Aster broke into a run, sprinting along the cavern floor as fast as she could allow for in the dense fog. It didn’t take long for the screams to cut off, but Aster remembered the direction they’d come from. She swerved down a tunnel, tendrils of mist swirling around her, and came upon a short raised portion of cavern with a cloaked figure looming in the dark, pressing a scythe to another figure that had their back against the wall and an arm up to shield themself.
“Do you still see your twisted ‘heroism’ in their pain?” A voice hissed from the cloaked figure, quiet yet hard. Aster climbed onto the raised surface of the cave they were in.
“How is what you''re doing any different from what I do?” The second voice was strained, desperate.
There was a brief growl. “You attack the guilty and the innocent. I only attack the guilty.” The cloaked figure pulled their scythe back slightly, and in one fluid motion swept the legs from under the second person. The second person cried out as he lost his balance, hitting the ground hard. “I judge your guilt as deep and unyielding,” the cloaked figure said, and raised their scythe to strike again.
Aster finished her elaborate pattern of shards of light and it streaked toward the cloaked figure. At the same time, Hyacinth finished sprinting toward the two and caught the scythe in the hook of his halberd, yanking it off course as it started to fall.
The figure stepped into the new direction of their scythe, putting more pressure on it than Hyacinth expected. He stumbled a little, but corrected for it quickly, sliding his halberd clear of the scythe as he stepped back to shield the person on the ground.
The cloaked figure turned toward the pattern of light streaking toward them, and instead of trying to avoid it, they tipped their hood back to reveal a strikingly mirror-like face and wispy pale hair. A Shade, but not a kind that seemed very common in Aster’s experience.
As the light contacted their skin, it didn''t simply reflect like Aster expected. The light shattered with an audible crack and then pivoted back the way it''d come, the pieces scattering more wildly this time.
Aster jerked back, but didn’t have time to absorb any of the shards of light as they streaked toward her, slivers of heat slashing at her and disappearing as quickly as they came. A few of them drew blood, but none of it would be serious, at least not from this attack.
She rushed forward, drawing in close to support Hyacinth.
“What gives you the right to judge anyone’s guilt?” Hyacinth firmly asked the figure.
They leveled a piercing gaze at him, readying their scythe. “I watch. I listen. I give them a chance to try to prove themselves to me. I give them the courtesy they never spare for the creatures of the Depths.”
“And how are they supposed to do that?” Aster asked, holding up one of her slightly longer knives in a defensive position. “Prove themselves to you?”
“By refraining from the slaughter of creatures they don’t understand, even when they pose potential danger to them. By seeing the humanity in Shades, despite what they’ve been told. By showing honor to their companions, and not abandoning them in the dark to lose themselves.” They brandished their weapon, but held back for the moment. “You’re Lanterns, aren’t you? You’ve seen the cruelty in the Overseers, and the callousness of the Lanterns that lash out against everything here.”
Aster lowered her weapon slightly, hoping the gesture could lower the tension somewhat. “I’m with you so far.” She glanced behind her at her father kneeling by the Lantern that had been attacked, talking him through what he was about to do to treat the wounded arm. Mira crouched nearby in a silent offer to help.
“So you kill them if they don’t appear to meet your standards?” Hyacinth’s eyes were narrowed.
The Shade met Hyacinth’s gaze. “Yes. If no one else will act to root out the evils so deeply ingrained here, I will. I’ll personally cull the disease, until all we’re left with has the capacity to sustain life. I call myself Grim - this world showed me no mercy, and I don''t believe it will change through any mercy in return.”
“What about those that could change, that could be saved?”
“Trying to save them risks complacency. I’ve never seen them prove that they could be saved. I have no reason to believe in them.”
“You’re talking like the Overseers talk about the Depths,” Aster said, resisting the urge to cross her arms. “With the same detached hopelessness they show for Tainted Lanterns. Didn’t you just condemn that?”
It was a bit uncomfortable to be fixed with the intensity of Grim’s gaze. “I know I can’t save everyone. They assume they can’t save anyone, so they don’t even try. Are you really saying my philosophy is just as indefensible as theirs?”
