He is a Prince, stranded on an island in the middle of nowhere. The sea is dark and angry, the clouds overhead violent and roiling. He has not seen food, shelter, or sunlight in three days.

“What are you doing all the way out here, beloved?”

The Prince, wasting away and curled up on the sand, blearily cracks an eye open. The world blurs, goes in and out, but where there was once nothing but cold, there is now heat spreading from the tips of his fingers to the rest of his limbs. It moves slowly, carefully, as if afraid to burn.

There should be pieces of the ship he was on washed up on the shore. He’d know, he tried to find something, anything he could use to get back to civilization the first day he was stranded here.

A hand presses to his forehead, calloused and warm. The world blurs again and he realizes someone’s just moved and carried him with them—he’s being picked up, cradled close. He tries to rasp something out: Put me down, it hurts; but only manages to wheeze himself into a cough.

“Rest,” says the stranger, and against his better judgment, the Prince does.

When he wakes, he aches and hungers, but it is no longer dark and stormy. Instead of sand, he’s on a cot, and there is a fireplace to his right.

The Sun brought him here, the villagers say. When he asks, between sips of water and soup, if they mean the honest-to-god sun in the sky, a few of them laugh and say, “Well someone puts it there every day.”

Someone must have passed where he was stranded and brought him back here. An inn, it seems, with all these people checking in and out for the night.

“It was the Sun.” The barmaid stops wiping down the counter to turn to him. “We would know.”

“So would I, I think,” the Prince croaks out.

She snickers. “No, you wouldn’t. You aren’t from here, are you, boy?” She points a finger at him, eyes narrowed with mischief, with something secret. “Cause you’d know if you really were.”

A local myth, then. Which is going to help in figuring out where the hell he is now if he’s no longer shipwrecked.

“What town is this?” the Prince asks once it hurts less to speak. “And do you have a map?”

He’s in a small town called Windfair, which is surprisingly just in the countryside of his kingdom. The ship he was on was traveling south so he could meet his betrothed for the first time. When it was shipwrecked, he was nowhere near home.

It should be a month’s worth of travel for the way back here. Either he has no memory of the journey or whoever brought him here moved blindingly fast.

The first rays of sunlight peek through the curtains of his room. The innkeeper had insisted he take this very specific one for free (“If you are favored by the Sun, we must offer it.”). He turns to the sunrise as a thin strip of it bathes his profile, its warmth almost comforting.

Curious.

The Prince sends a letter to his family telling them of what’s happened. Windfair is a fortnight by horse, which should be plenty of time for him to get his strength back. The innkeeper is more than happy to let him stay due to...the Sun or whatever, so he insists on helping around in return. It’ll be good for him to be moving again, anyway.

He stumbles around less on the fourth day and starts to tire out less quickly on the seventh. Two weeks after he’s arrived in Windfair, a storm rolls into town. The innkeeper asks him to shut the stables to protect the horses from the rain and the noise, and when he returns, there is a guest in the otherwise empty inn.

The rest of the staff is quiet, staring at the guest as the man takes off his dark red hood. He turns, eyes the color of the setting sun fixing on the Prince, and says, in a voice achingly familiar:

“Oh. There you are.”

Where has he heard this man before?

“Did my family send you?” the Prince asks.

“No, I sent myself." The man chuckles, waving a hand. “I wanted to see how you were doing. You look better than when I found you.”

Oh.

“Thanks,” the Prince says.

The barmaid elbows the innkeeper beside her. The noise snaps the whole staff into gear.

A room is reserved, a meal is prepared, and a bottle of wine is brought from the kitchen. The stranger looks amused at the frenzy the inn has whipped itself into, muttering his thanks as he’s brought toward one of the loveseats near the fireplace.

“Are you alright, beloved?” the stranger asks, and though he’s turned to the struggling fire, the question is clearly directed at the Prince.

“I’m well enough.”

“Good,” the stranger says. “You were half-dead on that beach. I thought you wouldn’t make it.”

A girl sets a tray of food on the table beside his chair, head bowed. The stranger returns the gesture with a small, “Thank you,” and the girl returns to the kitchen, eyes wide and cheeks rosy.

“Are you hungry?” the stranger asks.

“No,” the Prince says, just as his stomach betrays him and makes a noise. He hasn’t had dinner yet since he had to close the stables out back.

The stranger turns to him, lips upturned with restrained laughter. He motions to the empty seat opposite his. “We can share,” he says.

The fireplace is half embers, since it was supposed to be rekindled when the stranger’s arrival threw everyone into shock, but it roars, suddenly, as if the fire were fueled on and renewed. The chill in the room abates.

Everyone else in the room freezes, staring at the flames. When the Prince hazards a glance at their faces, he finds awe instead of fear.

The Sun, they had said.

“Come,” the stranger says, “The food might get cold.”

He was shipwrecked miles and miles away from Windfair. Yet he was brought here miraculously quickly.

The Prince eyes the fireplace, and then the man (?), before he approaches the empty chair, taking a seat. Who knows what this creature can do when disobeyed?

Slowly, the rest of the staff return to their work. The Sun slides the tray of food to the Prince, not bothering to take his share of it when he’d initially offered to split.

“What are you?”’ the Prince asks.

The Sun smiles, softly.

“My name is—”

#

“The Firestorm?” The Mercenary snorts, knocks back the pint of the worst beer he’s ever tasted. “Shit’s a myth.”

“He ain’t no myth, I’m tellin’ ya!” The drunk in front of him wags a finger at his face, and he draws back to avoid getting poked in the eye. “Though I guess former royalty don’t get taught the stories of the wastelands these days.”

The Mercenary grits his teeth, thankful that most of his expression is hidden behind the massive tinted goggles he’s wearing. He wasn’t royalty, his dad just owned one of the few surviving power plants on this dying planet. If he was ever considered one, he sure as shit isn’t anymore after getting kicked out when the old man found him smuggling rice to a food bank.

