confusion and she rose one hand as if to catch something and clenched her hand in a fist. "What...?"

"What?"

She beckoned me over, which I followed without hesitance. As soon as I was next to her, she unfolded her fingers to display the thing she had caught.

A singular sparkling snowflake, slowly melting on her glove.

"Snow?" But it didn't feel quite cold enough to snow. It had been raining furiously only a couple of hours ago! I glanced up, noticing the small specks of white dotted against the background of shadowed leaves and black sky. "This isn't good."

"Maybe it's just earlier in the spring than we originally thought," Winona offered as she dusted the snowflake off. "It could just be snowing because it hasn't quite warmed up yet."

"That's not how this world works though," I argued. "It only snows in winter. Sure it got cold towards the end of fall and chilly in the beginning of spring, but it never snowed. It was always rain."

Maybe I was wrong to assume it was spring. Maybe it was fall. Really, the only reason I had assumed spring in the first place was because Webber had said so. The thought suddenly hit me, of how ridiculous it was to totally believe his word and trust a literal eight year old to tell me what time of the year it was. I buried my face in my hand and groaned loudly. Serves me right.

"Maybe this world is different," Winona suggested. "We already know it's different, right?"

That was true. The light snowfall only accentuated the deepened shadows around us. I could feel Them watching me calmly, patiently waiting for something. "I guess." Even then, it was still more likely to me that we were just wrong. And now, that incorrect thought would cause more trouble than I could imagine for us.

As the night dragged on, the air started to turn colder, although that was to be expected. With the dropping temperature, the snow became heavier. I wrapped my arms around myself and shuddered as I tried to feed more kindling into the chiminea. It wasn't burning nearly hot enough to offset the chill.

Wilbur woke with a startle at one point when the snowflakes started to melt against his brown fur. He jerked his head up to stare at the falling snow. The movement jostled Webber slightly, but he didn't seem to wake. Instead, he curled himself into a tighter ball, effectively trapping Wilbur as the boy clutched him closer.

"Snow," I said to Wilbur. He seemed so confused that I couldn't help but wonder if he even knew what snow was. Had the monkey even been alive long enough to see a winter? Webber had claimed that Wilbur was several thousand years old, but again: believing the word of a literal child. About a monkey being over four thousand years old. Literally impossible.

My acknowledgment of Wilbur threw him into some sort of rant, but it was senseless babbling to my ears. A few different languages seemed to be tossed around, but all of them were nothing but animals noises and twitching tails and moving hands. "You know, frozen rain? Have you never seen snow before?"

More random sounds, this time in the more familiar growl of the spider's language.

"You must be younger than I thought if you haven't seen snow."

Wilbur's movements became sharper, clearly more irritated.

"Not young," Winona corrected. I looked at the woman, who was staring hard at Wilbur as he tried to communicate. "Tyler said he was a native older than any of us." Wilbur nodded affirmatively and clapped his fist against his chest. A snowflake landed on his nose, causing him to break his stance and flinch back as much as he could with a tired spider clinging to him. "I'm assuming you came from somewhere that didn't have snow, then?"

Wilbur nodded again, pointing at Winona and sticking his tongue out at me. I stuck my tongue out right back as frustration coiled in my chest.

"Snow is pretty common in winter," Winona said in a casual tone. "It starts falling instead of rain when it drops to a certain temperature. If it keeps this up, there'll be enough snow to cover the ground and then some. It can pile up several feet, even though the flakes are so tiny." She extended a hand to catch a flake on the tip of her finger. "You know, I guess we don't really know much about you, Wilbur. Tyler said that the island was warm, but I'm assuming it was tropical? Warm all year 'round?" At Wilbur's affirmation, she continued. "This all must be a lot for you, then. To be used to living somewhere so warm and to so suddenly have to experience winter snow and cold rain for the first time... why did you leave in the first place?"

Wilbur's tail flicked, something soft coming over his face. He ducked his head to nudge the boy curled around him, then glanced back up at us.

"For him," I said softly. "You left... for Webber?"

"Tyler," Winona corrected. I hummed noncommittally. She turned her gaze back to Wilbur. "I understand that. You'd do anything for those you care about. Family is more than anything. You'd go to Hell and back if it meant keeping the one you care about safe."

Wilbur dipped his head, saying something in his own language, then saying it again in English. "Charlie."