“I know I can’t save everyone.” Aster tried to swallow the lump in her throat that formed at that sentence. She could run from it and refuse to accept it, but that fact would always eventually catch up to her, wouldn’t it?
“It’s not about the comparison,” Hyacinth said, his eyes seeming to burn with the determination Aster sometimes got to see in him. “If you take even one innocent life, or any life you could’ve saved - if your judgement fails to be honorable even once, you cease to meet your own standards. From the outside, you’d judge yourself as one of the guilty. If life hinges on a single mistake, can you really be sure you’ll never waver?”
“What makes you so sure my judgement will fail?”
“I believe in your personhood, just like me.” Hyacinth lowered his halberd slightly, though he still gripped it tightly, still fixed Grim with something halfway to a glare. “Isn’t that what you wanted? I believe you’re just as fallible as I am. I have no reason to believe anyone isn’t.”
“Seems a little arrogant, doesn’t it?” Grim pulled their hood back over their head, leaving their glassy eyes in the shade.
“Certainly no more arrogant than you believing you’re qualified to be an arbiter over life and death.”
“Someone has to stop those that take that mantle more recklessly, don’t you think?” They breathed out a sigh. “This isn’t your fight. Do you even know the tarnished Lantern you’re trying to save?”
“Do you?” Aster asked. “What does it take to really know them?”
“Why don’t you ask this one about the blood he’s had on his hands? The creatures he’s attacked unprovoked?” They swept their hand out in front of them, gesturing toward where the Lantern lay behind her. “Are you really so sure you want to protect someone like him?”
Aster glanced back at him. He looked familiar, but she couldn’t remember his name. He appeared a little dazed, with a thoroughly bandaged arm lying at his side, motionless as if it hurt to move it at all. His face was tense, but it didn’t appear to be from defiance.
More than anything, he just looked terrified.
He seemed to be making a halfhearted effort to hide his terror and pain, but that effort was interrupted by a palpable exhaustion. A hopelessness, a facade of resignation to his fate when those certainties still tore him up inside.
Maybe Aster was just projecting. Maybe she was wrong about him. But she knew at least the pleading in his eyes. The gaze of someone that desperately wanted to live.
“I’m not qualified to judge him.” Aster fixed her gaze on Grim’s. “He can’t take back whatever it is that he’s done. But what if he could reclaim his future? What if he could find ways to do more good than harm? What if I do more harm by not giving him a chance?”
Hyacinth nodded slightly. “No stain can be washed away by blood.”
A crossbow bolt whistled through the air, past Aster’s shoulder, and hit Grim in the collarbone.
They gasped, stumbling backward. “No-!” Aster cried out. The impact had made a shatter wound where it’d hit, and Aster probably didn’t know enough about Shade physiology to know how serious it might be.
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Hyacinth had whipped around to face the Lantern. “Why would you-!”
Fennel had apparently looked away for a moment, and cursed softly, immediately trying to confiscate the Lantern’s crossbow. He seemed prepared for that and jerked away, leaping to his feet and backing away. “Do you know how many Lanterns they’ve killed? I don’t know either. How many unexplained disappearances can we prevent now if we don’t let them go? How likely am I to ever be able to prove to them that I can be allowed to live?”
Aster stepped back between Grim and the Lantern, shielding them. “What if neither of you have to die? They''ve been negotiating so fa-” The Shade darted out from behind her and rushed toward the Lantern, their scythe ready to their side.
Hyacinth cursed, moving to try to get between them. Aster went for the Lantern’s crossbow, trying to get it away from him.
Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Tune racing toward Grim. Aster turned her gaze back toward the Lantern, trying to make sure neither he nor Grim would notice them.
Aster sent light through her stella veins and snapped her fingers to agitate the light as she released it, creating a blinding spark to the side of the Lantern’s vision. He instinctively flinched away from it, and Aster did a leg sweep. As he scrambled to regain his balance, she wrested the crossbow from his grip, then caught him on the way down, just in case.
Grim gasped from behind her. “A Shade...?” So they’d noticed. She risked a glance at them and didn’t see Tune, so they must’ve already Enshrouded Grim. They abruptly lunged at Aster.