“I’ve heard about him,” the Mercenary says. “But I mean, come on, man. We live in a wasteland, not a sci-fi film. Fucking fire powers.” He rolls his eyes behind his goggles and motions for the barmaid as she approaches to take his empty glass. “Can I have a refill, please?”

“He’s real, I seen’im!” the drunk beside him slurs while the barmaid takes his glass for that refill. “Eyes the color o’tha settin’ sun. Hair as black as night. Scars everywhere.”

He nods to himself, mulling over the thought like it’s fact instead of some shitty urban legend to spice up conversations in pubs.

“They say he ain’t got no heart,” the drunk says. “Can’t feel a pulse on that motherfucker.”

“Yeah, see, that’s why I call bullshit,” the Mercenary says. The barmaid sets his refilled drink in front of him, and he throws her a nod of appreciation.

“Wha’s this, then?” The drunk slams a creased and yellowed wanted poster onto the counter. A few patrons’ drinks slosh at the force, earning him a few irritated stares. The barmaid glares at him.

The Mercenary leans over to look at the poster. It says WANTED: DEAD OR ALIVE for a bounty of seven—

“Seven million?!” he chokes out, coughing as some of his beer goes down wrong.

The drunk grins, the thin scar under his left eye creasing as he does. “If ’e’s so mythical, wha’s this?”

The poster has the official military police stamp and everything. It looks old, worn from how many times it’s been folded up and unfurled, but it looks real enough. Still, though.

“I’d say someone found a working printer somehow,” the Mercenary says.

“Bah!” The drunk throws a hand up in frustration. “Fools like you. Always so easy to dismiss things not like us.”

“He looks plenty human to me.”

“They always do, don’t they?” There is a mad glint in the drunk’s eye as he chuckles lowly, fixing his gaze on the Mercenary. “Them folks who pump other people full o’rounds look plenty human too, right?”

“That’s not the same thing.”

“He’s got seven mill gold on his head.” The drunk taps the poster with a greying nail. “Monster’s a monster, aye?”

The Mercenary takes a sip of his drink and doesn’t reply.

He finishes his glass and leaves for the night before he drinks himself into an incoherent mess. He already knows the buzz in his head is going to translate into one hell of a hangover tomorrow, and he’d rather not make the oncoming suffering worse.

As he settles into bed, he takes out the crumpled wanted poster he’d swiped from the drunk. The face that stares out at him from the photo is of a man about his age, eyes soft and kind and out of place for someone wanted for seven million fucking gold, the smallest of smiles on his lips. His dark hair curls around his face, falling in waves over his shoulders.

“Do I know you...?” the Mercenary mutters out loud. He’s seen this face before, but given that this guy apparently has a wanted poster, that’s probably it. Maybe he’s just seen listings around and never really paid attention. Maybe the bounty was smaller then and he never thought to give the poster a second glance.

But it’s seven million now.

He folds the poster up and stuffs it into his jacket, then clicks off the lamp beside his moth-eaten bed, rolls over, and goes to sleep.

Everyone else in Windfair city knows as much about the Firestorm as he does. The man sounds mythical, has to be, because for all the rumors about human experimentation before most of civilization collapsed, the only proof there has been of these successful extra-human subjects were the abandoned laboratories and the piles of corpses who didn’t survive the procedures.

Nobody could have. Superpowered humans were the stuff of fiction. Human biology is so rigid that it can barely survive radiation–it was the reason why over six billion people perished in the nuclear war centuries before. Those that the bombings didn’t take, the cancers did.

If the Firestorm is real, then it’s a guy who’s letting hearsay run rampant and build him a reputation that far precedes him. It’s a good strategy to keep bounty hunters away, scare people from even trying to approach him.

Good thing for the Mercenary, he’s hungrier than he is scared of what’s probably some guy with a flamethrower.

He keeps the wanted poster in his jacket as he leaves Windfair. His next destination is Swiftriver to stock up on supplies. The city also happens to be a common pitstop for tradesmen and mercs, which means a wider pool for the exchange of information.

“The Firestorm?” asks one burly man with an eyepatch when he brings the topic up at a local pub.

The man is a traveling shoemaker, one of the few thriving trades these days since everyone needs footwear in this hellish desert they all live in now. The guy’s been to most cities on the continent.

“I dunno.” The shoemaker scratches his beard. “Ain’t he one of those things parents tell their kids to scare ’em to bed early?”

“Humor me,” the Mercenary says.

“Well, I heard somethin’ back in Phoenix,” the shoemaker says. “Hell of a name for a city. That’s just inviting something called Firestorm to come in. Anyway, yeah, heard some folks talk about it here and there. Apparently, he burnt down Witchacre Ranch."

The Mercenary raises an eyebrow. “Witchacre was him?”

“So I’ve heard.” The shoemaker shrugs. “If you ask me, I think some knucklehead just lit a cigarette too close to a pile of hay and started spouting nonsense to cover it up. How’s a ghost story gonna burn a whole ranch down?”

“A ghost with a grudge, maybe,” someone on the other side of the Mercenary says. He turns to see a tired old man in a cowboy hat, far too wasted this early in the night. “The Witchacres used to fund Better Smiles, yeah? Big reason they got off the ground as a political party.”

“Oh, did they?” the shoemaker asks.

“My nan said so.”

“Oh, well, I don’t feel too bad if they got ghosts burning down their ranches then.” The shoemaker lifts his shot of whiskey. "Here’s to BS getting their shit burned down. Karma still remembers nuclear crimes even three centuries after the fact.”

That tickles a half-forgotten history lesson in the back of the Mercenary’s head. Better Smiles was a political party from some part of what was once the Americas, the finger that pulled the trigger on the last world war–the war that spiraled into cyber attacks and power grid sabotages and attempted human supersoldiers, before concluding in a grand finale of multiple atom bombs.