Winona blinked, surprised. I snapped my eyes to look at him, expecting to have caught him embarrassed in having slipped in his mute act. He didn't even look at me though, instead ignoring me entirely and focusing on Winona. "Yes... Charlie. I left behind so much for her. I didn't... I mean, I didn't mean to go through the portal. I wanted to repair it. I just wanted to see her, to know she was okay. Although..." She sighed and shook her head. "In the end... it was probably for the best. People like me aren't really accepted in the world. If me disappearing kept... you know..." She squirmed around the words, pushing her hair out of the way of her face with one hand and fiddling with the strap of her overalls with the other. "Well, she always told me my obsession with my sister's disappearance would get me in trouble."

"She?" I wondered out loud.

Winona's eyes darkened and she looked away.

Did Winona have someone back home waiting for her? I suppose I always assumed she did, but she never talked about it often. I realized suddenly that that might have been intentional. After all, if she focused all of her attention on her ultimate goal, she couldn't spare any of it worrying about those she left behind.

That meant me and Webber really were two birds of a feather. We had no one to go back to.

Wilbur wriggled out of Webber's embrace. The boy let out a soft murmur of distress, shifting to make up for the loss of heat, but Wilbur had his eyes set on the distraught woman. He sat heavily in front of her and placed a hand on her knee, as if in comfort.

"You don't think I'm a bad person, do you?" Winona asked softly. Wilbur immediately shook his head, saying something fervently in an unknown language, and Winona turned to look at me. She looked ashamed.

"Trust me, Winona. There's no reason for me to think of you as a bad person."

"Mm." She seemed unconvinced, but accepting of the words nonetheless. This conversation was one I would have to think about more in depth later. To be perfectly honest, I was not following very well. Definitely not as well as the literal monkey who refused to speak English seemed to be.

From there, conversation tapered off as we tried to get some sleep. Even if the others wanted to say something, if Wilbur wanted to try some kind of charades or if Winona intended on elaborating on her previous words, I wouldn't have even noticed. I was too deep in thought, combing through the details of my old life in an attempt to figure out what I was really going back to. All this time, every thing we had done, was for the ultimate goal of going home. Time and time again I revisited this train of thought, circling around the ever present question of 'is it worth it?'. As I lay down, gazing up at the snow-studded sky above me, the question slowly started to shift to 'what is the point?'.

Winona had someone waiting for her back home. Some sort of family, maybe a mother or another sibling. At least someone she cared deeply about.

I wasn't sure about Wilbur. With his general refusal to speak to us (with the exception of two words now: 'Stupid' from a few days back and now 'Charlie') I had no opportunity to really know anything about him. And yet, the way he acted around Webber, I could tell his paternal instincts were strong. Strong enough for me to think he had some sort of history with children.

Even Webber had family. While the specifics of his relationship with them weren't entirely clear to me, I knew for a fact that he had two parents and a sister, the latter of which he was so close to that even death couldn't separate them.

I never had a problem being an only child. My problem came from the fact that I had long since cut off contact with the people I once knew and interacted with. And that lack of contact extended to everyone. Any friends I had as a child. Any girl I might've fallen for and started a family with. Everyone. I really had no family back home.

I guess the one who would've been able to relate to me the most was WX. He didn't have family at all, having been built by someone he apparently hated and also happened to be the only one that could vaguely be considered family. Yet WX had somehow found family in us. In Webber at the very least. I hadn't been oblivious to the fact that Webber no longer referred to WX as his 'friend' and instead as his 'brother'.

I had found family in this group once, too. Then things happened. Things got in the way. I died and Nightmare used it as an opportunity to possess me. Any fondness Webber once had for me was long gone, replaced by fear and anger that lived far longer than the wounds that caused it. WX had never liked me, especially after the whole possession fiasco. He had only ever merely tolerated me in the first place. Winona was the only one I even considered a friend anymore, let alone family.

I shifted uncomfortably on the cold ground and rolled over to face the others. Wilbur was fast asleep again, free from Webber's impossibly tight grasp but still pressed against the boy. Winona was also asleep and snoring softly, one arm tucked under her head to act as a pillow. Wilbur's tail was draped over her shoulder, but I wasn't sure whether either party noticed. Something in my chest cracked, for just a moment, and the icy barrier that had grasped my heart recently melted very slightly.

We could get through this together. We had to. I had to. If not for someone anxiously waiting for me back home, then for the ones waiting for them. I wasn't sure how long the clarity would last, but I would take advantage of it while I could.

And so, when I finally fell asleep, I was able to sleep with the faintest of smiles.

