Wasteland - Tindomiselde - My Time At Sandrock (Video Game) [Archive of Our Own] (2024)

Chapter 1: Heat

Chapter Text

Lucy’s first sunset at Sandrock was a welcome surprise.

Periwinkle and indigo cascaded across the sky as it kissed the earth’s fiery crown, the mountain peaks of the Eufaula in an ethereal dance with the heavens. The town and its signature cliffs rose up together like a gem-encrusted claw reaching out from the shadows. Despite all warnings she was given about this place, she understood why people would settle here. The Eufaula Desert had a raw beauty that rivaled its harsh climate.

She had been toiling away, cleaning debris and cobbling together basic tools to get her new workshop up to snuff. The previous builder left the yard in a suboptimal state, and the early summer heat had given her a swift and sweaty welcome of its own. Despite the conditions, she smiled often throughout the day, focusing on the motions, breaking down the old and building the new.

Now that the sun was down and she could hardly see what she was doing, Lucy was forced to take a break for the evening. She grabbed her notebook, a pen, and an old oil lamp.

She meandered, taking in the sights as deeply as her breaths. The sand grass rustled softly as it swayed in the occasional breeze. The cactus trees reached their branches up like they were holding up the sky. In the distance, she spotted the bright flames of a handful of hot honey BBQ bumble ants. Once in a while, the evening breeze carried over a smokey sweet scent from that direction.

She found a large, flat rock atop a small hill. She scrambled up to the plateau, careful not to slip on dislodged gravel or sand. After ensuring there were no surprise rocket roosters around the bend, she swung her legs over the southward facing ledge of the rock.

Under moonlight and lamplight, she produced her notebook and pen.

Dear Nia,

I arrived safely! My first day was super busy here, so I probably won’t send this until the morning, but you won’t be able to say I didn’t write!

It’s weird being out here on my own, but I think it really was the right decision. I needed this. I need to get into my own groove. I know you understand. Maybe I’m telling myself this more than I’m telling you.

Also, I feel like I can really make a difference here. The other new builder and I made a promise to each other that we’d bring Sandrock back to its glory days. Her name is Mi-an. Even though I haven’t spoken much to her yet (it’s literally been one day, after all), I think we’re gonna be pretty good friends.

I’ve only met two other people so far today: my new boss and the old builder that Mi-an and I are replacing. The old builder is short timing it. He left the workshop a mess, but that’s okay because I do love cleaning and fixing things (all I’ve been doing today). On the other hand, I’m pretty sure my new boss is a cartoon villain come to life. I think you’d get a kick out of him.

I wish I had a camera so I could send you a photo of this place at sunset. It’s breathtaking, and I don’t know if I can really describe it with words.

It’s getting late, but I’m already thinking about work again. I’ve got a few more tasks to complete this license test, and then I can make it official and register my workshop. It’s all happening so fast. Ahh! Can you hear me screaming from over there? I’m nervous. Excited. All the things.

Your friend forever, even if you think I abandoned you for yakboys & howdys,

Lucy

She yawned. Her arms, back, and legs complained as she stood, but it was all evidence of a good day’s work.

A few days later, Lucy jogged up the hill of Main Street. She was sweating already. It was the first of many mornings where the temperatures climbed faster than the sun did. She cursed under her breath for forgetting to carry water with her, but the trip wasn’t going to take too long.

Today was the day. It was time to register her workshop and make it official. She wondered what kinds of commissions were waiting for her this morning.

Her legs made one final complaint as she crested the hill and entered Martle Square. It was deserted. Arvio, the owner of the general store, must have stepped away to make a delivery. The barber shop had no sign of life. A sign out front declared the owner’s absence for an extended period.

Lucy honed in on the large, central building at the end of the square. City Hall, dead ahead. Her heart raced as she approached the steps, but she stopped just shy of it. The notice board — well, the Wanted poster plastered to it — caught her eye. She had heard of the Sand Bandits of Sandrock and its environs, but she had not actually seen any images depicting them before.

WANTED: DEAD OR ALIVE

If you see this man, do not engage: report immediately to the Civil Corps. Any information leading to the arrest and conviction of this vile perpetrator will be rewarded handsomely, in the sum of 100,000 gols.

She furrowed her eyebrows at the hand-drawn image of a man whose face was half covered in a bandana. He wore a hat with yakmel horns affixed to either side, and he had a scar over his left eyebrow. She studied the image, wondering if she’d be able to recognize him if he just happened to waltz by her workshop with his mask off.

“Halt! Who goes there?!”

Something swooshed. Lucy shouted in surprise, stumbling back from the notice board as if it had come to life. A towering man in a cape descended from somewhere above her head, landing inches away from her. The resulting wind whipped her hair up, along with a small cloud of dust.

“Oh, it’s you. The new Builder,” the stranger said, frowning. His voice (and its evident disappointment) resonated through the empty courtyard.

Lucy stared at him. His hair sat upright, molded like clay into sharp peaks. She had to crane her neck to get a good look at his face, but she was busy eyeing his cape. He could have been mistaken for a character straight out of some obscure Old World cartoon about a superhuman species with gravity-defying hair. Super Sane Men, or something like that.

Oh boy, Lucy thought. Sandrock has a cartoon villain AND a cartoon superhero.

She swallowed hard to keep from laughing.

“I thought you were one of Logan’s gang,” the man said, narrowing his gaze at her.

“You thought I was a Sand Bandit?” She peered over his shoulder at the Wanted poster.

“Hah, silly me!” the man laughed, puffing out his chest. “You look nothing like an outlaw! And your arms…” His eyes widened at her biceps. “…are so skinny. Do you even know how to defend yourself? You know, the desert isn’t kind to the fragile.”

Lucy crossed her arms instinctively, as if that would stop him from judging them.

“I do know how to defend myself, actually,” she said, attempting to sound polite. “I trained with the Civil Corps back home.”

“Ah, the Civil Corps,” he sneered. “The fry cook of the world’s defenses. Hmm…” He stepped out in a wide stance and placed his hands on his hips. “It is decided. I, the magnificent Pen, the protector of Sandrock, as of five seconds ago, have taken it upon myself to offer you… a combat lesson!”

“Wow. What an ass…et.” She cleared her throat, blushing. “What an asset.”

She’d almost made it a whole ten seconds.

“That I am, that I am,” Pen said, evidently oblivious. “Shall we, Skinny Arms?”

“I’ll pass.”

Lucy turned to walk around him, but Pen sidestepped and blocked her path. Color rose to her cheeks. She balled her hands into fists.

“Huh? But, Skinny Arms, you can never be too careful with all these bandits about!”

Her eyes flickered over to the door of City Hall. If they weren’t right in front of it, she’d tell this guy exactly where to shove his combat lesson. Actually, maybe that was alright. She had heard the people of Sandrock were a little rough and tumble. Why not dive right in?

C’mon, Lucy, she thought. Don’t get so worked up. He’s just…eccentric.

She tried to take some deep, steadying breaths as he opened his mouth to speak again.

“And... did I mention, I’m the strongest man in the world?” Pen said.

He flexed. The fabric around his biceps stretched a bit, but only just so. Lucy guessed he had already worn out the cloth from doing this all the time.

“Sure, buddy,” Lucy said through gritted teeth. “Thanks, but no thanks.”

She needed to get away from him. There were far more important — and interesting — things to do than to stand here and convince this pompous peaco*ck that she didn’t need whatever this was from him. She maneuvered around him once again and made her way forward. She’d barely reached the top of the steps when he spoke again.

“Well, don’t blame me when you’re halfway down the gullet of a giant Geegler, Skinny Arms.”

It was the straw that broke the yakmel’s back. Lucy wheeled around. Her nostrils flared.

“You know what? If you don’t believe I can fight, why don’t I just show you?”

She marched back down the steps and looked him in the eyes with what she hoped was a dangerous ferocity. To her dismay, he only smiled brighter. It was as if he’d gotten exactly what he wanted on the Day of the Bright Sun.

“Splendid!” he cried. “But, what are you doing? Here, in front of City Hall? What are we, animals? Follow me, Skinny Arms!”

Lucy talked herself down as she followed Pen’s lead out of the sun and up the cobbled staircase past the apartments. Maybe the man was truly trying to help. She would humor him.

She was still sore from the relentless physical labor since her arrival in the town, but she could handle a sparring match early in the day. She was, by no means, a one-woman army, but she’d managed her own before. Pen would come to see that she had no need of his lessons, and then he’d leave her alone. Or, at least, put some respect on her name.

Besides, Sandrock must have hired him as a protector, right? That must mean that the Civil Corps wasn’t doing so great, which also meant that his “fry cook” comment — while insulting — was aimed at this town’s inadequate defenses. Come to think of it, she hadn’t seen anyone in a Civil Corps uniform patrolling anywhere near her workshop. Did they even exist here? They must—

“You know why I came all the way out here to serve and protect?” Pen called over his shoulder.

Oh, that was convenient, she thought. Her breathing became more labored as they pivoted away from the stairs, towards the back of the museum.

“Because this place builds toughness! If you ain’t tough, the desert will chew you up and spit you out!”

“I thought you were here to bolster the defenses or something,” Lucy said.

They crested the top of the hill and passed by the church overlooking Sandrock.

“Sure, of course. That’s part of it. But the point, Skinny, is that people here need to train often to build the toughness it takes to make it out here. Now, here we are.”

The pathway opened up to reveal the sparring ring. The sun was high enough now that it shone bright and glaring, bouncing off like laser beams from the metal of the speakers and signs on the edge of the ring.

The clinic was situated just opposite where they stood. Beyond, the land fell away. The tops of some more buildings were visible from here, but Pen was presently calling to her from the center of the ring.

“Daylight is burning, Skinny Arms. We can give you a grand tour of the place once you’ve proven your ability to survive it.”

Her head began to throb. She’d never received a headache from dealing with someone before. This was a new level of annoyance. She pictured herself knocking him out in one fell swoop.

He does look strong, she thought begrudgingly. If I can’t knock him out, I’d just love to punch him. A solid punch will make me happy.

“Pick a weapon from over there. Doesn’t matter which, all the same to me.”

She scowled at the weapon rack. The stone and wood sparring weapons had seen some wear and tear, and they were all blunted to prevent real harm. She settled on the pair of daggers. Speed and agility might be the key here.

“Alright, how do you want to do this?” Lucy asked. “Is there a countdown, do we bow, or—”

“Come at me.” He reached out an arm and gestured for her to approach.

“Just like that?” Lucy raised her eyebrows.

“Yes! Come! Come and attack me,” he called cheerfully. “I won’t fight back. Let me see what you can do!”

“Wait, what? I thought we were going to spar.”

“It’s a combat lesson, Skinny. Now, show me what you’ve got!”

With one more exasperated sigh, she charged forward. Pen just stood there, but if that’s what he wanted...

She swung once. Nothing but air. She swung a second time. Nothing.

Again and again. Each swing was followed by a quiet buffet of wind, and none made contact with their target. He moved out of the way each time.

The sun bore down on them, casting shadows across his face, carving his sickening smile deeper into his skin. Lucy struggled to catch her breath. Her head pulsed dangerously when their eyes met.

“Again,” Pen said, his voice deep and serious despite the smile on his face.

Her hands shook. Maybe doing this exercise after days of nonstop physical labor wasn’t such a great idea after all.

She gripped the daggers harder. Logic be damned. She was driven by an inexplicable need to erase that smile.

She lunged. He ducked. She raised the second dagger.

“Yawn! You’re easy to read,” he said. “Not like a book, though, because books are bor—NGH.”

Lucy jammed the hilt of the dagger into his ribs. The shock reverberated back up her forearm. He fell back two paces. She shook off the impact and advanced, but he’d recovered. He matched her steps once again, dodging, blocking. All the while, he kept his eyes locked on her.

“Okay, you can swing a weapon around. We’re all very proud of you,” he said lazily.

She pulled away from him. The clattering of her daggers echoed when she dropped them on the ground.

“I’m done,” she said, wiping sheets of sweat from her forehead. Her breath was ragged. “I don’t have anything to prove to you. This is… stupid. If you want to actually… teach me… then spar with me. Otherwise, don’t waste my time.”

Pen laughed loudly. “Alright, sheesh. We can dance for a bit, Skinny Arms, if that will make you happy, but…” He stepped closer to her until his shadow overtook her. He lowered his voice. “You sure you’re up to the challenge?”

“Get a weapon,” she said, avoiding eye contact.

She bent to retrieve the daggers. The flaming star design at the base of the ring blurred dangerously.

That can’t be good, she thought. Gotta get my sh*t together.

“Skinny Arms, seriously, you’re looking pale.” Pen’s voice was now serious.

“Get a weapon,” she said.

Pen cracked his knuckles, his red gloves crinkling with the movement.

“No need. But, have it your way, if you really want to do this.” He wasn’t smiling anymore. He backed away from her and gestured for her to approach. “Come at me. This time, I’ll hit back. Remember Skinny, I warned you. Don’t come crying to ol’ Pen if you don’t like what happens next.”

Lucy had no intention to come crying to “ol’ Pen,” but she also definitely didn’t like what happened next.

She stumbled forward. She could hear her own heartbeat, like the galloping of a horse in the distance. Or, was that an actual horse?

Pen jumped high into the air. She turned to see where he’d gone, but the movement was too much for her. The sky and nearby rooftops whirled in a sickening blend. The light of the sun began to dim.