If someone pretending to be a superhuman was to run around committing crimes, it would be a passable modus...though why the hell they’d be doing this centuries too late is a puzzle the Mercenary still can’t quite put together. Must be the heat getting to the guy.

“Shame he’s a legend, though,” the tired cowboy sighs. “Would be funny if someone knocked these silver spoon bastards down a peg. The Cottons still got my town’s water hostage.”

The Mercenary takes out the folded up wanted poster from his jacket, smoothing it out on the counter. “If he’s a legend, they sure have some poor bastard used as a photo of him.”

“Seven million gold!” The shoemaker stands from his seat to take a proper look. “Well I’ll be–might try my hand at bounty hunting if the military pigs want his head for that much.”

“There’s a poster for him?” The cowboy stands as well, grabbing the edge of the paper, but the Mercenary lays his hand flat on it to keep it down. He glares at the old man, who scoffs, but lets go. “Seven mill...hell of a lot you can do with that.”

Across the pub, several people are standing up and coming over to take a look at the wanted poster. The Mercenary hunches over slightly, hand still on the paper so it doesn’t get grabbed from him.

“What’s this guy’s name, Firestorm?” someone asks.

The Mercenary grunts out an affirmative.

The cowboy nudges his shoulder. “Where’d you get that poster?”

“Swiped it off a drunk guy from Windfair,” he says.

“Where’d he get it from?”

“Hell if I know.”

The man pauses. “Can I buy it off you?”

“Fuck off. Hard enough to get a physical description of this guy as it is.” The Mercenary folds the poster back up. Around him, the others are already discussing bounties and swapping whatever gossip they last heard of the Firestorm. Some are returning to their groups in disbelief at “Seven million! Imagine that!”

“You’re going storm-chasing then?” someone asks.

The Mercenary turns. The barman is wiping down an empty glass, eyes hidden behind dark glasses, a small smile on his face.

“Maybe,” the Mercenary says.

“I hear a lot of things since a lot of people pass by here,” the barman says. He sets the glass down and readjusts his apron, then ties his long dark hair up with a red ribbon. “Heard someone say they spotted some weirdo fighting military off with fire last week.”

“A week ago?” the shoemaker asks.

“It was some drifter. Came in at five and drank straight until three, if you can believe it. Iron liver, that guy. But he made a mess ’cause he was insistent the Firestorm was real, claims he saw him using his powers on military to escape.”

“And where did he see this guy?”

The barman shrugs. “Poisonfield, apparently.”

The Mercenary frowns. Poisonfield is the next town over from Swiftriver, which is the next town over from Windfair.

“That drifter you heard this from wouldn’t happen to be some guy with a scar on his cheek, would he?” the Mercenary asks, pointing to a spot right below his left eye. “Like, a line right there?”

“He was, actually,” the barman says. “Boss said to remember him ’cause he’s banned here.”

“Son of a bitch.” The Mercenary drags a hand over his face.

“What? Same guy you got the poster from?” the shoemaker asks.

He nods, and sends the pub into a frenzy as he does. The drunk had to have gotten the poster from somewhere after all, and if he was in Poisonfield, where the military was apparently caught in a skirmish with their fabled pyrokinetic, then that seven million was sounding more and more tangible by the second.

“Ah, fuck.” The Mercenary lets his head thump onto the counter. With this many people after the same guy, they’d all cannibalize each other just to grab their mark. He lifts a finger. ’Can I get another beer?”

The barman chuckles.

The pub empties quickly with people splitting off to gather intel and avoid their competition. The Mercenary sighs as he heads back to his inn to get some sleep. As appealing as the idea of leaving the hunt to the others is, he needs the money.

He heads for Poisonfield the next day. It’s a three-day ride on his solar surfer, and when he gets there, there are already familiar faces from the pub walking around, scouting the area and asking locals.

There are also several Firestorm posters on the local notice boards. Three diners have them. Four pubs have as well. There are torched and blackened slips of paper on electric posts and walls around town, which the Mercenary guesses must be the target’s doing.

Several people report a literal firefight at the edge of town. The local military chapter had chased someone out of the city, and witnesses say they saw actual arcs of fire cutting down and slashing through jeeps and bullets.

When the Mercenary heads for the spot where the fight supposedly happened, right at the border of town, there are blackened and melted hunks of…something on the desert sand. He approaches one of the lumps, crouching down in front of a shattered piece of circular glass. A busted headlamp. This used to be a jeep. Shit.

What kind of easily accessible weapon could burn down a jeep this easily? And with the way the headlamp is only broken—he takes a step back to get a better view of the remains of the vehicle. There are spots of intact metal, even though most of the thing is slag. It’s like heat was blasted at certain places.

Did they really have a pyrokinetic out here? There has to be a reasonable explanation. What kind of thing can control fire like that?

(A memory bubbles to the surface, faded and blurry, of a fireplace low on wood suddenly roaring with fire, as someone says, “Come, the food might get cold.”)

The Mercenary frowns. Now he’s just getting confused. Where’s that memory from?

He shakes his head. God, this desert heat is getting to him. He needs to go hide under some shade and take a break before he continues his investigation.

So he does just that, sleeping off his exhaustion for the rest of the afternoon before snooping around another pub again. Sadly, nobody from town knows where the Firestorm went. He’d disappeared after the fight, so while there is evidence of his existence, leads as to his whereabouts stop at the carnage outside of town.

Unsurprising. If this man has lived as an urban legend for this long, he’s good at covering up his tracks. The Mercenary will have to wait and keep his ear to the ground.

“How’d it go?’ the barman asks him when he returns to Swiftriver a month and a half later, having picked up other jobs after he left Poisonfield. No news of the Firestorm from anyone in the other towns he’s visited.