…

The next day, I dragged the entire group out to go hunting.

The snow had continued to fall. The once-mud had hardened into frozen dirt, and each blade of grass was tinged with frost and the smallest buildup of snow. It was chilly already, but Webber had immediately warned upon waking up that it would only get worse. I wasn't sure whether to believe him given his track record at this point, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt. It would fit the general theme after all.

That gave us two main objectives on this hunting trip. Obviously food for one. Hunger gnawed at my stomach, and I noticed that the fur of the two furred members of our group was looking dull and lacking the shine they had previously. Webber in particular looked rough, his fur mussed and ragged and eyes dull. Winona's hunger wasn't quite as obvious- she hid it well- but I knew she was just as hungry as we were. Scraps had been meager, barely enough to fill the belly of one person let alone four.

The second goal, though, was fur. Wilbur, through Webber's translations, had boasted a proficiency in skinning animals. Apparently, I was the only one to find this extremely concerning. Instead of being deeply worried about the monkey's strange and specific ability, Winona seemed quite pleased.

"I bet we could find something bigger out there than a rabbit," she had explained. "We could make some actual clothing to stave off the cold when it gets worse."

I had never even considered it. We had simply suffered in the cold previously.

Webber didn't actively argue against the sentiment, but I could tell something about it made him uncomfortable. Maybe he was concerned about Wilbur's apparent skill.

Nonetheless, the duo led the way for us. They had been the only ones so far to really leave the shelter of the trees, so Winona and I had to rely on their directions to get anywhere. From a few paces behind, I was able to notice some things right away that I had been neglecting to realize at this point.

Webber looked much skinnier than usual. Much worse off than Wilbur. I could see his ribs from beneath his fur, and it was clear that even walking was taking its toll on him. Wilbur, surprisingly, didn't seem to notice anything off, but a quick glance at Winona showed that she was also looking at the small boy in concern. His grip on his sword was shaky, and I caught him stumbling over his own feet several times as though dizzy.

"Ahead is... um... the best we've found so far," Webber said softly to me and Winona. I winced at the rough tone in his voice. Like he hadn't drank anything in too long either. "It's the only place we've found rabbits... some beefalo too, I guess. If you guys wanna... wanna try fighting them."

"Tyler, are you good?" Winona asked, her face creasing in concern. "You sound miserable."

"Tired," he mumbled. He shook his head before either of us could press. "With the four of us, we should be able to take out one of the beefalo. The herd, though..."

"That shouldn't be too hard," I reasoned. "You're faster than the herd, aren't you? You've always been before."

He swallowed hard. Wilbur said something to him and he immediately brushed the monkey off. "Yeah, I can do that," he said, voice stronger than before. "No problem. I can try to lead one away."

"The bigger you can handle the better. More meat, more fur," I said. He nodded again, though looked increasingly unsure of himself. "If you can handle it, I mean. I don't want to push you too much when we're all suffering."

Webber bristled at that. "I can handle it! I can handle anything I need to. I'm still just as strong as I've ever been."

"Perfect."

"Don't push yourself," Winona warned. She stretched out a hand, which Webber started at wearily, and pressed it against his forehead. "...do you have a fever?"

"I'm not sick, if that's what you think." The boy rolled his eyes. "Trust me. Wilson's seen me sick enough times to know before it became too big of an issue."

I couldn't find fault in that assessment, although that didn't change the fact that he really didn't look good.

"There's one on the edge of the herd," he said, pointing towards the one in particular as they came into view. I regarded the beasts with a tipped head.

"The one with the calf?" I asked. "That could work. The calves won't fight and they follow their mother everywhere. We could get both of them down."

Webber immediately withdrew his hand, eye widening as he apparently saw something he hadn't noticed before. "I... I mean... y-yeah, the calf. Maybe not that one. No, no, that's a stupid idea. Going after a mother. We should lure one of the others instead."

"It's in a convenient spot to separate from the rest," I pointed out. "And it's not like they fight harder when a calf is on the line. I don't think they really care honestly."

"But the calf is... um... it's-"

"You don't have to do this, you know," Winona murmured. "We can make a different plan if you want to."

"I can do it!" Webber protested. "No other plans needed. Don't even think about it." Wilbur growled something, and Webber nodded in agreement. "Wilbur and I will try to separate the herd. With any luck, they'll focus more on him than me, and I can get one away. Wilbur can climb to get out of their way, right? Perfect. Wilson, stay over there. Winona over there." He pointed accordingly. "Hide yourselves. That way, no matter who the beefalo come after, there'll be someone to catch them off guard."