Aster stumbled back, letting go of the Lantern since he’d already made it awkwardly to the ground. Grim snatched a long, bright echo crystal of Aster’s, and Aster could see the Enshroudment mark on their wound shying away from the light already. She jerked back, trying to wrestle the echo crystal away from them.
A shade cloth was thrown between them. Hyacinth stepped in and pressed the shade cloth near the wound, yet he was careful not to touch the wound itself. Grim tried to push him away, but they made no effort to really hurt him.
Aster could see the exhaustion start to affect them, like she’d had when Tune had Enshrouded her. They shook their head. “No, stop, I can’t-”
“We don’t want to hurt you, at least. You know that by now,” Hyacinth told them.
They grabbed his arm. “I’ve heard that before.” Grim shoved him away with the handle of their scythe. “They always tried to act so reluctant before they made me go die for them.”
Aster backed away, since their attention was on Hyacinth for the moment. A hand grabbed on to the crossbow she still held.
She pulled back, snatching a sheathed knife from her belt and slashing at the Lantern’s arm. He flinched based on the shape, noticing the sheath a second too late, as Aster tucked the crossbow away within her cloak.
“You’re Lanterns too, aren’t you? I’m not your enemy! You know how dangerous it is down here!”
“You’re not our enemy, but neither is Grim.” Aster stepped back.
“You have to know this isn’t sustainable.” He let out an exasperated breath. “You’ll just get yourselves killed this way. I respect what you’re trying to do, but... you see how it’s na?ve, don’t you?”
Aster resisted the urge to bite her lip, taking a small steadying breath. “If na?ve is the worst thing I ever am, I don’t think I’ll have done all that badly. I’ll do my best to be whatever I can be.”
The Lantern shook his head. “Just... take care of yourselves, okay?”
Fennel stepped up beside Aster. “We will. You need to go.”
The Lantern hesitated. “I can’t go without some way to defend myself.”
“If you agree not to start nor support any kind of hunt for Grim, we can arrange for that.” Fennel crossed his arms, tapping his fingers.
“You’re really going to...?” He sighed in frustration.
“I didn’t say you can’t defend yourself. I asked you not to seek them out.”
“What about protecting the people they attack?”
Fennel paused. “Will you do your utmost to avoid catching Grim in the crossfire?”
“Crossf-? They’re the aggressor in that case, ‘crossfire’ doesn’t-!”
“It’s all crossfire.” Fennel fixed him with an intense gaze. “None of us here started the fights we’re trying to end. No one I know of was ever the first to invent whatever brought them to violence in the first place.” He sighed. “Please, for your own sake, don’t just fight. Fight for something.”
The Lantern stared at him, trying to sort through what he’d said.
“Will you promise just this one thing?” Aster asked, moving her cloak to reveal the crossbow, but not bringing it out yet. “You won’t hunt Grim down, and you’ll do your utmost to avoid catching them in the crossfire?”
The Lantern hesitated, then sighed. “Fine. I can do that. I will inform others about them though. I can’t control what they do.”
Fennel took a breath. “I know. But you have to explain. Give them the chance to understand why they fight, and why we don’t have to be enemies. We’re not trying to eradicate everything in the Depths. We all just want to live.”
“I’ll explain.” The Lantern looked at Aster expectantly, holding out his hand.
Aster glanced at Fennel, then handed the crossbow back, shifting so she was blocking Grim.
The Lantern nodded. “...Thanks,” he said, and broke into a run back towards the faraway entrance to the Depths.
Aster exhaled, then whipped back around to see how Grim and Hyacinth were doing. At some point, Mira had joined them, supporting Hyacinth.
“You can’t change the world like this,” Grim was saying. “It’ll fight back, it always does, and it will crush you if you aren’t willing to fight it.”
“I never said I wouldn’t fight back,” Hyacinth said. “I’m simply unwilling to pour all my effort into fighting false enemies. I don’t want to hurt anyone, and I don’t intend to gain that desire, even if I have to defend myself at times.”
“What makes you think anything you fight is a false enemy?” Grim winced, unsteady on their feet. They took a few shaky steps backward. “If they fight you, or attack someone or something you care about - doesn’t that make them into your enemy?”