“Dead end,” he grumbles sleepily. It’s ass o’clock in the morning since he couldn’t sleep and came over for an early breakfast. “Nobody’s heard anything since Poisonfield.”

“Mm.” The barman nods sympathetically. “Maybe something will turn up. Usually does when people talk enough.”

A bell rings from the kitchen window. The barman turns to grab the Mercenary’s order and slides it over to him.

“Thanks.” The Mercenary pulls the plate over and winces as he moves his shoulder. The barman frowns as red blooms on the fabric of his shirt.

“What happened?” he asks.

“I think I ripped a stitch.”

The barman clicks his tongue and crouches down behind the counter, popping back up with a first aid kit. “Let me see, then.”

“I’m fine.”

“If you bleed all over the bar, it’s my mess to clean. So shut the fuck up and let me see that.”

He hops over the bar with practiced ease, settling into an empty seat. The Mercenary grunts as his sleeve is rolled up.

The barman starts cleaning off the blood on his skin. “Bad shootout?”

“Something like that,” the Mercenary says, trying not to wince at the sting of antiseptic hitting his wound.

“At least you were just grazed,” the barman says. The Mercenary jumps when the cotton ball he’s using to clean his wound presses down a little too painfully, causing the barman to drop it. He makes a noise of displeasure, hopping off the stool to pick it up, and as he does, his glasses slide down the bridge of his nose.

Eyes the color of the setting sun flick up and stare at the Mercenary. Aware, taunting. The Barman smiles, putting a finger to his lips in a shh gesture.

The Mercenary draws back. “You’re––”

#

“Insufferable.”

“This cage is seven feet by seven feet–”

“How the fuck do you even know how to measure in a unit humans use?”

“Kind of telling I can use it but your little human brain is struggling, isn’t it?”

The Swordsman glares at the Siren on the other side of the cage. The thing turns its chin up, messy wings flapping once and winching in, sending a scattering of feathers his way. He bats them aside, coughing from the dust stirred up.

“Do you mind?” the Swordsman grits out.

“No.”

He throws his hands up. If those fucking pirates hadn’t stolen his sword before they threw him in here with this thing, he’d hack its wings off.

The captain’s door rattles, making both of them turn to it in alarm. The Swordsman presses closer to the corner of the cage he’s in; the Siren huffs and flicks a lock of long dark hair away from his face.

The door opens, and someone drawls: “How’s my favorite circus freak doing?”

The captain of the Swiftriver Pirates is a tall, lanky man in a bright red coat with golden accents. There are dark spots on the coat today, likely from whatever the sounds of gunfire upstairs were, and there’s a splash of red on his cheek. “In a good mood to tell us how to get to Sunstone, perhaps?”

“I don’t know,” the Siren says, and then turns to the Swordsman. “How is the circus freak doing?”

The Swordsman flips him off. Shitty oversized bird.

The captain clicks his tongue, unsheathing a golden-bladed sword from the scabbard on his hip. He taps the end of it on a bar close to the Siren in warning.

“I’d sing if I were you, bird,” he says. “My patience isn’t infinite.”

To his credit, the Siren doesn’t even blink. “Your swordsmanship is nothing to brag about either. Don’t bang the fucking blade against a metal bar, you imbecile.”

The captain frowns in annoyance.

The Swordsman snorts. “He has a point. If you can’t even care for a blade like that, you might as well, you know.” He holds a hand out. “Give it back to its owner?”

“Finders keepers,” the captain says.

“Hilarious you think yourself a finder when you can’t navigate your way out of a paper bag, much less to Sunstone,” the Siren says. “If you’re any good, what’s all this for?”

He reaches down to the hair-thin golden chain that loops around his ankle, the other end of it tied to the Swordsman’s foot. He gives it a little shake.

“Fat lot of captain-ry and navigational skill you have, taking two people hostage instead of finding your way around yourself.”

The captain glares at him for that. “Watch your mouth, siren.”

“Lovely, so you can’t be trusted to watch something either if you’re making me do it.” The Siren looks the man up and down. “The gods really shat you out the disposable hatch when they made you, didn’t they?”

The Swordsman has to slap a hand over his mouth to keep himself from laughing out loud. The captain looks pissed enough as it is, and if he throws a tantrum and whacks the sword against the cage, the blade might break. The damn thing is a precious heirloom. The Swordsman’s ancestors would curse him to death and back.

The captain breathes in deeply, and thankfully, sheathes the sword back into its scabbard. He turns towards the door, bellowing out: “MILES!”

“Yes, captain?” The door swings open so Miles can peek in, singular eye not hidden under an eyepatch fixing onto his irate captain.

“Bring the chains out,” the captain says. “And tell the boys to load their guns. We’re doing target practice with our little birdie.”

The Siren bares his teeth, predator-sharp, bright red wings flaring behind him. “If you can’t even hit your goals, how are you gonna take a shot at me?”

“Quiet, you ratty little harpy.”

Miles leaves and comes back with a whole pack of men to drag their cage out of the captain’s office. The Swordsman holds onto a pair of bars to avoid being tossed around as they’re transported, the Siren doing the same.

They rise to the deck to jeers and taunts. There’s a high-pitched whistle from the crow’s nest above them, followed by hooting from the rest of the crew. The Swordsman tenses, bracing for someone to shoot or throw something.

Miles approaches the cage with a set of keys.

“Well, Feathers?” the captain asks as the metal cage door is pulled open. “Freedom awaits.”

The Siren tilts his head. “Why? Your aim shit with the cage in the way?”

The Swordsman throws him a glare, but the Siren is barely paying attention, instead crouching on the floor and picking up the thin chain pooled by his foot again.

“You even need your men to brutalize me for you?” the creature taunts. “What kind of captain are you?”

The captain storms into the cage, one finger pointed accusingly at the Siren. “I’ve had enough of you—”

The Siren darts forward, thin chain in hand, and throws it over the captain’s neck so it loops around the man’s throat like a noose. He pulls––the captain chokes.