Then, nothing.

Lucy opened her eyes. A dull ache radiated throughout her skull. The lights were bright in this place. Was she outside? No… The temperature here was cool here. Especially right around the top of her head. She was lying on something soft. Voices were floating somewhere nearby.

“I told Skinny not to push it,” Pen was saying.

“Man, can you just wait outside?” said another, unfamiliar voice.

She struggled to turn her head. Her eyes were still focusing on the ceiling above. A domed ceiling with glass windows.

“Fine, fine, but it’s spaghetti breakfast day at the Blue Moon, so do try to make it quick, Sherriff.”

“Just sit tight for five minutes, partner. Outside.”

Footsteps. A door opened. A door closed.

“Nngh,” Lucy coughed and sputtered. She was trying to reach up and touch the damp, cool towel that was laid across her forehead, but the movement caused something grainy to stir in her throat. Footsteps quickly approached.

“Easy there, partner.” The unfamiliar voice was closer this time.

Lucy tried to speak, but she only emitted a hoarse sound. Through teary eyes, she made out the rough shape of a man with an orange top nearby.

“Have some water.”

A second unfamiliar voice — oddly shrill and jarring — cried above her head, “This’ll fix ya up real good! Healthy! Good birdie!”

A glass of water appeared in front of her. She slowly propped herself up and took the it. Her vision came back into focus, and she was able to see the man — dressed in a Civil Corps uniform — who had handed it to her. He looked a little older than her, if she were to venture a guess. He had a goatee and dreads tied back.

“Justice is my name, and justice is my game. Word on the street is you’re one of our new Builders.”

She nodded at him and tried to smile. The skin on her face felt taught and dry.

“I’m the sheriff at the Civil Corps here,” Justice continued. “This here is Dr. Fang—”

He gestured toward a man with a pale, solemn face and long, flowing hair. He nodded in her direction before turning back to something at his workstation.

“—and this is Fang’s bird, X.”

“Hi, birdie!” The large raven with a toucan beak was perched atop a room divider next to Lucy’s bed.

Now we have a doctor with a support bird, she thought. My day keeps getting weirder.

“I—I’m Lucy,” she croaked. “Nice to…meet you all. What happened? How did I get here?”

Justice cringed. “Well, I was riding up on patrol when I saw Pen carrying someone toward the clinic. He said you passed out during a… combat lesson? Doc says it mighta been a case of heat exhaustion. You’re not from around these parts, I’m guessing?”

Lucy started to shake her head, but she immediately winced in pain.

“Easy, partner. The good news is that Pen caught you before you hit the ground, so you don’t have a concussion.”

She took a sip of the water, trying to picture this stranger doing anything kind like that.

“The other good news is that you were brought in before it turned into full-blown heatstroke.”

“Oh, that is good,” she said quietly.

“The Doc is just running a couple of tests to make sure you’re okay to go. Until then, just take it easy. Oh — and have some more water. We usually say ‘conserve water’ here, but I think this is a pretty important exception.”

She tried to crack a smile. Even that hurt. Justice refilled the glass, and she drank it slowly, letting the cool liquid soothe her burning throat. Her arm felt heavy, but she could feel herself regaining some strength.

“How long have I been out?” she asked.

“A couple hours? It’s 4:00.”

Lucy sighed and glanced at the domed ceiling. It was still bright outside, but the sun was now on the other side of the sky.

“This is embarrassing,” she muttered.

Justice sat down in a nearby chair and peered at her for a moment. “Hey, it happens more than you think. Tourists can’t take the heat during the summer. You’ll get used to it. Just gotta remember to stay hydrated and stay cool.”

“I was supposed to register my workshop today. My boss is gonna kill me.”

“Oh, Yan? Hey, partner, you’re no good to nobody if you’re not feeling well. He should understand that.”

Lucy silently disagreed. She made great efforts to sit upright. The room finally stayed still, but every motion took double the effort. Even her hands hurt from how hard she had been gripping the daggers.

Justice shifted in his seat. “This is kinda awkward, but if you don’t mind, I gotta get your side of the story. Then, I’ll be outta your hair.”

Lucy raised her eyebrows. “Oh, okay.”

He smiled apologetically as he retrieved a small notepad and a pencil from his jacket pocket. “It’s standard procedure. Pen says you just passed out, outta nowhere. Do you remember anything from the incident?”

“I just met him today,” she said slowly, each syllable laced with regret and shame. “He offered me combat lesson. I said no. He kept pushing, so we went for it. Then… I dunno why, but I got really amped up. I told him to fight me for real.”

Justice raised an eyebrow. “By for real, you mean…”

“Spar. Fight back. Until then, he was just standing there and dodging everything.”

“You asked him to hit you?” He looked her over, as if he was searching for bruises or scrapes.

“Not like that,” she sighed. “I just wanted a fair match. You don’t know me, but I promise, I’m not normally someone who runs around and picks fights with people. Besides, we didn’t even get to spar. He agreed, but then everything went dark.”

Justice finished the last few notes. “Alright, thank you, Lucy. This helps. Looks like I won’t have much paperwork to do after all.”

Lucy stared at the notepad. “I don’t know why I even reacted that way. Shouldn’t have let it get to me.”

She took another large gulp of water.

Justice stifled a laugh. “Take it easy on yourself, partner. You wouldn’t be the first person that Pen ticked off.”

The silent doctor walked over and handed a sheet of paper to Lucy.

Heat Exhaustion

Symptoms: Confusion, weakness, fatigue, rapid and weak pulse…

The list went on. Lucy nodded in understanding. “Ah, I see. So, this could’ve been affecting my judgment?”

Fang nodded.

“I guess the heat was really getting to me. Thank you, Doctor.”

He turned back to his work, and Justice stood up to leave.

“If you ever need anything,” Justice said, “Just flag one of us down, or come by the Civil Corps. It’s just me, Unsuur, and Captain, but we’ll do our best to help out. And, uh — no more combat lessons, understood? Pen’s not authorized to be doing that. That is absolutely outside of protocol. I’m about to have a talk with him about that.”

Lucy turned crimson. “Understood.”

As he exited the clinic, she laid back down on the medical bed and watched sparse clouds move through the sky. She would have liked to make small talk with the doctor, but she didn’t want to interrupt his work. He didn’t seem to be much of a conversationalist, in any manner.

X occasionally squawked something dramatic, which made her smile. He was a peculiar creature. She had so, so many questions, but she would save them for another day.

She could hear the muffled voices of Justice and Pen outside. She could not make out what they were saying, but it sounded like Justice was exasperated, and Pen was indignant.

In the end, it sounded like they came to some sort of agreement, and their voices faded away.

Chapter 2: Dinners & Dives

Chapter Text

“sh*t.”

Lucy was standing at her mailbox, holding a letter written on floral stationery. It was from Nia.

Heeeeeeey ‘Builder!’ Ah, it feels suuuuper weird calling you that! I think I’m just gonna stick with Lucy. Your Ma said you should’ve arrived by now, but it’s so weird, my mailbox is still completely empty!

She cringed. The letter she had written her first night in Sandrock was still sitting on her desk, forgotten in the whirlwind of events over the past week. She finished reading through her friend’s life updates and marched back inside to respond.

Nia,

Time flies, right? You might not believe me, but I had a whole letter ready to send, and then some things happened…

DON’T TELL MY MA. I kinda got hospitalized for heat exhaustion.

EVERYTHING IS OKAY. I was discharged the same day! It’s just way hotter here than I expected. And dry. And sandy.

I swear, things are a lot better now. I’m staying hydrated, I registered my workshop, and I’ve met some of the Sandrockers. Most of the folk here have been sooo welcoming. I just couldn’t take the heat at first — hahaha. Seriously, I’m having a good time despite the initial hiccup.

I’ve got a ton of work to do, in a good way. Keeps my mind busy. Mi-an and I helped install some crane lifts at the scrapyard, so you know what that means: I get to explore some ruins! I can’t WAIT to see what I find.

The first few days were rough, and I was wondering if I made a mistake, you know? Packing up my things, leaving Highwind and… all of it… behind. It was probably the stress of starting everything up. Now, I’m more excited than anything.

Your friend forever,

Lucy

She trotted back outside and put her response in the mailbox before opening the next envelope she’d received that morning. She didn’t recognize the handwriting on the outside. Not surprising. Her Ma and Nia were the only ones writing to her from home these days.

Lucy,

Hey there, newcomer! Hope you’re settling in alright. Apparently, we keep missing each other whenever you come by the Blue Moon Saloon. I like to get to know pretty much anybody who plans on living here, and that includes you! Grace has said great things about you, but I think it’s only fair that we meet face to face for a proper Sandrock welcome. I’m sure you have questions as well; I can tell you all about the way we do things around here.

If you’ve got time, drop by today or tomorrow when you’re done with work. I’ll get you a glass of Yakmel Milk on the house!

Head of the Blue Moon Saloon,

Owen

Lucy had yet to try yakmel milk, so she decided to take up the offer when she got done with work that day.

She folded up the letter, tucked it in her pocket, and headed off to the Commerce Guild. Yan’s seat was empty, but Mi-an was standing by the commission board. When she saw Lucy enter, she waved her down.

“Morning, Lucy! I was just about to grab one. Did you want to pick first? I don’t mind taking whatever’s left.”

Lucy shook her head. “Oh, no, that’s not fair. You were already here. Go ahead. I’ll wait.”

Mi-an scanned the board. “Hmm. Tell you what. There are actually two for bronze bars up here. One for Hugo and one for Heidi. Why don’t we grab one each? I’ll take Heidi’s.”

“Sounds perfect. I have to pick up a sharpening stone from Hugo later, anyway.”

They retrieved their respective assignments and studied them.

“You gotta head to the ruins, too, I’m guessing?” Lucy asked.

“Yep! Wanna come with? It’ll be nice to have some company in there. And, between you and me, I’m not sure if I can spend another dive listening to Slack rhyme everything with her own name.”

“She did tell us that if we think it’s wack…”

“Don’t say it!” Mi-an said, holding back laughter. “I don’t have the heart to tell her. She seems to really enjoy it.”

Lucy suggested using her rental yakmel (free this week, thanks to Elsie and Cooper) to help haul materials back from the ruins, and Mi-an agreed. It had taken a few tries in the beginning, but Lucy had finally gotten used to finding her footing, giving herself a boost, and doing a clumsy climb up to the seat of the saddle.

She helped Mi-an up, which was a lot more gracefully done than her own solo method.

Upon their arrival, they greeted Rocky, Krystal, and “the boys” at the scrapyard. Rocky was out front playing with Pebbles. It warmed Lucy’s heart that the same man who had nearly flattened Yan on her first day of work was so gentle and sweet with his kid.

“Look, Pebbles, it’s our new buildahs!” Krystal said. “Say hi to Mi-an and Lucy!”

“Mi-mi! Lu-Lu!” Pebbles said, doing a little wave at them.

“Yo, Builders! Got a commission for you later this week, so keep your eyes peeled!” Rocky said. “Either one of yous, it don’t matter to me, so long as I don’t spend a single gol more than I have to on that mopstick boss of yours.”

“Mob-stee,” echoed Pebbles, shaking a tiny fist.

“Consider it done!” Mi-an said cheerfully.

The builders got suited up, put out some feed for the yakmel, and made their way to the lift.

Lucy had yet to actually ride it. She swallowed hard as she looked through the gap between the platform and the edge of the cliff they were standing on. A tidal wave of vertigo hit her, and she stumbled back a few paces.

“You alright?” Mi-an asked, eyes wide. “Did you see something?”

Her knuckles turned white as she tightened her grip on the straps of the jetpack. “Uh, is this a bad time to admit that I’m scared of heights?”

“Oh, no! I had no idea,” Mi-an put a hand to her chest. “You seemed fine when we were installing the lifts.”

“That was no problem,” Lucy said. “But, um, actually riding down the platform? I’m wondering why we didn’t put more safety rails on these things.”

Mi-an stepped away from the ledge and laid a reassuring hand on Lucy’s shoulder. “Hey, look, you’ve got this, okay? Just hold onto the safety rails. Worst case, the jetpacks can make for a good backup — oh, no. Pretend I didn’t say that! No need for a backup plan!”

Color drained from Lucy’s face. “N—no. It’s fine. It’s a good point, but… uh, I got nothing.” She took a deep breath and bade herself to get her sh*t together. “You know what? Let’s go. Let’s do this.”

She nodded fervently, as if the action would magically resolve her fear of heights.

“You don’t have to force yourself,” Mi-an said, frowning. “If you want, I, uh… I can bring back extra ore for you.”

“Absolutely not,” Lucy said, furrowing her eyebrows. “I really appreciate the offer, but if I can’t ride the crane lift, then I’m not fit to do my job. Just — don’t judge me if I cry a little bit, yeah?”

“Of course not!”

She wasn’t sure if the slow ride made it better or worse. The wind whipped up the part of her hair that wasn’t strapped down with the relic scanner’s headband. Lucy had one hand holding onto the railing for dear life, while the other one went back and forth between gripping the jetpack strap and wiping sweat on her pant leg. The sounds of scrapyard work died away.

“It really is working like a dream,” Mi-an said sheepishly.

“Mm” was all Lucy could manage in response.

This is fine, she thought. I’m not fine. This is fine.

The lift finally slowed to a halt.

Mi-an hopped off the platform. “We made it! How’re you holding up, Lucy?”