The switch was flipped immediately between shaky and nervous child and headstrong hunter. The subtle shakiness was still in his limbs, but I had to trust that he could do what he said. With that, the four of us split off into our respective directions. Winona was staring after Webber, clearly worried about the boy, but she also didn't know him nearly as well as I. She only saw a little boy when she looked at him, nothing more.

As Webber approached the herd, though, his age suddenly struck me once again, as well as the warning signs I had noticed earlier. Now that we weren't actively interacting with him, his trembling had reappeared full force. He could barely keep his knees under him.

It wasn't until he hesitated just before he was in proper striking distance that I decided that there was no way I should let him do this.

Wilbur was just barely visible on the other side of the herd, his body low and tail straight out and still. I could see the moment his eyes drifted back towards Webber because he immediately shot to a standing position, alerting the herd and causing them to scramble away. Webber didn't move, didn't even try to chase after them. Instead, he let his sword drop to the ground. He fell to his knees.

Oh stars, maybe he was sick.

"Tyler!" Winona cried out. She and Wilbur abandoned their positions almost simultaneously to approach the fallen spider. I moved slower, listening faintly to the anxious words from my companions as they fretted over Webber.

"What's going on?" I asked as soon as I was in range to speak at a normal volume. Webber looked up at me as I spoke, and I was shocked to see that his fur was damp with tears.

"I-I'm sorry," he sputtered. "I can't do it. I can't kill."

"I knew you were looking sick," Winona fretted, pressing the back of her hand against his forehead and cheeks again. He knocked her hand away, scowling at the ground.

"I'm not sick!" He protested. "I'm... I'm just... I'm really hungry..." his voice dropped to a guilty mutter.

"You're hungry?" I said in disbelief. "Webber, we're all hungry. That can't be the only thing."

He got very quiet at that. For a long moment, I almost expected him to brush it off again and act like nothing happened. Instead, to my surprise, he looked up at us and said in a small voice: "Promise you won't be mad?"

"Whatever it is, Tyler, we're not going to be mad," Winona said sternly. It was obvious that he didn't believe her. He folded his hands together and took a deep breath.

"I... I haven't been able to kill anything," he murmured. "It's stupid, I know! I've hunted animals for so long! I had to in order to survive! But the other day... there was this bunny and... and I didn't mean to hurt it. I killed it, guys. It was so trusting and innocent and I killed it." He sobbed on the words and covered his eyes. Winona put a hand on his shoulder and rubbed it with her thumb, her expression concerned. "It's so stupid, I know. I'm sorry. I don't know why but now every time I try to hunt I just stop myself."

Wilbur let out a comforting murmur and wrapped his tail around Webber's arm. He covered his mouth and tried to stifle another sob. I sighed, honestly not entirely surprised that his youth was finally catching up to him. Apparently it just took a too-trusting rabbit to do that. "Webber, animals that are too trusting are going to die anyway. It wasn't your fault. If it wasn't you, it would've been something else."

"Did you think we would be mad at you for not wanting to kill?" Winona asked gently. "You're so young, Tyler. Nobody's mad at you for that."

"No... that's not why I thought you'd be mad," he confessed. "I... I haven't brought anything home. Haven't... killed any animals or brought back any food. So... I haven't... I haven't been taking any food."

I felt my heart sink at his words. Wilbur reacted immediately, jumping into what was probably a scolding rant if I had to wager a guess. Webber shrunk at his reaction and stared at his claws.

"When was the last time you ate?" Winona demanded, her voice suddenly sharp. She had gone very still and stiff, staring down at the hybrid with impossible severity. When he didn't say anything, she pressed: "When, Tyler?"

"When I brought back the rabbit," he whispered.

That was days ago.

"I couldn't keep it down anyway... too guilty."

Wilbur stared at him in horror, mouth parted slightly in stunned shock. Had the others not noticed him not eating anything? Winona likely had the same assumption as me, that he had been eating while he was out, but Wilbur was with him the whole time. How had nobody stepped in? I wracked my brain, trying to remember if either of us had even bothered to ask. Surely Winona did, right? Had he just flat out lied to her?

"I didn't want to... to take more than I gave back."

He had been literally starving himself in guilt.