The problem with magic chains is that they’re, well, magic. For a conditional type like this, the chain is effectively unbreakable until the set condition is fulfilled.

So as the Siren sprints to the other side of the cage, where the Swordsman is, the chain wraps tighter around the captain’s neck. It holds. It is physically indestructible.

But physics demands that if one object won’t yield to the pressure, the other will.

“Shoot, then,” the Siren says as the whole crew aims their guns at him and the Swordsman. “You wanna see how fast a man can choke when he’s dragging around dead weight?”

The captain’s face is slowly reddening as he claws at the impossibly thin metal digging into his fragile neck. Their cage is small, so the chain is short. If the Siren pulls again...the creature does just that; blood beads from the captain’s throat, dripping down towards his collar and staining it red.

“Stop! Stop!” Miles yells, motioning his hands out to make the crew stand down.

The Siren loosens his hold on the chain. “Here’s what’s going to happen,” he says, stepping forward. With his other hand, he yanks the Swordsman to his feet. “We’re going to walk off this ship with the Key–” he glances towards the stolen sword on the captain’s side emphatically”–and you can either try to recapture us or...you can sail as fast as you can to the closest port with a doctor.”

He grins, baring barracuda teeth in a challenge.

“Humans can’t survive long with oxygen cut off from their brains, right? And I imagine a crushed throat” he tugs on the chain again, and the whole crew abortedly tries to lunge forward as if to stop him, but the cage is in the way, “isn’t going to help either.”

He drags the Swordsman over to where the captain is on his knees. The man’s nails are digging into his skin now, scratching his own throat open. The Siren crouches down to meet his eyes, and the captain looks up at him, expression pleading.

“’Course, we could fight,” the Siren says. “But moving around that much with this short a chain? You cursed us to make this unbreakable, right? So it won’t break. But your flawed little fleshbag of a body?”

The Siren leans closer, laughing softly.

“It sure would,” he says, grinning. “Do you fancy a decapitation today, Captain?”

The captain starts frantically waving his hands towards his crew, motioning down to the floor. It takes the Swordsman a moment to realize he’s gesturing for them to lower their weapons.

The Siren stands, easing the pressure of the chain around the man’s neck, though not letting it fall away. “Swordsman, get the Key.”

The Swordsman hurriedly does, kneeling beside the wheezing captain to unhook the baldric from the man’s waist, transferring it to himself instead.

“Great.” The Siren grabs the back of the captain’s coat and marches towards the cage door. The Swordsman follows, glancing between him and his prey but given the creature has just threatened to decapitate someone and has enough teeth to rip a guy’s throat out, he wisely keeps his mouth shut.

Miles isn’t as smart. “Wait wait wait, where are you taking him?”

“Insurance. Take us to the nearest port,” the Siren says.

“You said you were going to leave!”

“Didn’t say when, did I?” The Siren motions his head towards the captain. “Better hurry before he gets worse or my hand slips.”

The whole crew explodes into a flurry of movement. The Siren drops the captain on the floor of the deck, bleeding and clearly lightheaded, and then sits down beside him. With nowhere else to go given the magic chain around his foot, the Swordsman follows suit.

It takes them nearly an hour to get to the nearest port in the area, Pearlisle. As Miles yells at his men to coordinate their anchoring, the Siren hoists the captain up and drags him to the edge of the ship and leans him against the railing.

“We’re flying in three, do not lose the fucking Key,” the Siren whisper-hisses to the Swordsman. “If you do, I’m going to rend the skin from your bones.”

The Swordsman frowns, hand going to the scabbard of his sword protectively. “The fuck do you want with it?”

“Relax.” The Siren rolls his eyes. “I’m just going home. You can take it back with you once you open the gate to Sunstone, and then we never have to see each other again. Pawn it off or something.”

“It’s not some cheap bauble––”

“One-two-three!” The Siren unloops the chain from the captain’s neck, grabs the Swordsman by his arm, and then shoots up into the air, leaving a trail of feathers as they both take to the sky. There are shouts below them, but the Siren is moving fast into town, zipping about left and right to avoid being shot at.

The Swordsman gives out an undignified scream, latching onto the Siren’s shoulders as he’s dragged around. His belt slips from his waist at the movement and he has to scramble to catch it so the Key doesn’t fall off.

“I told you to watch it!” the Siren snarls.

“Fucking warn a guy!”

“Calm down, you big baby, I’m not going to drop you.”

“You don’t seem to be holding on very securely, I absolutely think you’re planning to drop me!”

“Unbreakable chain, idiot,” the Siren says. “Even if I did, you’d still be hanging on.”

“That’s not helping!”

The Siren huffs, and then pulls up to a stop mid-air and tosses him upward. The Swordsman yelps, holding onto his baldric, and as he falls down, two arms wrap around his torso, catching him. The Siren flips over so they’re both parallel to the ground, wings flapping as they continue forward.

“Is that better?” the Siren asks.

“What is wrong with you!” the Swordsman yells.

“Oh, come off it. Did I drop you? Are you dead? No? Now shut the fuck up.”

The Swordsman grabs onto one of his forearms, nails digging into flesh, but the Siren doesn’t react. They fly until sunset, when the Siren decides they’re far enough away from the pirates to touch down on a clearing and let the Swordsman go.

“You are—you have so many problems.” The Swordsman heaves as he braces his hands and knees on the ground, trying not to throw up.

“Yeah, so you’ve said.” The Siren approaches the nearest tree that the chain allows him to reach, perching on its branch and proceeding to lay on it like a cat, limbs hanging, wings tucked behind him. “Find something new to say.”

“Find something–you threatened to take a man’s head off.” The Swordsman stands, whirling around to face him. The Siren just raises an eyebrow.