Lucy leaped onto the concrete ground like a cat with a sudden bout of unhinged zoomies.

“Woooo!” Her voice echoed across the concrete.

As still as she was during the ride, she was the hopping opposite now, literally bouncing on her the balls of her feet for several seconds.

“Ugh. Sorry, had to get that out,” she said, trying to shake off the nervous energy. “Um, it wasn’t the worst thing in the world. I think. I’ll just be mentally preparing myself for the ride back up while we dive. Thanks for not judging me.”

“Oh, I’m judging you now,” Mi-an laughed. “Promise me you’re gonna bust those moves at Mason’s farewell party.”

“I’ve got even worse moves for that.”

Inside the ruins, Lucy and Mi-an agreed to split any relic findings, taking turns uncovering the scanners’ findings.

For the next few hours, they collected raw materials, swinging their pickhammers and developing their own rhythms. They had to descend a few levels before they found the tin they needed for bronze bars. By then, they were both feeling the shakiness of hunger.

Stopping for a break, they sat down on some of the softer patches of earth. Mi-an produced a package of beef jerky, and Lucy traded some salted fish for a few morsels.

“Yan already reprimanded me once for not getting a commission done fast enough,” Mi-an sighed.

“How long did you have?”

“Ten days. I finished it in three, but he said it should’ve been done in two.”

Lucy threw her a puzzled look. “What? Isn’t that a bit unreasonable?”

Mi-an shrugged. “Maybe he needs the extra days for processing paperwork? I’m not complaining, though! I’m sure he has his reasons.”

They sat in silence for a few moments, finishing their snacks. Lucy considered the “cartoon villain” statement she’d made in her unsent letter to Nia. Yan was checking all the boxes, slowly but surely.

“Ready?” Mi-an stood and helped Lucy up. “Hey, by the way, what do you think this place used to be?”

“Hmm, my first impression is pretty boring. It was an office building, maybe? We’ve seen a lot of desks in here.”

Another hour passed while worked and swapped theories on the stories that could’ve happened here, each increasingly more fantastic and far-fetched than the last. An office building turned into a high-tech apartment complex, which turned into a military complex for super soldiers.

“Speaking of tall tales,” Mi-an said, inspecting a piece of a relic that she’d just dug up. “Elsie said Owen tells stories at the saloon every Saturday night. Apparently, he knows a lot about the town’s history. I think I’m gonna check it out sometime.”

“That reminds me…” Lucy checked the time. “He sent me a letter today, asking me to come by and introduce myself.”

“Ooh, that’s nice of him!”

“Have you met him already?”

Mi-an nodded. “I told him I like spicy food, and he let me try some experimental dishes he was working on! He’s a great chef.”

“I’ve, uh, only had Grace’s cooking so far.”

They exchanged a silent look that, she was sure, translated to “I know what you want to say, and I agree, but I won’t be the one to say it out loud.” Then, they burst into laughter.

Stomach rumbling, Lucy opened the doors of the Blue Moon Saloon at seven o’clock that evening.

There were a few people already inside. Cooper, Mabel, Hugo, Catori, and Burgess were spread out between the bar area and the upstairs lounge.

Heidi and Justice were near the stage, deep in conversation with a man and a woman that Lucy hadn’t met. Both had their backs turned toward the front entrance. The woman had on a flowy white dress and bangles. The man had a pale green cloak draped over the back of his striped shirt.

Lucy hovered at the door, realizing that she had no idea what Owen looked like. Perhaps she could walk up to the people she did know and ask, but… what if he was right there? That would be embarrassing.

If only to avoid the sensation of being turned to stone via lack of courage, she shuffled over to the bar.

Oh good, she thought. I left my old life behind, defeated the crane lift, and yet, I’m scared of talking to my new neighbors.

The kitchen door swung open, and Grace appeared with a tray of drinks. Lucy smiled and waved at the familiar face.

“Grace! Good to see you!”

“Howdy,” the waitress said, setting down the tray by the cash register. “Welcome back, Lucy. Getting take-out tonight, or dining in?”

“Actually, I got an invitation from Owen to meet him here. Have you seen him? I, uh, don’t know what he looks like.”

“Right over there, partner.” Grace pointed toward Heidi and Justice’s group. “He’s the one with the striped shirt.”

“Oh, right. I’ll wait ‘til he’s done chatting,” she said, pulling a menu over.

“Can I get you a drink or something?”

“Sure. I think it’s time I tried yakmel milk.”

“One yakmel milk, coming right up!” She picked the tray back up. “Let me just get these orders out.”

“Hey, Grace, I’ll take care of our guest here. You go on ahead.”

The speaker’s voice was deep and resonant. Lucy spun around slowly, as if it had cast a spell that pulled her toward it.

It was the striped shirt. Rather, it was the wearer of the striped shirt. He was looking down at her with kind blue eyes and a matching smile.

“Welcome! I’m Owen. I reckon you’re Lucy?”

“I am!” Lucy said, reaching out for a handshake. “It’s nice to meet you.”

His hand was warm to the touch and slightly calloused.

“Likewise. Glad you were able to stop in. Go on ahead and pick a seat. I’ll get you that yakmel milk and get you something to eat. Any allergies or preferences I should worry about?”

She shook her head. “Surprise me.”

Lucy picked a booth by the front door. Heidi, Justice, and the mystery woman had left the saloon, so she didn’t have an opportunity to greet them.

She looked over at the stage. Now that she’d seen him (and heard him), she could imagine Owen regaling guests with his tales up there. He did have the voice for it.

The tables had a dark walnut stain, but she could tell that there had been no finish applied. She wondered if that was a style choice, or if it reflected the town’s need for someone who understood the importance of having dining tables protected from moisture.

Don’t think about work! she scolded herself.

Owen returned, holding a large, full tray. “Food and drinks on the house, as promised!”

He set down two colorful glasses with umbrellas stuck in them. They both had a thick, white liquid and a sprinkle of cinnamon and sugar on top.

“Yakmel milk, of course,” he explained.

He laid down the first dish: a whole fish with crispy skin, smothered in a red sauce and garnished with fresh herbs.

“This is one of our specialties: sandfish with secret sauce. Hope you don’t mind eating family style.”

“Not at all,” Lucy said, beaming the presentation.

“Good. Here’s the surprise you asked for.” He set down the second dish, presented in a large, shallow bowl. Lucy knew what it was at once.

“Highwind fried rice?” she asked, eyes wide.

Owen nodded. “I hear you’re from there, so I took the risk of making your local dish. Best case, it’s something warm and familiar. Worst case, you can teach me what the real stuff oughta be.”

“You really didn’t have to,” Lucy said, her stomach positively roaring. “That’s impressive.”

“Don’t be impressed just yet,” he chuckled. He set aside the empty serving tray and slid into the booth opposite her. “For all you know, I could’ve made it all wrong. If I did, you gotta tell me. I won’t take offense.”

“I’m not an expert, but I promise I’ll tell you if something seems off,” she said, picking up one of the pretty drinks. “Is this how people usually have yakmel milk? I’ma guess it doesn’t come out the yakmel like this, but then again, you’ve got roosters strapped with literal rockets...”

“Hah, it wouldn’t be surprising, would it? It depends on the person, but I think it’s nice to try it as a co*cktail for the first time. It’s, uh, a bit of an acquired taste. While we’re on the subject, I’d like to start us off with a toast—”

Owen raised his glass, and Lucy followed suit. Little beads of perspiration were beginning to form on the outside of the cup, cooling her hand.

“— to new beginnings and new friends!”

Clink. Lucy took a large swig. The milk was thick, though it was blended with a liqueur of some sort. At first, she tasted just the cinnamon and sugar on the surface. The drink was creamy, like one would expect from milk. Then, her face puckered as a strong punch of salt turned her saliva to brine, right before the burn of the alcohol hit. It began in the depth of her chest cavity and rose to her throat. She fought back a cough. Her cheeks turned red. Her eyes welled with tears.

“You alright there?” Owen asked, rising from his seat. “You — you knocked it back pretty hard. Usually it’s best to take a sip first.”

Lucy nodded and gave a thumbs up, blinking rapidly. The harsh flavors were now overtaken by a secondary wave of cinnamon sugar.

“Peach,” Lucy said at last, eyes watering. “That gives you a peck on the cheek, kicks you in sternum, and boops your nose. In that order.”

Owen laughed, sitting back down. “That’s one way to put it. So, you like it? Or, are you reconsidering every decision you’ve made that brought you here? Because yakmel milk is the drink in Sandrock. There are nonalcoholic versions of course…”

“I actually do like it,” Lucy said, raising her glass for another sip. This time, she made sure it was just a sip. “We don’t have anything like this in Highwind. I’ve only heard that it was an experience, which doesn’t give away much. I didn’t know what to expect.”

“Well, I’m glad you like it.”

He started to serve heaping portions of the fish and fried rice. Lucy offered to help, but he insisted on ladling everything onto her plate.

“You’re really too kind,” she said. “Back in Highwind, we — er — I was always the host. It’s weird being… hosted, I guess.”

“It is my saloon,” Owen smirked. “I wanted to show a small token of my appreciation, what with all the work that you and Mi-an have done here. I know you’re just getting started, but you two are already making a positive change.”

“I’m glad. We really want to do our part to help. It’s — it’s been a little overwhelming, getting used to the weather and the culture here, but I appreciate you taking the time out to do this.”

Owen took a sip of his yakmel milk and wiped the froth from his mustache with a napkin.

“To a newcomer, Sandrock can absolutely be overwhelming,” he said. “I figured, if there’s someone new living in this town and I don’t know ‘em, then they’re not really official, you know? Hah, that sounded really self-important. I mean, I just really want to do what I can to make ‘em feel like a part of the Sandrock family.”

He passed a hand through his black hair, from the hint of gray at his buzzed sides to the stylishly tousled ends.

“Don’t let me talk your ear off before you’ve had a chance to eat,” he said. “Dig in.”

She realized she was staring and quickly looked down at her plate. “R—right. Thanks again!” She took a bite of the fried rice. “Oh, this is unique.”

He shot her a quizzical look.

“By that, I mean it’s a little fluffier than I’m used to,” she continued quickly. “And creamier. Maybe it’s from the texture of the egg and however you prepared it. It’s also got a hint of the sourness of... yakmel milk?” She took a sip the co*cktail. “Yes, I think so. Wow, it pairs nicely, which makes sense. And… the seasoning is also a little different than what I’m used to, but I tend to go heavy on the Seesaian chili paste.”

He was staring at her with such an expression that she was afraid she’d been unclear or insulting.

“It’s delicious,” Lucy said firmly. “I — I didn’t mean any of that in a bad way. I love the spin on it.”

“N—no, it’s not that.” He recovered and laughed again. His eyes twinkled under the lamplight. “Usually people don’t get into the details, even if I ask. You sound like you know your way around a dish.”

“The fried rice, anyway.” She shrugged. “I make it a lot.”

“You’ll have to show me sometime. I’m curious.”

“I’d be happy to,” she said, hoping that she sounded as calm and collected as he did.

“What’s your take on the sandfish?”

She scooped up a portion of the dish in question and chewed slowly, letting the flavors reach their taste bud destinations.

“The texture is new to me. I’ve never had sandfish before. It’s kind of the perfect middle ground. It’s flaky without falling apart right away. It’s got a bite to it, but it’s not rubbery. The sauce is nice and garlicky, but I can’t tell what that ‘secret’ part is. Probably something local to the area, which I’ll have to figure out eventually.”

She stopped, blushing.

“I’m doing it again, aren’t I?”

“Please, do that all you want,” Owen said. “Normally I’m the one who’s talking about food nonstop. It’s refreshing.”

“You’re a great chef…” She brought the drink to her lips, if only to keep herself from bringing up the stark contrast in quality between Grace and Owen’s cooking.

She resolved to come by more often to indulge in the menu.

It doesn’t hurt that the owner is handsome, she thought. And he has the voice of a frickin’ angel.

“Well, is there anything I can shed some light on?” Owen asked after a few moments of eating and drinking. “Any questions you might have about the town?”

“Uh, let’s see…”

Lucy avoided his gaze, lest it stop her from actually thinking, and looked around for inspiration.

Burgess’s golden yellow attire was the thing that stood out the most, a color often worn by members of the Church of the Light. It took her back to the top of the hill overlooking the town, when she passed by the church with Pen.

“Alright, I’ve got one,” she said, now recalling that aggravating encounter. “Some guy was trying to give me a combat lesson the other day…”

“I reckon I know who that’d be,” Owen said quietly, holding back a laugh.

She raised her drink in acknowledgment and took a sip. “Good to know that isn’t a normal thing around here.”

“I wanna give him the benefit of the doubt. Heart’s in the right place, and all that, but his methods are a little… unique. I wouldn’t take anything he says personally. I think he does it to boost his own ego.”

“Makes sense, but he kept going on about how you need to be tough to deal with the desert. He said something about…getting stuck in the gullet of a giggler? What was that all about?”

“Ah, Geeglers. Mutant lizard people with some bad attitudes. They’ve been giving us some trouble lately. Then again, who hasn’t? With the whole Logan situation, and all…”

She listened carefully as Owen listed the dangers that Pen could’ve been alluding to, including the town’s tense history with the Geeglers and, more recently, the ex-Sandrocker Logan and his gang of bandits.