I couldn't think of anything to say to the situation, though not for a lack of trying. Honestly, I felt that anything I could say would only make it worse. Winona and Wilbur were equally silent, as though struggling to even understand what he was saying. The longer the silence stretched, the more and more miserable Webber looked, and at one point I noticed fresh tears silently rising in his eye only to be quickly absorbed by the fur of his cheek.

"Okay. Okay." Winona finally said, breaking the stalemate. She rubbed her hands over her face and breathed deeply. "Here's what's going to happen. Wilbur is going to take you back to camp while Wilson and I hunt. When we get back, you're going to eat whether you want to or not. Don't even think we wouldn't stoop low enough to force feeding you because I absolutely will if these two don't."

"I'm sorry," Webber whispered. "I knew you would be mad."

"Then why did you do it in the first place?" I said before I even had the chance to consider the words.

Webber shrugged. "Wasn't thinking," he mumbled.

Wilbur grabbed the boy's arm meaningfully and helped him back to his feet. Now that he wasn't actively trying to hide his weakness, it was much more obvious. Even with Wilbur's help, though, the boy only got a few steps away before crumbling again with a cry of alarm. While Winona and Wilbur immediately started to fret over him again, something swelled up in my chest. The sensation was familiar now, so familiar that I immediately grabbed for my chest as if to prevent it from happening. Unlike the previous times, though, my arm actually moved. My limbs followed the instructions my brain gave them. My movements were my own. The words, though not ones spoken by me, were calming and curious, not demanding and ferocious like all the previous times.

"Have you learned?"

Webber grabbed his own chest and let out a low whine, as if in pain. I stepped closer, keeping my hands carefully back and my body as loose as I could in an attempt to keep from scaring him. I'm still in control! I wanted to shout. I won't hurt you!

Yet, it wasn't me he was scared of. His breaths came out in short wheezes, so rough that I could hear the struggle in each one. Winona's frantic voice fell away, as did Wilbur's.

"Have you learned?" I asked again, calmly.

Finally, when the question was presented a second time, the tension gripping Webber's shoulders immediately dropped. His hand fell alongside with it, revealing a golden yellow glow separate from his necklace coming from deep within his chest. He opened his eye again, and I could see a similar yellow glow bathing his pupil, as well as highlighting the scar across his other eye and his mangled hand. I had grown so used to seeing him without pupils that the appearance of it made him look impossibly strange and far more human than usual.

"I've learned," he answered softly. His voice was still shaky, but the words were strong enough to offset it. He was both wise far beyond his years and impossibly young.

"What have you learned?" My voice was not mine, the words coming from my mouth without permission. I had no idea what Nightmare was talking about, why everything about it seemed so different than before. There was no hint of malice. Nightmare was simply posing him tender questions, and he was answering them as if he had answered them a million times before. Strangely, a sense of deja vu hit me so hard than I wondered if he had. If this conversation had already happened an infinite amount of times and none of us remembered.

"I've learned... I've learned that the others are worth more than myself," Webber said. His voice was equally calm, monotone. His fear of Nightmare was nowhere to be seen. "I've learned that a King must always put his subjects first, because his subjects will do anything for him if he does. I've learned that a King must be strong enough to deny what he wants for the greater good. A King is nothing without his subjects. His subjects are nothing without their King." His eye was fluttering closed.

"What have you shown?" I asked.

"I have shown..." he struggled around the word, his breathing strange and irregular as if his entire body was rejecting it. He swallowed hard, looked me directly in the eye, and tried again. "I have shown Integrity."

The golden glow from his chest pulsed with his heartbeat once, twice, three times, then faded. A moment after that, his eye drifted shut and he seemingly fell unconscious.

Similarly, weakness hit my limbs as well. Nightmare's presence faded, and with it my ability to stay standing. I blacked out for just a moment and came to on the ground, with Winona holding my head and shoulders up as if having caught me.

I blinked several times to chase the floaters from my vision. "Wuh...?" My voice was mine again, though heavy and slow.

"Oh thank God you're alive," Winona sighed. She put a hand on her chest and let out a long breath. "Which means that I can tear into you for whatever that was." I pulled myself to a sitting position and held my aching head as she wagged her finger at me. "Because it sounded like you were encouraging a small child to starve himself half to death because he doesn't matter, and I would very much like an explanation before I sic the angry monkey after you for it."

"It wasn't me," I answered quietly. I gazed down at my hands and clenched them into fists to try to get blood flowing back into them. The cold hit me worse than ever. "I was in control though. For the most part. The words weren't me. I wasn't going to hurt anyone."