“You want to play moral high ground? He was gonna shoot you, you know. Only reason he kept you around is because the Key answers to you,” the Siren says. “Otherwise, you would have been shark bait.”

The Swordsman grits his teeth. He doesn’t dignify that with an answer, instead looking around the dark forest. With night falling fast, they’re going to need something to keep them warm–or the Swordsman does, at least. He has no idea if the Siren does, the thing’s probably used to the cold of the outdoors since he used to live by the sea.

“What are you doing?” the Siren asks as he starts going around the clearing, as far as the chain extends.

“We need firewood,” the Swordsman says, then, “I need firewood.”

The Siren lets out a breath, but he hops off the tree branch to help. “Just grab whatever piece of wood is big enough.”

“No, you have to find the right—

The Siren gives him an exasperated look and lifts a hand. The whole thing is suddenly engulfed in flames.

“You could do that the whole time?!” The Swordsman scrambles back in alarm.

“I wasn’t about to give those freaks another reason to keep me in a cage,” the Siren says. “Now where do you want this?”

He extends his hand to shine the light of the fire around the clearing. It bathes his face in a warm, orange glow, softening the edges of his tired expression––

(Just like it always does when he rests by a fireplace and tells stories only a god would know; just like a firestorm finding reprieve for a moment in the desert, sitting by a campfire.)

The Swordsman frowns. Huh.

“Do I know you?” he asks.

The Siren blinks. “What the hell is that supposed to mean? We were in a cage for upwards of three months?”

“No, that’s not what I meant. I…”

The Prince (what?) Mercenary (since when?)—Swordsman lifts his hands like he’s trying to grasp something, and then clenches his fists in frustration as it escapes him. “Before that. Have we met before...any of this happened? Before the pirates?”

“Not that I recall? Sunstone has been closed to humanity for thousands of years.”

The Siren snuffs out the flames in his hand, and the Swordsman can’t stop the automatic flinch he does at the sight.

What the fuck.

That gets him a head tilt from the Siren. The creature’s brows furrow in concern, and the sight is so familiar it makes the Swordsman nauseous.

“Are you alright?”

(“Are you alright, beloved?”)

The Swordsman frowns deeper, blinking rapidly, and asks, with something akin to desperation:

#

“Do I know you?”

The guy with the ratty hair turns to him in confusion, blinking tired eyes up at him. They look...holy shit, are they red? Or just a really weird brown?

“What?” Weird-eyes asks.

The Student frowns down at him. He’s sure he’s seen this guy before, otherwise the déjavu wouldn’t be this overwhelming.

“You look familiar,” he says. “Do I know you?”

Weird-eyes rubs the side of his face, exhausted. “Probably.”

“Hey, Comsci dude.” Someone pokes his shoulder, and the Student turns. One of his classmates is trying to catch his attention. “Hurry it up, we’ve got a deadline, remember?”

They drag him off to the dorm once he’s done refilling his bottle at the water cooler. A few of them sigh in relief, and he watches them curiously as they all collapse onto the couches like they’ve just fought a war.

“What?”

“Don’t talk to that dude, man,” one of them says. “Of course he looks familiar, you’ve probably seen him on the news. He set his dad on fire.”

“What?” the Student asks again, laughing nervously in confusion. That can’t be right. Otherwise, how’s the guy walking around and not in jail?

“No, I’m serious,” his classmate says. “Didn’t you hear about it a few years ago? It was all over the news. He’s some company CEO’s kid; it’s basically the only reason he’s even out here instead of in jail. His sibling batted for him and he got off with like, house arrest for a few years.”

“Huh. I heard different,” another classmate says. “I heard they just paid off the judge.”

Someone else waves a hand, insistently butting in. “No, it never went to court.”

“Oh, so it’s bullshit,” the Student says.

His classmates all shake their heads, tripping all over each other to tell their version of what they’ve heard, before the first one who’d spoken slaps a hand on the coffee table and goes, “Look, it doesn’t matter, just Google it later! Point is––dangerous dude! Steer clear!”

“I highly doubt that,” the Student says.

His classmates all give him varying looks of exasperation. Whatever. Pearlisle University is massive, he probably won’t bump into the dude again, so it’s not like he’s in that much ‘danger.’

Except they apparently share a class, because when he takes the only empty seat left for his Ethics course, his seatmate is that recognizable mop of dark, unruly hair, slumped over, asleep.

There it is again, that gripping sense of déja vu. How the guy is recognizable when they’ve only met once makes him frown as he takes his seat. He has to have met this guy before.

But it would be awkward asking him again when he already looked so uncomfortable the first time, so, maybe he’ll ask later. Maybe never. Maybe the Student just has to keep the thought at the back of his mind and figure it out when he’s not thinking about it, like a word on the tip of one’s tongue surfacing hours after a conversation.

It’s a long school year, he’ll get to it, right? They have a class together, that’s plenty of time to interact.

It’s kind of difficult with how his seatmate rarely talks, though. He communicates in hums and nods, along with the occasional clipped sentence. The curtness of his answers makes something rear at the back of the Student’s head, something cold creeping up his spine with every shy, almost-timid interaction they have. It’s like he’s staring at something that should be exactly what it is, only it’s not.

He finds himself pausing longer after every word his seatmate says, as if waiting for more, for something, but it’s never there. Only—he has no idea what he’s waiting for. Just that there’s something missing.

But it’s not like he can just say that. It’s already a miracle his seatmate even talks to him.

“You shouldn’t, you know,” one of his classmates reminds him again. “He’s dangerous.”

He’s not, he automatically thinks, and then pauses, because why on earth would he think that? They’re not close; they just sit next to each other, how would he know? Besides, if his friends were so insistent this guy was dangerous, there had to be a reason for it, right?