The harsh environment was its own danger, one that Lucy already got a taste of. He detailed the violent sandstorms that occasionally rocked the town and caused damage to buildings and living things alike, and he explained the mayor’s mission out in the depths of the desert to try and remedy this hardship for the town.

“I hope all that doesn’t scare you,” Owen said. “There’s plenty of us who still love this place, like myself, and we’ll all be stickin’ around, for better or for worse!”

“I’ll let you know when I’ve seen a sandstorm,” Lucy chuckled. “The other stuff doesn’t sound too bad, except for the bandit thing. This Logan guy is from Sandrock? That’s strange that he would turn on his own. From what I’ve seen so far, you all seem so closely knit.”

Owen sighed. “It was a shock to us as any. You won’t get a lot of folk talking about it outright. It’s kind of a sore subject. We all feel blindsided by what he’s doing out there.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I hope he’s caught one day.”

“You mind if I ask a question of my own?” Owen leaned back in his seat, crossing his arms.

“Not at all.”

“Don’t get me wrong — I love it here, but people haven’t exactly flocked to Sandrock to set roots down. Not lately, anyhow. What brings you here, besides the builder job? I’m sure there are other places looking for builders.”

Lucy smiled. “I’d never been out here, but there’s something… alluring about the desert. I had been stuck in the same routine for years. When I saw the advertisem*nt, I, uh…”

She considered him for a moment. Was she going to say too much? Was she about to go all-out with a sob story on this poor guy?

“I’d just closed up a long chapter of my life,” she said simply.

“Sounds like a breakup,” Owen said, raising an eyebrow.

“Something like that, I’ll admit. It’s nothing too dramatic. Just the end of an engagement in the middle of a long train ride to Lucien.”

She hadn’t anticipated saying it with such an unapologetic, straight face, but there it was.

In the middle of sipping his drink, he sputtered. “sh*t, excuse me. Caught me off guard. Damn, Lucy. You’re straight up. I like it.”

While he cleaned up the droplets of spilled yakmel milk, Lucy found herself laughing.

I like it, too, she thought. Only, you have no idea how new this is for me.

“Well, thank you,” she said, smiling. “It really wasn’t bad. We came away from the whole thing as friends. Now, I’m here! I’m starting my own career as a builder and trying to figure out what really makes me feel fulfilled in life.”

“Hey, I get it. I spent quite a few years traveling, getting to know the world. I ended up back here because I love Sandrock and it’s home for me. Might not be the same case for you and Highwind, but you owe it to yourself to see what’s out there.”

Lucy nodded appreciatively. “Exactly! When I saw the ad, it seemed like the push I needed to finally take that leap. If I can be of help to this town, then that’s just even better.”

“I assure you, you already are helping out,” Owen said. “Rocky said you and Mi-an took care of a situation down at the scrapyard in no time, after he waited months for Yan to do — well, nothing.”

“Mi-an has a crazy good work ethic. I hope I can keep up.” Lucy leaned forward a little. “Speaking of people in town, is there anyone that you think I should get to know sooner than later?”

As he gave her the rundown of Sandrockers, he was careful to shed positive light on everyone. Lucy listened with great interest, wondering if this reflected his own kindness and generosity, or if it was just a clear window into a town full of hardworking and resilient people.

Eventually, Owen got to talking about the siblings from Barnarock, Arvio and Amirah.

“You can really tell Amirah is the older sister. Actually, come to think of it, she was here when you walked in.”

Lucy recalled the woman in the white dress.

“Was she the one standing over here with you all? I wanted to go over and introduce myself and say hi to Heidi and Justice, but they left before I could.”

“Yep, that was Amirah.” He pronounced her name with the slightest hint of sweetness, like the sugar topping on the yakmel milk. “She’s the artist behind Ceramic Gate. You should stop by and check out her work sometime. She’s incredibly talented. What’s amazing is that she never lets her skills get to her head. She’s very down to earth… er—sorry, maybe I’m talking too much.”

He chuckled and ran his fingers through his hair again. It could have been the nearly-drained glass of yakmel milk, but something told Lucy that there was a hint of bashfulness in the way he talked about Amirah.

“Sounds like someone has a crush,” she said with a knowing smile.

Owen nearly spat his drink. His cheeks flushed red. “N—no, I don’t. I, er…”

“Just giving you a hard time,” she laughed. Becoming a little more serious, she raised her glass. “Thank you, Owen, for giving me the rundown of everything and being genuinely kind and welcoming. Cheers —”

“— to new beginnings,” he said, lifting his own drink, still red in the face.

“— and to new friends.”

They clinked their glasses one more time and drained them.

Chapter 3: Sand

Chapter Text

On the morning of what should’ve been Mason’s farewell party, Lucy awoke to the sound of howling wind and what seemed like rain battering her tiny house. At first, she thought she might’ve been back in Highwind. She rubbed her eyes, only to find that the action was a lot more exfoliating than expected.

“What the—?”

She was covered in a thin film of cold sand. It was on her blanket. Her face. Hands. Everything.

“What the f*ck?!”

She sat bolt upright in her bed. Something slammed against her roof. The walls shuddered. Seconds later, sand trickled through the windows she’d left open overnight.

“Oh, no. No, no, nooooo…”

She threw the blanket off — another bad decision. She coughed violently, jumping out of bed and away from the resulting dust cloud. She slammed the windows shut and hurried to the kitchen. The cabinets were thankfully unsoiled, and soon, she felt the cool relief of water on her parched tongue.

It felt like she’d been sick with allergies all night. She looked around her glorified shack of a house to assess the situation. The bedroom was by far the worst case, but all exposed surfaces had at least a thin layer of debris. The house looked like it’d been abandoned for several months.

“Okay, Lucy,” she muttered. “What do I do? Shower? If it’s just going to keep raining sand, what’s the point? Waste of water…”

She grabbed a towel and stuck it under the kitchen faucet. When it was just saturated enough, she hung her head over the basin and wrung out the water with a firm twist. The powdery granules in her hair turned into thick globs of mud.

She sighed. “f*ck me sideways.”

Desperate, she grabbed the glass of water, pouring cup after cup over her hair and into the sink until the water ran clear. An apology to Sandrock was paired with every pour.

Drying her hair with a kitchen towel, she waddled back to her room and inspected herself in the mirror.

She’d slept in a t-shirt and panties. Her exposed skin was dotted with millions of acquired freckles. She looked like a grainy photograph of herself, and some of the sand had snuck beneath her shirt. She pulled it off and tossed it. Another cloud of dust. Another groan of frustration.

The front door rattled loudly. She stuck her head into the hallway and stared at it, half-expecting it to blow open. It remained intact.

Cursing in new and creative ways, she pulled open her dresser drawers and grabbed long pants, long sleeves, and a fresh set of panties to cobble together a suitable sand-deterrent outfit. She found that the dining area was the least sandy, so she set up shop at the table there. She wiped down the surface with another damp towel and laid her clothes out.

Two windows framed the corner of the dining area, but the views were obscured by the storm outside. She told herself that, if she couldn’t see through the glass, then neither would anyone else.

The door shook. Lucy stopped, thinking that she could hear voices on the wind, but she remembered from Highwind that it was a common phenomenon. Howling wind… Or, crying wind. Whatever the case was, it was just wind.

She wiped herself down thoroughly, making multiple trips to rinse out the muck. She shivered as her damp skin was exposed to the air. With the morning sun obscured, the temperature was significantly lower than the day before.

At last, she was blissfully free of grime. Even if it was momentary, it was worth the effort. She carefully stepped into a fresh pair of panties and put on a bra. She was in the middle of putting on pants when—

“SKINNY ARRRR — oh.”

For a full heart-stopping second, Lucy thought her house had caved in. The door swung violently inward, clattering against the adjacent wall. Sand, dust, and debris made a wild dash to pile into her front room.

Then, the door was shut.

One leg through her pants, one elbow on the table to keep from falling, Lucy was in the absolute stupidest position she could never imagine, when the self-proclaimed Protector of Sandrock barged into her home.

Their eyes met. The wind outside was muffled compared to the ringing in Lucy’s crimson ears. His eyes traveled downward, assessing her situation. Then, as realization dawned on him, he turned to face the hallway.

“Huh, this is awkward,” he said loudly. Color rose to his cheeks.

“WHAT ARE YOU — WHY ARE — HOW—?!” Lucy cried. She accidentally stuck her second leg into the same pant leg as the first, and now she was like a shrill, violently thrashing caterpillar.

“Ah, Skinny Arms, it looks like it was good of me to come to your rescue today! You appear to be at odds with the elements.” His amusem*nt was thinly veiled.

“GET OUT!”

“I will, but—”

She finished jamming her pants on, nearly maiming her crotch in the process. “WHO DO—” She snatched her shirt off the table. “—YOU THINK—” She pulled her crazed face out through the top of her shirt, only to find that she had it backwards. “— YOU ARE?!”

“I’ll be outta here as soon as possible, but the Church sent me with important safety information — and supplies — for you!” He brandished a satchel toward her, chancing a glance. “Do you, uh, need some help with that situation of yours, Skinny?”

“f*ck off, Pen,” she said hoarsely, spinning her shirt around her neck until it faced forward.

“Alright, geeze. The sooner you finish your riveting battle against your garments and take this emergency sandstorm kit, the sooner I will happily f*ck all the way off.”

Lucy narrowed her gaze at him, but she had no opportunity to tell him where to shove the satchel he brought. A coughing fit took hold. She doubled over, wheezing, cursing her luck that the Narcissist of Sandrock got to witness her in such a pitiful state… again.

“F—for FACK’s s—s—aaaaake…”

She started seeing stars as she grasped helplessly at the table. A fresh towel appeared in front of her face.

“Hold this up to your nose and mouth,” Pen said. “A damp cloth helps quite a bit.”

She looked up at him through blurry tears, then back to the towel.

“It’s just water. Humidity helps.”

She closed her eyes and placed the towel over her face. The cool moisture was a balm against her irritated skin, eyes, and nose. It also provided a breathable barrier between her and the extra dust in the air.

As Lucy recovered, Pen placed the satchel on the table and leaned back against the wall, crossing his arms. She caught glimpses of him from the safe harbor of the towel. His hair was speckled with sand, and his eyes were slightly red.

“For what it’s worth, Skinny, before you think me a scoundrel with a blatant disregard for manners, I’ll have you know this: I had no intention of walking in on you while you were — like that.” She could tell he was fighting to keep a straight face. “I tried knocking.”

She furrowed her eyebrows, thinking back to the booming and rattling of the door. Had those actually been him?

“Now that you mention it, I might’ve mistaken it for the storm…” She shook her head. “You could have tried saying something, maybe? Before busting down the door, at least…”

“I did that too, but I suppose that the storm was too loud for your untrained ears to hearken to my tenor. The third knock was the charm, make no mistake. Your front entrance just happened to succumb willingly to the awesome strength of yours truly.”

He flex with one arm and gestured toward his biceps with his free hand. Lucy burst into laughter. She set the towel down and ran a hand through her hair.

“Man, I was just about to start thinking that you weren’t all that bad,” she said. “You can’t have a full conversation without talking about yourself, can you?”

“Why would I want to?” Pen said, co*cking an eyebrow. “I’m an excellent subject. You saw me flex, right? Look, I’ll do it again. Watch carefully.”

“Peach… No thanks. You’re —”

Lucy jumped. The wind kicked up with a roar outside.

“Hang on…” She furrowed her eyebrows at Pen, who was still flexing. This time, he was facing the window glass, trying to make out his own reflection. “Pen? Hey, PROTECTOR! Excuse me!”

“Hm?”

“Matilda sent you out in the middle of a storm just to deliver this package?” She grabbed the satchel. “Isn’t it dangerous to be outside during a sandstorm? It’s giving me a bad time indoors. I can’t imagine—”

Pen’s lips curled into a smirk. “I find your concern for my wellbeing both amusing and misplaced. The sand is but a gentle massage against my chiseled jawline.”

Lucy rolled her eyes and picked up the satchel. “Well, thank you for bringing this, uh, hat?” She pulled out a hard, conical shaped object with a net attached to it.

“A sandhat. There is also a mask, some goggles, and a cape that can double as a scarf. We do recommend staying indoors until the sandstorm subsides, but if you must go outside, you have your pick. Mix and match, if you will.”

“Wow, this is pretty generous of the Church.”

“Indeed,” he drawled. “These will help you move around in the sandstorm, but they sure as Light won’t help you much against the ravenous beasts that come out during the storms. For that, I recommend keeping yourself, your skinny arms, and your skinny legs indoors as much as possible.”

“My arms are not skinny,” she growled.

“They’re skinnier than mine, and ‘Skinnier Arms Than Mine’ just doesn’t have the same ring to it.”

“You can try calling me by my name.” Her eyes widened as the realization dawned on her. “You don’t even know it, do you? You never even asked.”

He shrugged. “You have been conveniently absent from my patrol route since we first met, so how am I supposed to know?”

“Well, we just, uh, haven’t crossed paths,” she stammered. Truth be told, every time she saw even the faintest glimpse of his blue, red, and white getup, she pivoted posthaste in the opposite direction.

“As far as I’m concerned, you might as well be Loosey-Goosey Noodle Arms McGee. Too many carbs, though…”

She sighed. “Now I hate that my name is actually Lucy. NONE OF THE OTHER STUFF! Just Lucy.”

“Nope, I prefer Skinny Arms,” he said, shaking his head.

“I’m not going to answer to that.”