Winona didn't look convinced. From a few feet away, Wilbur started excitedly saying something as Webber started to stir as well. I shuffled towards him, much to the other two's upset, and reached for his hand. As soon as we were connected, he blinked sleepily up at me. The golden outline of a pupil was still present, much to my surprise and dismay.

His fingers were equally cold. I covered his hand in both of my own.

"Are you okay?" I asked him quietly. "Do you know what just happened?"

Wilbur shoved his way between us, growling and snapping at me when I tried to get around him. I didn't have the opportunity to be mad before Winona grabbed my shoulders and dragged me back.

"Maybe don't?" Winona sounded exasperated, as if I was being incredibly and obviously stupid. Wilbur, on the other hand, was angrily defending his friend from me even though I had no intention of hurting him.

"We were the ones to go through that," I snapped at her. "I think we are the ones who need to talk about it."

"He's fine, guys," Webber said. His voice was rough. It wondered if talking was as painful for him as it sounded. "I- we... we need to go. Now. It's ready for us."

"What's ready?" I pressed.

Wilbur was speaking furiously to Webber, but the latter seemed to be entirely ignoring the former. He struggled to get to his feet and was immediately stopped by the monkey. Webber growled something at Wilbur, who immediately growled back in the same language.

"What we need to do," Winona said. "Is go back to camp and make Tyler eat something. Then if you're still up to talking then you can."

"But-"

"But nothing." Winona cut off Webber before the boy could even properly protest. She looked as if she were about to continue, but then her face seemed to fall. "Oh, your eye..."

"Huh?" Webber raised his good hand to touch the space immediately under it. "My eye? Is something wrong with it?"

"We're not used to seeing your pupil," I answered. "I'm assuming it has something to do with the whole... situation that just happened."

"My pupil?" His eye widened as if surprised. "Wait, what-"

"Nope," Winona interjected. "No more. Food first."

"But it's waiting-"

"Don't care. Whatever 'it' is will still be there later. You won't be if you drop dead of starvation."

His whiskers quivered, and I could tell he wanted to argue, but he quickly lost the strength to. Just like that, his muscles relaxed and he hung his head. I could tell that whatever thing was desperately grasping for his attention was currently not as strong as the desire to finally get something in his stomach. Our three hours were up anyway, if the sinking sun had anything to say about it. And, honestly, it was too cold anyway to stay out much longer.

Webber dragged himself back to his feet, head low in resignation, but it was clear he was struggling to stay on his feet. That... event... must have taken what little energy he had left after the lack of food and trekking out here. Without a word being spoken, Winona scooped him up in her arms. "We can worry about this in the daylight. I'm sure Wilson and I can find something when it's dark, right?" She shot me a look as if daring me to argue, but I didn't. I would be more than happy to go out, even when it's dark.

Winona and I stayed silent on the way back. I couldn't think of anything to say and I assumed she was the same. A lot had happened today that needed to be discussed, and Webber suddenly getting cold feet hunting was the least of it. Wilbur was speaking to the boy, and I couldn't tell if he was angry or not. He sounded angry, but that language often sounded angry when it wasn't. More than once, Webber would start to struggle in Winona's arms, but she refused to let him go. At one point, it wasn't until her grip accidentally landed on his mangled hand and squeezed that he gave up with a whimper.

Then, Wilbur had to practically sit on him to keep him from getting up anyway once we got back to the chiminea. Hunger was clearly slowing him down and weakening him, but that odd yellow light still pulsed in his eye, growing stronger when he fought and weaker when he gave up. I knew very well that something extremely important had happened, somehow connecting to that glow, but I couldn't be certain that it was good. In the event that something bad was waiting for us, all of us would have to be as strong and well-fed as possible.

And yet, even while trying to hunt effectively in the dark, I couldn't keep focus. My mind kept straying from the task and towards the golden light. How it had originated in his chest and beat in time to his heart. How it illuminated his eyes in a way that made him seem human again.

And most importantly, how it felt painfully familiar, and how I was absolutely certain I had seen it before. Not just once, but a thousand times over. Like our conversation had been rehearsed a million times, and we were finally putting on the two-person play we had spent a dozen years preparing for.

Have you learned?

Have you learned?

I've learned.

What have you learned?

I've learned that the others are worth more than myself. I've learned that a King must always put his subjects first, because his subjects will do anything for him if he does. I've learned that a King must be strong enough to deny what he wants for the greater good. A King is nothing without his subjects. His subjects are nothing without their King.

What have you shown?

I have shown Integrity.