“It depends on how I define it. I don’t have to accept that mark on them.” Hyacinth exhaled. He let his halberd clatter to the cavern floor, and took a step away from it, then settled on the ground. “If I had, how would I have known you didn’t have to be my enemy?” He spread out a hand, as if inviting them to sit.
Grim huffed, but Aster could tell it was getting harder for them to move or even stay awake. Mira backed away from them, giving them space. They hesitated, then sat down heavily, breathing out a sigh. “You evidently haven’t really thought this through.”
“We’re with the Shade that’s Enshrouding you. We just need to make sure you won’t follow the Lantern. No harm will come to you.”
Fennel settled down next to Hyacinth. “If you can instruct us on treating your wound, we’d be more than willing.”
Grim’s eyebrows furrowed deeply. Their gaze was fixed on the cavern floor. “No harm will come to me, while I’m Enshrouded. I believe you, or at least in that intention. But what about the harm to the creatures that Lantern has injured or killed without good reason? You can’t guarantee he’ll change his actions, nor that he won’t always instinctively default to lashing out. Will you take on a portion of the guilt for their pain?”
Aster settled on the ground behind the others, covering her lantern with a few layers of shade cloth. Hyacinth had already done the same with his. Mira walked quietly to Aster’s side, taking a seat beside her and covering her lantern in kind, glancing at Aster’s a few times to ensure she dimmed it enough.
A portion of the guilt for their pain. The dark pit in Aster’s stomach returned. False enemy...
“You have a point,” Fennel conceded. “You are right that that must be addressed. No, I don’t intend to simply accept their pain as inevitable. Maybe a piece of the guilt does fall on me, inasmuch as I prevent your efforts. I do believe that your efforts create more harm than they prevent, though.”
Grim gripped their scythe handle, which was on the ground beside them. It worried Aster at first, but it seemed more like a subconscious gesture than anything. “I’m unwilling to accept the injustices constantly done to the creatures in the Depths. Your actions feel like unwitting acceptance.”
Fennel paused.
“I understand. I’ll commit to finding another way,” Hyacinth said.
“How many will slip through the cracks as they wait for you to decide?” Grim met his gaze, a look of pleading in their eyes. “Nothing else will wait.”
Hyacinth hesitated.
Grim was having trouble keeping their eyes open. “Please... don’t forget them. All of us. Some of you are Tainted, aren’t you? You know what they’ve done to you. Don’t let them continue. Don’t let anyone else... slip through the cracks.”
“I hope we meet again,” Fennel said. “Regardless, please take care of yourself, and take care not to judge quickly or unfairly.”
Grim let out a soft, humorless laugh. It had a subtle glasslike quality to it. “I can always try.”
They slipped out of consciousness, still sitting upright.
Several seconds later, their eyes snapped open. “G’mornin, it’s Tune.”
“I don’t think it’s morning,” Aster commented without thinking.
“What does that have to do with anything?” They grinned, then winced. “Ohh, the pain is coming in now.” They untied a shade cloak Hyacinth had apparently managed to get around the wound. “I think Grim got the short end of the stick here. What do you think, Fen? In worse shape than the Lantern’s arm?”
Fennel blinked a few times. “...Fen?”
Grim-Tune snapped their fingers. “Right, I just met you today. Is ‘Fennel’ what you prefer then?”
“Uh... yes. Yep. Fennel. That’s my name.” He chuckled and scooted closer to examine the wound. “...It’s hard to tell,” he said after a moment. “Both wounds were pretty deep, but neither seem likely to be fatal, especially with treatment. I’m not yet familiar with treating Shades, much less this mirrorlike variety of Shade.” He sighed. “I wish they’d given us some information about it first.”
“I’m not sure if they know more than we do,” Grim-Tune said, examining the wound themself. “Just because they live in this body doesn’t mean they have the information they need to really understand it. I’ll tell you everything I can.”
Fennel nodded. He collected his supplies and set to work treating the wound. Aster, Hyacinth, and Mira mostly just watched, hoping to learn something, but it didn’t seem like there was much they could do to help. Aster patrolled the area periodically, a part of her constantly expecting to find something stalking them in the fog.