“It’s the first thing I think of when I see you, and I’m not known for thinking, so that’s what you’re gonna get.”

She put her hands on her hips. “Pen, you are absolutely ridiculous.”

“Ridiculously charming, I know,” he said, smirking. “Anyway, as promised, I’ll leave you to… whatever dance you were doing upon my arrival. I’ve got a date with the fists of justice. That is, my judicious fists, laying into the raging monsters that threaten the town.”

“I find it very hard to take you seriously,” she said, throwing her hands up in the air. “Who talks like that?”

“The Protector of Sandrock, my dear Skinny.” He grinned widely and winked.

“Give me a brea—”

Her voice was drowned away as he opened the door. All the anger of the desert poured in for one brief moment as Pen crossed the threshold.

“Ah, HA HA HA!” he cried.

No, he’s literally crying, she thought. Tears were streaming down his face as the oncoming sand battered his eyes.

He closed the door behind him. A fresh pile of debris was left in his wake, along with a dumbfounded Lucy.

“This f*ckin’ guy,” she muttered.

For the next few hours, Lucy maintained her sanity by sealing the most troublesome structural gaps in her home, sweeping, and occasionally taking deep breaths through a damp towel. She knew it was futile to try to keep the dust out altogether, but she needed to do something to pass the time.

In the afternoon, the storm eased up a bit. She could finally see the outline of her fence through the window. She ate her lunch, listening to what sounded like gentle rain pattering against the rooftop. The sandgear that Pen had left behind was opposite her on the kitchen table.

She still had work to do, and she was certain that Yan wouldn’t take a sandstorm as an excuse to slack off for the day. She decided to take the risk of stepping outside. Worst case scenario, she could always just come right back inside and continue doing absolutely nothing.

She donned the goggles, face mask, then wrapped the scarf over her hair, tucking it into the collar of her shirt. When she opened the door, the wind greeted her with an elongated sigh. A smattering of airborne earth drummed against her clothing and goggles, like millions of microscopic fists.

Slightly more annoying than a Highwind storm, she thought. If it gets worse while I’m out, well — I guess I’ll figure it out.

Visibility was still poor, but she was able to make out the faint, faraway glow of Sandrock’s buildings. That was a major improvement from before. She got to the Commerce Guild in short order, using the bright, signature sign above the blue moon as her guide.

Inside, she found Yan with his feet on his desk, the bottoms of his shoes just barely dusted with dirt. His eyes popped open wide when she opened the door.

“What’s that? Oh! Howdy, Newbie! Here to get a commission, eh? Good for you. The others seem to be sleeping on the job!”

You look like YOU’RE sleeping on the job.

“Howdy,” Lucy said with measured politeness. “Yep. I’m on it, boss.”

She spotted a request for materials that she happened to already have in her storage, so she unpinned it from the corkboard. The requestor was Owen.

“Found one!” she said. “Catch ya later.”

There was no reply. She glanced over. Yan had evidently fallen back asleep.

An hour later, an out-of-breath Lucy wedged open the door to the Blue Moon Saloon. She had decided against picking up the rental yakmel from Cooper’s ranch, given the weather, and took it upon herself to haul a small wagon of wooden planks for delivery.

Skinny Arms my ass, she thought as she successfully brought the planks inside by herself.

The kitchen door swung open, and a surprised Owen poked his head out.

“Lucy?! Is that you?”

“Yep! Got a delivery for you. Wooden planks, from your commission,” she huffed, pointing at the planks neatly leaning against the wall. “Sorry they’re a little dusty, but I can clean them up right now!”

He shook his head. “Why are you making a delivery in the middle of a sandstorm?”

She pulled off the mask and goggles, her disheveled hair exploding out of the scarf. “Ah, I figured it was calm enough for a quick job…”

“Come here,” he said. “Don’t worry about the planks. Have some water.”

The concern in his voice struck a chord. She blushed, feeling rather silly all of a sudden.

“I’ve tracked enough dirt in here as it is,” she said.

“We live in the desert. Sand happens.”

She took a seat at the bar and accepted the glass he offered her. Owen watched her keenly, as if he was trying to figure out if she was insane. She was certain that she looked insane.

He put his hands on the bar, leaning in until he was about halfway across. “I respect your work ethic, Lucy, but take it from someone who was born and raised in the desert: don’t roll the dice with these kinds of things.”

“But, your commission—”

“— could’ve waited. It can always wait.”

She pursed her lips, considering his words. His eye contact was boring a hole into her thoughts.

“I’ll keep that in mind next time,” she said.

Owen broke into a deep chuckle. The sound rolled off the back of Lucy’s neck and down her spine. She shifted in her seat.

“I’ll take your word for it,” he said. “Now, while you’re here, are you hungry? I can whip something up really quick. We got things prepped for Mason’s party, but you know how that story goes.”

“Ah, unfortunately, I already ate. Thank you, though.” She looked around the saloon. Soft acoustic guitar music was playing from the speakers by the stage. It was just audible above the muffled wind outside. “Is it just you today? No Grace?”

He reached behind the bar and retrieved a tall bottle of amber liquid and a whiskey glass. He tilted the glass in a silent offer, but she declined.

“I told Grace not to bother coming in during a sandstorm,” he said, pouring himself a drink. “I live right next door, so it’s not a big deal for me to take care of things on my own. It’s always slow during this kinda weather. So, yeah, it’s just you and me.”

His gem-encrusted rings clinked gently against the glass. Despite all the jewelry he wore, his ring finger was distinctly barren.

She tilted her head, tapping her fingers slowly on the table. “What do you do during sandstorms, if you’re stuck inside all day? I’ve just been cleaning, but it feels pointless if the storm’s still going.”

“I think everyone is different.” He gestured with his whiskey in hand. “Some people like to stay inside and read. Maybe they’ll have a nice drink while they’re at it.”

Handsome, generous, and cultured, she thought. I need to remove myself from this situation, now.

She cleared her throat. “I better let you get to it, then.”

He chuckled and raised his eyebrow, a slightly puzzled look on his face. “That wasn’t a hint for you to leave, just to be clear.”

“Oh, I know. I appreciate that.” She cracked a smile. “It sounded cozy, and I wouldn’t want to get in the way of that kind of relaxation.”

“Having someone here is nice, too,” Owen said nonchalantly. “Kinda one of the perks of being a saloon owner. You get to know all sorts of people, and you’re almost never lacking in company, except… Y’know, days like this.”

“Mmm, no company might be better than someone who looks like she just crawled out of quicksand.” She pointed at her wild hair and her dirty clothes.

“What’re you talkin’ about? You look great,” he said, laughing. “It’s, uh, desert chic. Look at me. My pants have a ton of sand stuck to ‘em, and all I did was walk ten feet to the next building.”

She looked over the bar at his pants, which were indeed smudged with flecks of dirt.

“Oh, I never noticed,” she said, letting out a giggle. “You’re a mess!”

“Watch it,” he said, winking as he took a sip of his whiskey. “I clean up nice.”

“I bet you do,” she blurted out. Her face ablaze, she added, “Oh, I said that out loud. That sounded gross. sh*t, I’m embarrassed.”

His mouth fell open, but his quickly recovered. “Lucy! I told ya, that kind of honesty is welcome ‘round these parts. I’ll take it as a compliment, even if you didn’t mean it.”

She was stunned by his confidence. She admired it, even. “It was a compliment, in a way. Not as smooth as I’d have liked. I wish I could take compliments like that — without bursting into flames.”

“You just did,” Owen said, smirking. “I said you look great.”

Her chest tightened over her pounding heart. A small smile was on his lips, like he’d found a budding flower growing alone in the sand dunes. She felt exposed beneath his gaze, much like that flower would be against the elements. Had she had any other kind of morning, she might’ve appreciated and explored this unfamiliar territory. But feeling exposed brought her right back to the terror of being half-dressed while Pen barged in.

My stupid anxious brain, she thought. Now I need to kill this with fire.

“Well, thanks,” she managed to say with a smile. “Speaking of compliments, I met Amirah a couple days ago. She really is everything you said she is. Talented, down to earth, responsible.”

He looked taken aback for a second. “That’s — great! I knew you two would get along. There aren’t a lot of artists around here, but I think she’d stand out even if there were.” He gave her a stern look. “Before you start teasing, I talk about a lot of people this way, I reckon.”

She felt a pang of guilt for her alcohol-ridden words during their first dinner together.

“Hey, that’s fair,” she said. “I think I was trying to be silly the other night, but it came out awkward and nosy. Sorry about that.”

“No harm done.” He leaned over the bar again. “I just don’t want anybody getting the wrong idea. I like telling stories. Sometimes I get carried away with words.”

Thankful for the change in topic, she pulled at that thread. “Mi-an told me about your story nights. They’re on Saturdays, right?”

He nodded. “You should drop by. It’s always a good time.”

“I plan to.” She glanced up at the clock behind the bar. “Y’know, I should probably go home before the storm picks up again.”

“Good idea, unless you plan on staying the night,” he said. At the look on her face, he quickly pointed above them to the second floor. “We have rooms for rent.”

“I think I’ll make it home alright,” she said quickly, with a hopefully steady voice. Beneath her loose fitting clothing, her chest was rising and falling with infuriating speed. “Gotta make sure my walls don’t cave in.”

The next morning, the sun had returned with a vengeance, shining through Lucy’s bedroom windows and illuminating all the leftover dust particles from the previous day. On the bright side, much of her work seemed successful in minimizing the damage.

She hurriedly dusted off her bed again, wiped down the high priority surfaces, washed up, and got dressed. She wanted to do a deep clean of her home, but she was more concerned about the potential wreckage the storm might’ve left behind. She wondered how the other Sandrockers were faring in the aftermath of the storm. Maybe this was just another day for them.

Lucy decided to stop by Mi-an’s to check in on her and see if she wanted to join her for a survey of damages. The trip was cut short almost the moment she’d made the plan. As she crossed the train tracks, she spotted several figures ahead by the Blue Moon Saloon’s exterior stage. What remained of it, anyway.

Mi-an, Heidi, Matilda, and Owen were gathered by the collapsed ruin. The stage support had fallen in on itself, and the backdrop toppled over the mess. The signature Blue Moon sign that normally sat overhead was gone entirely, which struck Lucy as odd. There wasn’t even a broken bulb left.

“Morning,” Lucy called quietly. “Anything I can do to help here?”

“Hey, you’re here!” Mi-an said, wheeling around. “I was just about to go get you.”

Owen had not seemed to register the presence of anyone else at the moment. His shoulders were hunched, his scarf flying like a flag of surrender in the wind.

“My… beautiful… stage,” he mumbled, stricken.

“Now, now,” Matilda said, placing a hand on his shoulder. “At least no one was hurt. We can always rebuild. Speaking of which…”

She turned to Lucy and Mi-an.

“I’m glad you’re both here now,” Matilda said, pulling them aside with Heidi. “We’re in a real jam. We already postponed Mason’s farewell once due to yesterday’s storm, and now the plans are in shambles. Would you two be dears and find a way to fix this thing up?”

“Absolutely,” Lucy said.

“You got it!” Mi-an said.

“I don’t doubt you’ll be up to your eyeballs in other commissions, but I’m afraid I must insist on an official town request of the highest priority. Mason’s eager to leave, and we can’t have the ceremony without the stage.”

“I’ve got a new design already on hand,” Heidi said. “I was sorta expecting the stage to collapse one of these days, so… Here you go! There’s one for the backdrop and one for the support.”

“Leave it to us,” Lucy said, and Mi-an nodded.

“Well, you two are just a blessing on this town,” the minister said, smiling. “Now… Heidi and I are off to check on the other folks. You just let me know if you need anything.”

Lucy and Mi-an took turns assessing the diagrams and divvying up the work.

“Hey, Mi-an?” Lucy lowered her voice.“You doing alright? It was your first sandstorm too, right?”

“Y—yeah, I didn’t sleep a wink last night.” Her eyes had deep shadows under them. “I just stayed in all day. How about you?”

“I spent the whole day cleaning and trying to keep sand from getting in. Well, I did do a commission, but that was only because I got sandgear from the Church, and the storm was calmer at the time.”

Mi-an clapped a hand on her forehead. “I forgot to get a sandhat from the Church. Matilda mentioned something about that. I would’ve liked to have been able to do something productive yesterday…”

“You didn’t get one delivered?”

Mi-an gave her a puzzled look. “I don’t think one would fit in my mail. I have one of those slots that you have to stuff mail through.”

“No, I mean — nevermind… Not important. Let’s focus on the stage.”

“Alright, I’m gonna go see Qi for these diagrams,” Mi-an said. “Gotta move quickly if we want to get this done!”

Mi-an was already gone in a sprint. Lucy looked after her, wondering why she was brought a kit and Mi-an wasn’t. It just didn’t seem fair.

“Hey, Lucy?” Owen’s voice broke her train of thought.

She looked up. His hair was a little messier than usual, and his eyes had none of their usual sparkle. The suave whiskey-drinking, book-reading bartender had gone into hiding.

“If you need to, you can go ahead and salvage this here stage. I’ll let Mi-an know, too. Stage-y… would’ve wanted it that way.”

Lucy gave him a hearty pat on the shoulder. It was like hitting a slightly padded rock.

“Stage-y’s sacrifice won’t be in vain,” she tried to say in a cheerful tone.

“Thanks, Lucy.”

With no warning, he pulled her into a tight hug. She was now surrounded by padded rock.