The Student stays up late that night, looking up his seatmate’s last name along with every other rumor he’s heard, trying to see what relevant articles he can dig up. The first result is CEO BURNT ALIVE BY OWN SON, dated six years ago, but he clicks on it anyway.

There are no photos in the article and the only name mentioned is of the victim, which makes sense considering if this was his seatmate, he would have been a minor at the time of the crime. The article fits the rumors, but there are too many holes that could make this case completely unrelated. People shared last names sometimes. Coincidence is a thing.

He ends up scrolling through whatever results he can find on the topic even into their class the next day. He barely even notices his seatmate settling in beside him, until the guy says, “Oh, you’re reading that?”

The Student flinches, because Jesus, how is he supposed to explain that he’s Googling his seatmate’s possibly-maybe-probably murder case from several years ago?

His seatmate chuckles, the first time he hears the guy even make a sound resembling that. “It’s fine,” the man says. “And before you ask, yeah, it’s real.”

“I—really?”

“It’s not like it’s a secret,” his seatmate says. “So yeah. Sure.”

The Student frowns. That didn’t sound like a guy who was proud to admit what he’d done; it was more like someone who was just tired of the accusations.

“What?” his seatmate asks.

“That’s not like you,” he says, automatic, before he can even think about what he’s saying.

“Huh?” His seatmate narrows his eyes at him. “Not like me—what, you think you know me or something?”

“That’s what I’ve been meaning to ask,” the Student says. “Because I feel like I’ve seen your face before. Do I know you?”

His seatmate eyes him warily. “No,” he says. “Probably not.”

He stands, taking his things even though class is about to start soon, so the Student grabs his wrist, an apology already on his lips—

His seatmate’s wrist is… quiet. Is it him or can he not feel a pulse?

And isn’t that such a strange thing to notice?

“... where’s your heartbeat?” the Student asks, and this time panic flashes across his seatmate’s face. The Student tastes the phantom tang of blood in his mouth. “What the hell?”

His seatmate yanks his hand out of his grip. “It’s nothing.”

“No, are you okay?” he asks. “Do you need to go to the doctor? I couldn’t…I couldn’t feel your pulse.”

“It’s fine,” his seatmate repeats. When he tries to march off, the Student tries to hold him back again, holding onto his other wrist this time, but then his fingers catch against something, and then there’s warmth staining his fingers.

He pulls his hand back. There’s blood on his fingertips.

His seatmate cradles his injured wrist carefully, turning away.

He frowns. No, it wasn’t supposed to go like this. This world wasn’t supposed to be like this, what the hell happened—

#

“—to you?”

The stranger, soaked in rainwater and standing miserably under the overhang of the coffee shop, peers up at him through strands of dark hair. “...aren’t you tired of this?”

The Florist tilts his head in slight confusion. “Huh?”

“All of this,” says the stranger. “How many times do we have to do this?”

“Huh?” the Florist repeats, because what on earth do you say to that? “I… have no idea who you are, buddy. What are you talking about?”

“Right.” The stranger nods. “Of course. I forget you get so immersed into these roles you don’t let yourself remember.”

He turns away, looking out into the downpour ahead of them. The storm is coming down so hard it’s impossible to see anything.

“Sorry,” the stranger says eventually. “It’s just—it was rough for me the last go-around.”

“...do I need to call an ambulance or…?”

“Nothing.” The stranger shakes his head, stepping back. “It’s fine. I’m fine. Just…it’s nothing.”

He turns away, walking off into the storm until he disappears from sight. The Florist raises a hand in alarm as he watches him go. He could get lost or get into an accident in this rain. He could get hurt. He could put himself in danger—

#

“—the hell happened to you?”

The stranger, soaked in rainwater and standing miserably under the overhang of the coffee shop, peers up at him through strands of dark hair.

The stranger blinks. Looks around. Takes a moment to speak.

“Sorry,” he says. “Did I go too off-script?”

The Florist tilts his head in slight confusion. “Huh?”

The stranger frowns. “What am I supposed to say to that?” he asks. “Look, sorry I’m a little out of it. But I just—like I said, it wasn’t great the last time, and I just—I’m so—”

#

“What the hell happened to you?”

“Don’t do that.”

The stranger, soaked in rainwater and standing miserably under the overhang of the coffee shop, glares up at him in anger. The Florist steps back at the sudden outburst.

“I’m trying to say something! Stop fucking resetting everything!” he yells, and is the Florist imagining it or did a sudden blast of heat just hit him? What the fuck? “Listen to me, I just want—I want to rest us for a bit, I’m so tired of this. It’s all futile anyway, it always ends the same. No matter what you change. No matter how far removed from what we originally were you try to make us, it always ends the same!”

…you can’t know that.

“Yes, I can! I can and I do! How many times have we done this, beloved?”

I don’t know.

“Because you never count. Because you always make yourself forget. But I remember. I always do, and I have to wait for you every single lifetime and it’s not always great. And I am just so tired.”

I just want to save you.

“...I know you do. I know you do, I know. But just…aren’t you exhausted?”

I’m sorry.

But I have to save you.

“You can’t.”

I will.

“You can’t.”

I will.

“You—stop—”

#

The Demon King sits on his throne, looking down at the miserable pile of bones that’s dragged into the room, wrists bound in chains. The soldiers force the Prophet on his knees, making him bow before the new ruler of the lands.

“This is the prophet?” the King asks, lips curling in distaste as he eyes the wretched creature in front of him. “It looks about as holy as a wet rag.”

There are a few snickers from the soldiers surrounding the man on the floor. The King waves a hand to dismiss them, and they bow and turn away to exit the room.

The Prophet on the floor doesn’t move, keeping his eyes down, hands braced on the carpet below him.

“Where are your gods hiding, prophet?” the King asks.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” the Prophet says, voice dry and hoarse, likely from walking all the way through a burning city and into a castle surrounded by fire and brimstone.

“I truly would,” the King says. He lazily leans an elbow on the armrest of his throne, leaning his cheek on his palm. “I’m more merciful and loyal than your divine masters, you know. Aren’t you supposed to be their prophet? And yet…” He looks the man from ash-covered head to soot-covered foot. “Where on earth are they now when one of theirs is in danger?”

“To every offer you make: no, thanks.”

“I’m being generous here,” the King plows on, ignoring him. “I just need you to tell me one thing. I’m not even going to ask for a sacrifice or an oath from you. I just need an answer.”

He smiles, empty of mirth.

“Where are your gods?”

The Prophet looks up at him then, finally, eyes the color of the setting sun fixated on him as if scrutinizing, considering. “This is a little too close to home, isn’t it?” he asks, voice dropping to a soft murmur. “And with you as a villain this time, that’s new.”

The King frowns. “Really?”

“I’m just curious,” the Sun says, rising to his feet and brushing ash off his clothes. “Why this in particular? Why something that feels like a memory?”

The Prince clenches his hand down on his right armrest, frowning. “I’m trying something,” he says. “I’m trying to see how things change the closer they are to their original iteration.”

“What’s the logic behind that?”

“Nothing changes when I place us as far away from our real selves as possible. I always lose you,” the Prince says. “So, what happens when we go the other way?”

The Sun hums, sighing tiredly as he turns toward an open window, the red-orange glow of a city on fire still visible even with the nighttime.

“Why the siege of Windfair?” the god asks quietly. “Why build upon this memory?”

The Prince says nothing. The Sun turns towards him, expectant, and he sighs.

“Because this is where it all started,” he says, looking down. He’s no longer wearing the dark clothes and jewelry of a demon king. Instead, he’s in a simple dress shirt and dark pants, the same things he’d worn the first time they properly met in that little inn. He stands. “If I’d just…”

“There was nothing you could have done,” the Sun says. “Windfair was at the edge of the kingdom.”

“It’s still part of it, isn’t it?”

“It is,” the Sun says. “But you couldn’t have made it in time.”

The Prince watches him, now also no longer in the prophet’s ruined, white garbs, but in his dark red cloak, pristine and untouched. Just how it should be.

“...How can you just be fine with it?” the Prince asks. “You’re a god. You’re supposed to be feared and respected—and what they did to you—”

“Gods wane.” The Sun shrugs. “It happens.”

“They took your heart.” The Prince’s armrest explodes into splinters as his hand crushes it to pieces. “They stuffed your body in a chest and stole you away, and they took your fucking heart for themselves.”

“That’s what invaders do.”

“Can you not be angry for yourself for once?” he hisses out.

The Sun just looks sad, his expression pitying as he looks up at the Prince. “It has been too many lifetimes,” he says. “I am too tired to be angry. I have made my peace with it.”

“Then can you not want for more?” The Prince stands from the throne, marching over to him. “After everything you’ve done for your devotees—for me whose life you saved—can you not even ask me for something?”

“Have you not done enough?” the Sun asks. “You found and ate my heart and broke the world, didn’t you? Just to put it back over and over again for my sake?”

“But I haven’t done enough,” the Prince grits out. “I haven’t—it always ends the same. I don’t get it. No matter what I change, it always, always ends the same and you always die horribly and I—”

“Beloved.” The Sun puts a hand on his arm. “Breathe. How many lives have I lived thanks to your whims?”

“That’s not the point.” The Prince draws in a breath. “I just…”

The Sun smiles at him gently. “Aren’t you tired too, my dear?”

The Prince steels his jaw, drawing away. He’s not. He will find it; the right world, the right set of circumstances, the right lifetime. He’s the only person left who believes in the Sun, who wasn’t slaughtered when the kingdom was ransacked and pillaged and invaded. He will not abandon his god now.

The Sun reaches for him once more, worried—

In the mountains, there is a dragon that guards a chest, curled up around the wooden box at nearly all hours of the day. It eats the would-be adventurers that come to take its treasure away, sleeps beside its most prized possession, and on occasion, checks it to see if what it’s protecting is alright, sound asleep.

“You can’t keep doing this,” says the Sun, body curled up inside the chest just like it had been when the soldiers who raided his temple stole him. Stripped him of his dignity and butchered him and his people like common animals. “You have to stop.”

There is a city under the ocean, and at its center is a heart.

“Beloved, you’ll destroy yourself,” says the heart, pleading. “You’ll drive yourself mad. Slow down.”

In the forests—

“You can’t keep destroying the world.”

In the sky—

“Just to put it all back together.”

In the earth—

“Because you can’t get our story right.”

But I have to.

I have to, because there has to be a place for you here. There has to be. I don’t care if fate says you have to meet such a violent, unnecessarily cruel end, I will carve a happy ending for you. If I have to tear a space for you in this uncaring universe, I will do it. If I have to drive myself mad, I will do it. It is not a question of how many hearts I can swallow to appoint myself god and shape the world—there will be a life for you and I will do it.

I want to tell you a story with a happy ending.

“But what is a happy ending, beloved? All things end—that is inevitable. There will never be a world where one of us will be hand in hand forever, no matter how many you make. Sooner or later, one of us will bury the other.
Is it a life without strife? Then it wouldn’t be a life at all, just theater, just setting, where everything is to be seen and nothing is to be lived.
Perhaps I am foolish. Perhaps I am naïve. Or perhaps I am tired of looking for happiness in endings.
Perhaps happiness is not in the way we end, but in the way we live.”

But you die in the end, we are a tragedy.

“Aren’t all stories, if they all eventually end?”

Not if the storyteller remains to tell a new one.

“And eventually, the storyteller will have to be buried, too. This is the truth—but there is no tragedy in a life well spent.
I don’t think I need a happy ending.
I think I just need a happy middle with you.
Just tell me a story.”

Tell Me a Story That Has a Happy Ending

Levi Abadilla