Poor thing, she thought, unsure whether she meant Owen or herself.

She wrapped her arms around him and squeezed gently. In any other place, any other time, she would have quite enjoyed this, but the midsummer Sandrock heat was making it particularly unenjoyable. His body clamped all her sweat right back down onto her unappreciative skin.

“There’s one more thing…” He sighed, finally releasing her. “I don’t supposed you noticed… there’s something missing around here… Something very essential…”

“The Blue Moon sign?” Lucy guessed, a little breathless.

He cracked a smile. “Bingo! The Sandrock skyline just isn’t the same without it.”

“I can make you a new one,” she offered.

“It might still be out there. Don’t go through the trouble unless it’s really… gone. I have my hands full here, but—”

He let out a long, drawn-out sigh.

The poor thing, she thought again.

“I’ll look for it,” she said. “If I can’t find it, I’ll make you a new one. How’s that?”

Once again. Crushing rocks. Thin layer of padding. So much sweat.

“You’re the best, Lucy. My saloon’s just not the same without it.”

“Owen, I gotta — I gotta get started on this stuff right away,” she said into his chest, her voice muffled.

“Right,” he said, pulling away. His face was etched with concern, similar to the previous day when he saw her coming in during the storm. “Hey, judging by the direction of the wind yesterday, it might’ve gone out near some rocket roosters. Keep an eye out, alright? Not a friendly bunch. I’d consider them armed — er, winged and dangerous.”

She smiled. “Got it.”

On her way to Qi’s research center, Lucy spotted Matilda making her rounds. With everything going on that morning, she’d completely forgotten to thank her for the sandgear.

“Matilda?” Lucy called, trotting up behind her.

“Howdy again, Lucy! How can I help?”

“I just wanted to say thanks,” Lucy said, wiping sweat from her brow. “For yesterday.”

The minister gave her a confused smile. “Oh, dear. I can’t say I’m sure what you’re talkin’ about.”

“The, uh, kit delivery. The Church — you — told Pen…to bring me a sandgear kit. You know, with a sandhat? Goggles? Mask?”

Now I’m just naming types of sandgear, she thought.

The more she said, the less she felt confident that Matilda knew what she was going on about.

“I can’t say this rings a bell, Lucy,” she said, shaking her head. “The Church certainly has free equipment for use by anyone who needs it, but I wouldn’t’ve sent Pen out in the sandstorm like that. He does go out on his own accord to help the Civil Corps with the enraged animals before they get too close to town, but…”

“Hm, nevermind,” Lucy said slowly. “I misunderstood.”

“It sounds like Pen took it upon himself. That was mighty kind of him. You alright, Lucy? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Not at all. I’m alright, sorry. I got distracted thinking of how to get the stage fixed up as soon as possible.”

The minister nodded slowly. “I understand. It’s quite a lot to take in. We sure appreciate everything you’re doin’ for us.”

“I’m happy to help. I’m going to head to Qi’s for some diagrams I need. Thank you for your time, Matilda!”

As the minister continued her route, Lucy found herself stunned. The morning sun climbed over the tops of the roofs, bringing back the heat that had landed her in the clinic the day that she met Pen. Nearby, Heidi’s voice recording played over a loudspeaker, announcing the importance of preventing desertification. Sandy the camel was around here somewhere, but Matilda’s words were the ones that rang in Lucy’s head.

Pen took it upon himself.

That was mighty kind of him.

“This f*ckin’ guy,” she whispered.

Chapter 4: What's in a Name?

Chapter Text

Lucy collapsed in the chair next to Mi-an. “You as tired as I am?”

“Can’t complain,” Mi-an smiled, but her goggles — askew atop her head — said otherwise. “It’s nice to be busy!”

Most of Sandrock had come down to the Blue Moon for Mason’s farewell party. The dining tables had been brought outdoors. A cool breeze was in the air. Lucy thanked her lucky stars that she was sweat-free for the occasion.

Matilda had just finished her speech, praising Mason’s work in Sandrock and wishing him a good retirement in Portia. The man of the hour might not have been everyone’s favorite, but the imminent departure of another local hung in the air like a mist, dampening the early hum of conversation.

Owen and Grace bustled back and forth from the saloon kitchen, placing trays of food and drink on the buffet tables. Cooper and Hugo hopped onto the brand-new stage, taking their respective places with guitar and keyboard. The first song had an upbeat melody. Mabel was up front and center, swaying to the rhythm, doe-eyed at her husband.

“They’re adorable,” Lucy said. “Don’tcha think?”

Mi-an sat bolt upright. “Hm? Heh… Almost dozed off there.” She rubbed her eyes. “You think Owen has coffee? Or tea?”

“Both.” Lucy pointed at the drinks table. “They just set them out.”

“Mm, summer sand tea,” Mi-an said dreamily. “I’ll be back.”

Lucy leaned back in her chair and observed the Sandrockers. She loved people-watching; this was her first real opportunity to do so since she got here.

Mason was sitting in a lawn chair apart from everyone else, his legs spread wide and his eyes to the train station while he nursed a bottle of yakmel milk. Mort, Vivi, Heidi, and Justice were seated at the table next to Lucy and Mi-an’s.

Owen made his way over to them with a tray of drinks.

“Summer sand tea, yakmel milk, yakmel shooters on the house,” he said cheerfully. “If you’d rather somethin’ else, just say the word.”

He set down the glasses while Mort mumbled something that Lucy didn’t quite catch. Vivi shook her head.

“C’mon y’all,” Owen said. “The music’s great. Let’s have some fun! We can worry about the town’s prospects later.”

The elderly man cleared his throat. Lucy leaned slightly in their direction, interested in what he had to say.

“Why, yes, Owen. There’s no need to worry about our prospects, as we have no prospects to worry about…”

“Hey, gramps,” Justice piped up. “You’re killin’ the vibe, man. What’s with all the doom and gloom? Sandrock is on the up and up, ya hear? Soon everything’s going to be smooth sailin’. I truly believe it!”

“Justice is right,” Owen said. “We have a lot to look forward to. Two new Builders, Trudy’s close to a breakthrough… Everything will be alright for Sandrock.”

Lucy watched as he excused himself to continue serving drinks, touched by his optimism. He had traveled all around and chose to come back to Sandrock. This place couldn’t be as doomed as some would make it seem.

“Now, Mort, you hear these young folks talkin’?” Vivi said. “They got what we ain’t had for a long time: hope.”

“Exactly, Gran,” Heidi said. “I got so many plans we ain’t tried yet. We got this new stage up in no time flat. The new builders are somethin’! Imagine what else we can do if we just put our heads together…”

Mi-an returned to Lucy’s table with tea in hand, Elsie in tow, and a bemused expression on her face.

“YEE-HAW!” Elsie hollered, slamming down three cups of yakmel milk.

The sweet-and-salty-and-fire liquid sloshed violently, some spilling onto the table.

“Elsie, watch it!” Lucy cried weakly. “We just finished fixing up half the town. Don’t get me started on water damage.”

Elsie shot her a dumbfounded look. “The heck ya’ talking about? This ain’t even water. Drink up!”

“I gotta wake up first,” Mi-an said, pointing to her tea.

“Screw it,” Lucy said, defeated. “It’s been a long week. Cheers.”

Just then, Owen reappeared, a single drink in hand and a wide grin on his face. “Hey, hang on. Let me get in on that. I wanna make a special toast!”

The girls exchanged confused glances as he took long strides toward the stage. The music stopped abruptly. Hugo was nodding along with whatever Owen was saying, but Cooper stared daggers with his beady eyes.

“Now wait just a darn minute,” he said, leaning into the mic so his voice echoed loudly. “Where d’you get off thinkin’ you can just willy nilly—”

“Cooper, let it go,” Mabel said.

“—Alright, alright. But lemme just say this, and I’ll be quick, ‘cause I ain’t got all day to teach you a lesson in manners. I mean, I got time, but we ain’t got time. Time is an important thing to some, ‘specially if ya never really know how much time you got left—”

“Cooper,” Mabel said, a warning in her voice.

“All I’m sayin’ is — you owe me one of ‘em fancy yakmel shooters! Go on then.”

He cleared the way, and Owen grabbed the mic.

“My bad, Cooper,” he said, running his hands through his hair. “You’ll get that yakmel shooter, I promise. Now… I’d like to raise a toast, so if y’all don’t mind holdin’ up your drink…”

Slowly, hands and glasses were raised in the sunlight, a constellation of sparkling refreshments.

“While we’ll miss Mason and all the work he’s done for us over the years, we oughta recognize two builders who have made it their business to call Sandrock home.”

Eyes were now on Lucy and Mi-an. They blushed in unison.

“Within days of getting here, they fixed up that crane lift for Rocky.”

Rocky and the boys cheered.

“They made some much-needed repairs and built benches, without even being asked.”

Lucy gave Mi-an a nudge. “All your idea,” she whispered.

“And Lucy…” Owen flashed her a mischievous smile. “Well, she tackled her first sandstorm head-on. She took it upon herself to do a commission and hand-delivered it!”

The crowd murmured with concern.

Cooper whistled. “That there’s some real hard-headed tomfoolery if I ever seen it!”

Lucy started sliding down her chair.

“Keep it up,” Cooper continued, “and folk’ll think yer from ‘round these parts! Soundin’ like one of us already, I tell ya!”

Everyone burst into laughter. A wave of relief washed over her, but she was now halfway down her seat. She could hardly see over the edge of the table. Maybe it was better this way.

“Exactly,” said Owen. “Not only are Lucy and Mi-an skilled, but they’ve already shown they care about this home of ours. And… I’m thinkin’ they’ve got the fight in them that Sandrock needs. I dunno about y’all, but I’m looking forward to our future here.” He raised his glass sky-high. “To the builders!”

“To the builders!” the crowd echoed.

Glasses were clinked together. Drinks were drunk. Chatter rose again like a tidal wave. Coogo resumed control of the stage with an upbeat tune. Owen returned to Lucy’s table to see her in a puddle-like state.

“Need help?” he asked, smirking.

“I’m good, thanks.” She pulled herself up. Feigning anger, she added, “Thanks for calling me out!”

Mi-an let out a strained laugh. “I thought it was sweet…”

“Thank you, Mi-an. I meant it all, too,” Owen said, chuckling. “Besides, it seems to have lightened the mood a bit. Now the party can really get started.”

Lucy had to admit it. The atmosphere had significantly improved.

“I’ll cheers again to that!” Elsie said.

She clashed her drink with the three of theirs and chugged for a solid five seconds before slamming the cup down again. Some droplets sailed straight up.

“Say it with me, y’all. YEE-HAW!!”

“Damn, Elsie,” Lucy laughed. “Yee-haw.”

Things picked up steam as the sun lowered in the sky. Conversation, music, and raucous laughter filled the air. Mort retired early. According to him, the oncoming frivolity was best left to the young folk.

Mi-an and Elsie had left to another table in a heated discussion. Lucy guessed what it was about, since she caught the words “work” and “relax” several times. It was the cue for her to leave her social bunker and make her rounds.

Arvio and Catori were nearby, gesturing energetically at one another. She wanted none of that conversation, but she overheard them as she passed.

“Catori, listen, it’s a genius idea!” Arvio said, pointing at himself. “With this charming face…”

“You can’t just put your face on everything and call it marketing,” Catori groaned. “You’re real cute and whatnot, Arvio, but that ain’t it!”

“Huh?! You put your name on everything! Catori this, Catori that…”

“Th—that’s not the same! That’s branding!”

“My face is branding! It’s meee! Helloooo…”

Lucy snickered to herself.

She found Unsuur standing near the drinks table. Captain was sitting by his side, watching the festivities with a discerning eye.

“Hey, Lucy. Here to say hi to Captain?”

“Saying hi to you, too, Unsuur!”

“Cool. Hey.” He scratched his head. “Oh right, I already said that.”

She stooped and offered Captain her hand. He gave it a sniff and seemed satisfied with the greeting. She followed up with affectionate scratches behind the ears, and he purred in approval.

“What’s new with you, Unsuur?” Lucy asked, standing back up.

“I’m thinking about how many drops of water there are on all the glasses.”

She raised an eyebrow. “The ones people are holding, or the ones on the table?”

He tilted his head. “That’s an important detail, isn’t it? Which do you think I should count?”

“Hm…” She was on her second co*cktail, and now she was gleefully turning the concept over. “If you’re counting the ones that people are holding, that’s a tough one, ‘cause they’re constantly moving around…”

“Right. If I’m in the middle of counting, and I get to thirty, what if the person changes their grip? One bead water can turn into zero, or it can turn into another ten, depending on the movement and if it’s being absorbed by something.”

“Speaking of absorption, the glasses on the tables have their own problems. The water will drip onto the surface below. If the table is not sealed against moisture, you’re at risk for water damage. That… That’s not related to this topic, but man…”

Unsuur smiled. “You’ve given me a lot to think about, Lucy. Thanks.”

Without another word, he pulled up a chair and took a seat close to the collection of beverages. Grace, who was nearby, shot Lucy a quizzical look.

“He’s got questions that need answering,” Lucy said, holding back a giggle.

“Careful, partner,” Grace said to Unsuur. “You look at those drinks long enough, you’re gonna make people think I did something to them.”

The yakmel milk was a pickhammer to the wall of Lucy’s social anxiety, allowing her to float between the different social groups.

Krystal and Dan-bi were talking about child-rearing and family matters. Rocky, Rian, and the salvage yard crew were playing Critters. Miguel and Burgess were talking about the Light, as always. She did not bother visiting with Mason or Yan, who were huddled in their own shady corner with an abundance of booze.

Before long, sunset bloomed in the sky. Lucy stopped in her tracks, enthralled by the gentle cascade of colors around them. Not a single cloud was in sight for miles. A soothing gradient of blue, periwinkle, and lavender nestled down into the arms of the golden earth. Lucy held her drink close to her chest. The beauty of the land and the warm atmosphere of the party gave her a deep sense of comfort, like the embrace of a loved one.

Two figures emerged from the east end of town, pulling a large wagon. The taller of the two wore a rugged cloak and a sun hat. Lucy had never been formally introduced, but Mi-an had told her about Zeke, Mort’s adopted son who managed the Moisture Farm at the northern outskirts of Sandrock.

The other man was Pen. She had not run into him since the morning of the sandstorm. She almost didn’t recognize him without the smug look on his face, but the cape gave it away.

Owen and Justice joined them in short order. They picked a level spot several yards away, partially shielded on one side by a large outcrop of rock. They laced together softwood twigs and branches to form a circular base on the ground.

“Howdy, Lucy! Whatcha doing out here by yourself?”

Lucy stirred as if waking from a dream. She had ended up halfway between the Blue Moon and the train station. Heidi and Amirah had joined her. Amirah’s jewelry glistened with fire in the setting sun.

“I was just enjoying the sunset,” Lucy said. “They’re incredible here. I’m still not used to it.”

“Makes sense. I think you earned yourself a lil’ break,” Heidi said. “Great job on the stage. I knew you and Mi-an were the real deal.”

“Thanks to your diagrams, of course. The new design has so much personality.”

“Shucks, sounds like we all make a great team.”

At the bonfire site, Pen lifted a piece of hardwood over his shoulder — big enough to have been the trunk of a young tree — and placed it alongside others atop the kindling. Owen drizzled lighter fluid over the stack. Justice struck a match and lit the bonfire. The flames moved slowly at first. With ravenous hunger, they picked up speed and spread across the base.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Amirah said quietly. “Raw, destructive power, bestowing such a kind gift of illumination and warmth.”

“Eloquent as always,” Heidi said. She shot Amirah a meaningful look. “You’re talkin’ about the bonfire, right?”

Amirah’s voice got a little higher. “Y—yes, of course. I’d like to paint a scene like this. A bonfire over the skyline at sunset.”

Lucy smiled to herself. Surely Heidi was teasing Amirah about Owen, just as she had teased Owen about Amirah. Maybe something was going on between the two of them, and everyone knew it but them.

The architect and the artist fell into a conversation that Lucy didn’t quite catch. She was mesmerized by the bonfire, whose flames were now crawling up the hardwood logs, wreathing every inch in gold and amber as it went. The sandy earth was bathed in a warm glow that danced with delight to Coogo’s music. The sun disappeared quickly beyond the horizon. Darkness came to claim the land. This bonfire and the Sandrockers’ revelry were the last bastion against the still desert night.

“Hey Lucy,” Heidi said. “You thinkin’ of dancing with anyone tonight?”

The builder’s eyes widened. “Is there a ceremony or something?”

“Nah, I was just curious. My Gran and Grandad used to slow dance at every function. Ever since he passed, she likes to try and get everyone else to partner up and dance. I reckon it brings back good memories for her. She might be comin’ after you later.”

Amirah leaned over and gave Lucy a reassuring look. “Don’t feel pressured. Vivi’s been quite kind to me about it. I haven’t danced with anyone at any of these parties.”

“Not for a lack of choices,” Heidi said with a smirk.

“I haven’t danced with anyone in a long time,” Lucy said thoughtfully. “I used to love it, but my ex hated dancing. It was such a pain to drag him out, so I stopped trying.”

“Well, now you got the chance. Something to think about.”

Lucy took a long sip of her yakmel milk. Heidi’s words struck her like a sandstorm. No one was here to hold her back or discourage her. Maybe she would dance tonight.

Zeke started heading back the way he came, taking the wagon with him, while Owen and Justice returned to the crowd.

“Ah, Zeke is leaving,” Heidi said. “He oughta let loose once in a while, but I guess that’s just the way he is.”

Pen was left standing alone by the bonfire, facing Lucy’s direction. His arms were crossed as he watched the flames, his cape blowing in the gentle breeze. She wasn’t sure if it was a trick of the light, but she thought she noticed a purple hue to his dark hair.

Slowly, his gaze moved away from the fire and found… her.

A sliver of a smile appeared on his face. It lingered long enough for her to be certain it was neither smirk nor leer. He nodded ever so slightly — a wordless greeting. The firelight and shadows played with his features, accentuating each line and curve of his face.

Lucy’s chest tightened.

“I forgot,” she blurted out, turning away. “I, uh… I was gonna go check on Mi-an.”

“I’ll go with ya,” Heidi said. “Gonna grab another drink on the way.”

“Good idea. I—I’d like one, too.”

“Uh, you’re holding one. It’s half full.”

“Huh? Whoa! Would ya look at that?” Lucy’s cheeks burned. She took a large swig to cool herself down.

“I’ll catch you two later,” Amirah said. “I’m going to take a look at what’s on the dessert menu.

“Hm, she doesn’t normally like sweets,” Heidi mused. “Oh… I wish Pablo was back. He’d have something to say about this.”

Lucy followed her gaze. Amirah’s back was turned to them as she approached the dessert table, where Owen was arranging plates. His face lit up when he saw her, and he started pointing to various dishes on offer. He most likely said something silly. He ran his fingers through his hair, and her shoulders shook softly with laughter.

“Now you got me curious,” Lucy said. “Who’s Pablo? What would he say?”

“Oh, you’ll know him when you meet him. He’s outta town right now. He’s our local hairdresser. Hm… I’m thinkin’ he might say something like, ‘She found a snack she wants to sample.’”

A cackle surged forth. Lucy convulsed as she covered her mouth, trying to stop the laughter from spilling out. “Heidi!” she choked.

The architect swept an arm around her and ushered her away with such force that it nearly knocked the wind out of her.

“Shh! Don’t get me in trouble!” Heidi whispered, giggling. “C’mon, let’s go.”

Lucy and Heidi found Mi-an asleep at the original table. Her head was atop her folded arms, like she’d passed out in the middle of a lecture. Her goggles had fallen off, and she was snoring. Elsie was at the far end, making kissing and babbling noises at Captain. He looked at her with vague disinterest.

“I think I oughta walk Mi-an home,” Lucy said. “She’s been tuckered out for days.”

A slow, romantic guitar track started playing over the speakers.

“Good idea,” Heidi said, glancing over her shoulder. “My Gran’s gonna be on the prowl in a minute.”

Lucy gently nudged Mi-an. “Hey, let’s get you home.”

“Nngh?” Mi-an mumbled.

They carefully pulled her off the chair and looped her goggles around her neck. Her head lolled dangerously with every movement, and her limbs refused to cooperate.

“This is gonna be a struggle,” Lucy wheezed.

Unsuur arrived in the nick of time.

“Hey, need help?” he asked. “Turns out I couldn’t get a consistent count of the water droplets, so I just watched them turn into bigger droplets. It was pretty intense, like high stakes paint drying. I see what you mean about the water on the table.”

“Y—yup,” Lucy huffed. “We’re trying to get Mi-an home.”

“I’m… ‘kaaay,” Mi-an yawned, eyes still shut, dangling like a limp doll between Heidi and Lucy.

“I can take her,” Unsuur said. With surprising deftness, he managed to get her into a comfortable position, leaning her head on his shoulder and wrapping an arm around her to keep her steady. “This kinda falls under the umbrella of official Civil Corps duties. We make sure people are safe. I can only do that if I have eyes on the situation. No offense, but I haven’t seen either of you walk anyone home before.”

The remaining builder and the architect sat down next to each other, watching as he steered Mi-an in the right direction.

“Unsuur is a good guy,” Heidi said. “He’s got his quirks, but he’s been real helpful to Justice ever since he joined the Civil Corps.”

Cooper and Mable got up and began to slow dance, their steps well-practiced and nimble.

“I guess everyone has their quirks, huh?” Lucy pointed her thumb at Elsie. “She loves animals. Unsuur loves rocks. Pen loves Pen.”

Heidi choked on her drink. “Hah! He sure does. That guy’s a piece of work.”

Lucy found herself looking over at the bonfire. Some people had gathered near it, but Pen was no longer there.

Hugo returned to his piano, adding a lovely layer to the acoustic guitar on the speakers. Cooper and Mabel did a little twirl. Soon, others began to trickle onto the makeshift dancefloor in front of the stage. Rocky and Krystal arrived, swinging Pebbles between them. Rian and Dan-bi followed suit, shuffling awkwardly until they found a rhythm.

“Here she goes,” Heidi mumbled, gesturing toward the next table, where Vivi was staring down Justice, hands on her hips. “She’s probably guilting Justice into asking some poor girl to dance. It’s only a matter of time before she comes for me, too. I’d run, but she’s my Gran and she knows where I live. Save yourself, Lucy.”

“Hey, everyone knows where I live, including your Gran. My house sticks out like a sore thumb.”

Lucy did not, in fact, save herself. Too curious, she eavesdropped on the exchange instead.

“Maurice, if you don’t get off yo’ butt and ask her to dance…”

Justice groaned. “C’mon, Viv, I told you not to call me that.”

“Go ask her. I see the way you’re lookin’ at her. Go on now, or I’m draggin’ you out there myself…”

With a defeated sigh, Justice turned away from Vivi. He smoothed out his goatee and walked slowly toward their table. He was looking at Heidi.

Lucy could hardly contain her glee as Heidi took a second longer to make the connection. When she did, she blushed so hard she could’ve started to glow like bonfire embers.

“Hey, Heidi,” Justice said as he approached. “Look… There’s no pressure or anything, but if you, uh, wanna dance — I mean, with me. If you wanna dance with me…”

The two of them looked anywhere but at each other. Lucy wished she could turn into a wisp of cloud and float away. But she was also certain that they’d hightail it at any sudden movement.

“Yeah, let’s go. C’mon.” Heidi said quickly, gesturing for Justice to follow her.

Justice turned to Lucy and furrowed his eyebrows. “Did I actually ask her to dance? I don’t remember the words leaving my mouth.”

Lucy, who was at risk of exploding with laughter the second she opened her mouth, just nodded and gave him the thumbs up.

The dazed sheriff made his way toward the dancefloor, where Heidi was waiting for him. As they put their arms around each other like awkward teenagers fearful of the hawk-eyed chaperones at a school function, Lucy found herself accosted by Vivi.

“There’s one of our new star builders. Why don’t you go and dance?”

“Oh… It’s all couples and families up there. Well, Heidi and Justice are there, too, but it looks like they’re making it work.”

“It’s all in good fun,” Vivi said, smiling gently. “I’ll find you a dance partner. I see Pen over there…”

Lucy made a strangled noise. She was caught at the crossroads between flattered and insulted — flattered that Vivi wanted to match her with anyone, and insulted that the first choice was Pen.

“Thanks, Vivi. I’ll think about it… For now, I’m feeling a little tired.” She wasn’t technically lying. The evening was pressing down on her sore body like a weighted blanket.

“Well, of course you are! Child, you haven’t stopped working since you hopped off that train!” She shook her head. “Well, I’ma go make my rounds and get these other folks to get off their behinds. You relax and enjoy the night, Lucy. Make sure you eat something, too. Put some meat on those bones.”

Lucy chuckled. Vivi had basically called her skinny, but she found it endearing when it came from the community grandma. She leaned back and stretched out her legs. The part of her that had planned to dance was no longer feeling so confident.

On the floor, Justice had placed his hands gingerly on Heidi’s waist, while she wrapped her arms around his neck. They talked as they moved, only sharing momentary flashes of eye contact. Whether it was the butterflies of a first dance, or the embarrassment of an orchestrated-by-granny pairing, only the two of them knew.

Rian kissed Dan-bi’s forehead, and a smile melted onto her face as she laid her head on her husband’s chest. Cooper and Mabel were in their own world, singing softly to each other the words to this song — if there were words at all, for none played on the speakers.

Lucy shifted to staring at her hands. She knew she wasn’t the only one watching the couples dance, but she felt like she was intruding on intimate moments, glimpses into a kind of tenderness that was foreign to her. She had only ever known love as something fragile and tiresome, a pattern of self-sacrifice for the sake of partnership. It was sold as blooming joy, only to decay into something bitter.

Perhaps it would’ve been different, had she fallen in love with someone while they were falling in love with her. That was the magical journey that artists tried to put on canvas and writers fought with their pens to describe. That feeling must have been real, somewhere. A treasure to be found by the most fortunate. Would she ever get to know it? Did she even want to?

She took a deep breath, reminding herself that this journey of hers was just beginning. Expectations were bound to lead to disappointment. She had to welcome this experience with open arms, embracing questions that may never have answers. That was the beauty of her independence, and that was the promise she had to keep to herself: her independence.

Her thoughts had formed a wall between her and the merriment of everyone else, but the cool breeze of the summer night wrapped around her, pulling her back down to earth. A chill sent goosebumps across her flesh. She hugged herself.

“Skinny Arms…”

Lucy swallowed hard. The unexpected sound of his voice almost beckoned her to look at him, but she stopped herself halfway. She did not want to give him the satisfaction of answering to that.

“I was thinking — which is something I don’t do often — that I never got to apologize to you for the whole sandstorm situation. I didn’t mean to scare you that day.”

Of all the wild things that could come out of Pen’s mouth, that was the least expected. She feigned a keen interest in the bonfire in the distance, trying to figure out how she wanted to respond to this. She had always been quick to forgive others. In a selfish way, it helped her sleep at night. But it also made her an easy target for people who lacked a conscience. Perhaps there was a middle ground to be had here.

“Your apology can start with you calling me Lucy,” she said in a measured voice.

He crossed his arms. “Interesting… How about a deal?”

“I don’t think I’m gonna like this.”

“I’ll call you by your mundane, non-descriptive name.”

One of the bonfire logs crackled loudly as it snapped under the pressure and heat. Lucy finally turned to look at him. The edges of his face — his jawline, his chin, his cheekbones — were all softened by the pale light of the moon. She searched for traces of a deceptive smirk, but she found none.

“What’s the catch?” she asked.

“I’ll only do it when no one else can hear. I have an image to uphold, you know. Only the coolest of titles — selected by yours truly — should be pronounced by my wonderfully deep, resonant voice.”

She scoffed. “What is this pathological obsession with nicknames that you seem to have?”

“If it’s pathological, do you really need to know more?” He co*cked an eyebrow.

Lucy was taken aback. Until that second, she had considered Pen to be the type of person whose lights were on, but no one was home. His comeback was unexpectedly philosophical.

“Just because it’s pathological,” she said slowly, “doesn’t mean the discussion should end there. It’s kinda dismissive of the condition, isn’t it?”

Pen shrugged. “It can be, but that depends on whether you accept the condition for what it is, or if you’re trying to ‘fix’ something that can’t be fixed.” He swirled his drink gently and took a sip. “So, do we have a deal?”

There is a brain somewhere in that brawn, she thought, stunned. But he didn’t seem interested in engaging in philosophical conversation.

“I guess we can put a pin in that for now…” She gestured around them. “Does this fit your, uh, criteria? No one is near us or paying attention to us right now. So, call me by my name.”

“Everyone is always paying attention to me. I mean, look at me.” He pointed up and down at himself. “I command attention.”

She distinctly avoided looking at him. Instead, she scanned the scene of the party with a keen eye.

Vivi was by the far end of the stage, chatting with Owen and Amirah (who were still not dancing, nor within two feet of each other). Elsie was now skittering around the dancefloor, trying to sneak whoopee cushions in people’s paths. The salvage yard workers were in a massive group huddle, scream-singing a work song. Grace was fixing a plate for the newly-arrived Qi, who was dodging all “howdys” that came his way.

“Literally no one is looking, Pen. So, I guess your little deal was a fake one. ‘I command attention’ my ass…” She crossed her arms in the same way that he did, and she mimicked his pompous tone.

“It wasn’t fake, and if you’re going to impersonate me, at least get a cape first. A good one. Maybe with little pickhammers on the border…”

“Okay, I’m not opposed to pickhammers, but a cape has to be one of the least functional pieces of clothing ever.”

“Not when you’re as aerodynamic as me.”

“Y’know what? Apology not accepted.” She put on her best judgmental expression. Her inner troll was coming out to rear its ugly head. “I expected better from someone who pretends to be so honorable. What a shame. Be on your way, Protector.”

Pen looked her in the eyes. To her surprise, her sliver of malice seemed to have an effect on him. She could almost see the struggle in his mind — caught between his honor and his pride. Maybe that was his weak point.

“Okay,” he said at last, smiling softly. “You win.”

“I — do?” She stared.

“I am sorry… Lucy.”

He pronounced her name so quietly, like it was too precious for his lips. Her chest tightened. Again. Had she had too much to drink? No. She’d been coasting just fine all night.

“See? It wasn’t so bad, was it?” she said, looking away quickly. “My end of the deal, then: I forgive you for breaking and entering.”

“Entering, not breaking,” he chuckled. “The door was very much intact.”

She felt a smile creeping up on her lips, but she swallowed it back down. He would not get the satisfaction of making her laugh today.

“Fair enough,” she said, raising her yakmel milk for a sip. “Water under the — ah, not an expression fit for Sandrock…”

She did not talk to Pen the same way she talked to anyone else in Sandrock. Maybe that’s because he didn’t talk like anyone else, but something about this was strangely familiar to her.

She would never admit it aloud, but some time ago, buried somewhere in the fog of years past, she was a little bit like him. Not as self-centered, she hoped, but a little outspoken and outlandish. She and her friends, especially Nia, teased each other all the time. She enjoyed quick-witted, snarky banter once. When did she stop?

“Well, you look like you’re brooding,” Pen said, his voice breaking her train of thought. “Not my vibe. I’ll leave you to it.”

“Can’t stand being quiet for too long, huh?”

“If I wanted a snooze-fest, I’d be in my bed. Naked, preferably.”

Lucy spat her drink and frantically wiped her mouth with her sleeve. “I didn’t — ask — for that — image.” She turned to him with a vicious look. “But… Sounds like it’s a disappointing view, if it puts you to sleep.”

“Hah! Touché. Well, don’t expect to get a sneak peek any time soon, if that’s what you’re asking for.”

Her cheeks flushed. “Absolutely not.”

“Right. Anyway, gotta go hit my macros. Those Seesaian chicken wings are calling.”

He nodded politely at her, just as he’d done by the bonfire. It was an oddly humble gesture for a man dressed as an action figure.

“Good night, Lucy.”

That feeling in her chest again, right when he said her name. Was it Pen? For a fraction of a second, she thought about asking him to stay, if only to better understand this feeling. But she couldn’t bring herself to do it, and he was already turning away.

“Good night, Pen.”

Chapter 5: Crushing Glass

Chapter Text

She barely slept. The events of the party replayed in drowsy, toss-and-turn waves until the sun came up and a hangover sank its teeth into her skull. That chest-tightening sensation plagued her mind. She started to remind herself of Qi, obsessively analyzing the data, trying to come up with a logical conclusion. With a dark laugh, she considered heartburn.

Morning spilled through her window and onto her dining table, where she sat with tea and a headache. She pulled the blank stationery closer to her.

Nia,

I’m in a pickle. How am I supposed to find myself? What are the actual steps? Does anyone know?? I miss our talks. I bet you’d say something stupid like “Look in a mirror.”

The walls vibrated. Lucy’s morning tea rippled at the surface, miniature waves slapping against the tea infuser. Despite the pain behind her eyes, she watched through the window as the morning train slowed to a halt at Sandrock Station.

They threw a big party last night for the retired builder. He’s leaving to Portia. It was a lot of fun — the food was great, and there was dancing… but I didn’t dance. I “brooded” instead. That’s what this guy told me, anyway. He’s kind of an ass, but he was also kinda right. When did I become so BROODY? Ah, I know the answer to that one.

She took a sip of her tea. The train moved. Her only picture frame, holding an old photo of her, her Ma, and her Pa, rattled. Lucy paused her writing to place her hands over her head.

“Never again,” she muttered. “Yakmel milk is a bitch.”

As the motion finally eased, she put the finishing touches on the letter.

P.S. Thank you for the handmade scarf. I love it!

P.P.S. I’m hungover, and I gotta run over to work soon. You can laugh at me. I would.

Horse hooves in the distance. At first, Lucy figured Elsie took her horse for scenic ride, but she swore she heard two sets of hooves. Maybe Cooper was on her tail, trying to get her back to wrangle the yakmel. With a painful chuckle, Lucy folded her letter and stuffed it in the envelope.

As she wrote Nia’s address and sealed the letter, she reflected on Nia’s report about a tree revival performed by her teacher, Professor Luo. What if that kind of success could be replicated in Sandrock? She didn’t know much about botany, though, so she was probably skittering up the wrong cactus.

She eyed this morning’s Tumbleweed Standard. The headline, “Remembering Mason,” was almost bigger than the comedically short article.

She reread the last couple of lines with a wry smile.

…As a Builder, he wasn’t the most hard-working, able, or talented. But as a man: Mason was... eh... he was... Dang, I can’t think of a way to end that sentence. Let’s just hope no one reads this.

This was how Lucy preferred to start her mornings, except for the hangover and minor existential crisis. A warm cup of tea, the sun not too harsh, and something entertaining to get the spirits up. It’d taken a while, but now that she settled into her new place, she could take out the extra ten minutes or so to make this a habit. At least, she hoped it would be this way.

The ground rumbled. The train appeared again in reverse, coming from the direction of the Shonash Canyon. Lucy furrowed her eyebrows. It must’ve been less than fifteen minutes since it left the station. Why was it back so soon?

Then, horse hooves sounded from the same direction, drawing nearer. She squinted, making out the bright orange jackets of the Civil Corps. Justice and Unsuur pulled up to meet the crowd now pooling at the station. The train passengers were disembarking.

What’s going on? Lucy thought.

She grabbed her tool belt, the outgoing letter to Nia, and a pair of sunglasses. As she raised the mailbox flag, the locomotive’s engines shut off. She hopped across the train tracks in time to see Justice pulling several tourists aside.

“So, you’re tellin’ me you didn’t see anything?” Justice asked them.

“I saw fire in that man’s eyes,” replied a man with red hair and a mustache. “A burning desire for vengeance that sent chills through my very essence…”

The sheriff rubbed his forehead. “Alright, pal. Did you see anything that would hold up in a court of law?”

The man’s mustache bristled as he frowned. “Not to… that effect, no. I didn’t.”

Lucy waved silently at Unsuur, who waved back.

“What’s going—”

A shrill, nasally voice rang out over the crowd, piercing her addled brain. “NEWBIE! GET OVER HERE!”

She turned crimson as the tourists, Justice, and Unsuur jumped in surprise. “Excuse me,” she said. “Sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“Ah hah! Wandering around aimlessly, eh?” Yan said as Lucy trudged up the stairs. “That is so you! Great news, I’ve got something you can do right here!”

He jabbed his thumb toward the parked train. Jensen came out of the station building with a broom and dustpan, shaking his head and muttering to himself.

“What happened?” she asked Yan.

“That pesky Logan has struck again! More specifically, he’s struck this here train window, and uh, yeah. You know the drill. Guess who needs to fix it?” He pointed at Lucy. “That’s right. You, newbie!” He rolled his eyes in Jensen’s direction. “He called me over in a huff. ‘Wah wah wah, my poor widdle train!’ Normally I wouldn’t…”

Lucy stared into the middle distance and waited for the noise that was Yan to cease.

My head already hurts enough, she thought.

“…neither here nor there…”

Where’s the off switch on this guy?

“…just get some glass and fix the window…”

Silence, at last.

“Yep, I’m on it, boss,” she said, but he was already gone, walking back to the Commerce Guild.

A young blond man joined Justice’s circle of witnesses. He pulled a rather sizable notepad from the depths of his hoodie and leaned in toward Justice like he was trying to sell him a subscription to something.

“Excuse me, Captain, sir? Ernest, Atara Times.”

Atara? Lucy thought. This guy’s out pretty far.

“…comment on all the wild allegations surrounding this incident? Who is this ‘Logan’ and what are his motivations? Do you believe he may be in possession of weapons of mass destruction?”

“Dang, you don’t get out much, do ya, partner?” Justice asked, shaking his head. “First off, I’m the sheriff ‘round these parts. Captain’s the cat.”

Lucy snickered.

“Second, I’m the one askin’ the questions ‘round here, not the other way around!”

Someone sniffled nearby. Jensen was bent double over the thousands of glass shards on the train platform. His movements with the dustpan and broom were slow and shaky.

“Jensen, lemme take care of that,” she said, making her way over and trying to skirt around the debris.

“My poor baby,” he said quietly. He apparently hadn’t noticed her yet.

“Easy there…” She put a gentle hand on his arm, and he stirred with recognition. He stood up straight, blinking away mist from his eyes.

“Oh, hey Lucy… Didn’t notice ya there….”

“Here, gimme the broom. I got this. You just take a seat, or do what you need to do, alright?”

“Ah, I couldn’t—”

“It’s really no trouble,” she urged. “Go on. You probably gotta handle other things, I assume. I’m fixing the window, so I don’t mind cleaning the area, too.”

“Y—yeah, I gotta check with Owen, make sure the stranded passengers are alrigh’…”

Lucy gave him a reassuring smile. “I’ll have it patched up in no time. Even better: I’ll make it good as new.”

He nodded appreciatively. “Yer a good kid, Lucy. Thank ya.”

As she cleaned, she tried to piece the story together through poorly disguised eavesdropping. Apparently, while she was writing her letter to Nia, the bandit Logan struck the train — literally — and ran off. The reason was unclear. Justice and Unsuur didn’t catch them, and the tourists they were interviewing were more interested in Logan himself than his crimes.

She felt a pang of guilt. She was right there, sipping on her tea, ignorantly basking in her morning. What if she could’ve done something to help? But… what could she have done? There were no signs of trouble until the train came back.

Lucy stepped carefully with her work boots, stooping once in a while to see if the sunlight illuminated stray debris. Satisfied with the exterior, she moved inside the train compartment.

It’d been nearly a month since she first stepped foot in Sandrock. The compartment could have been the very same one that she’d sat in, hopeful and worrisome all at once. Truth be told, she couldn’t remember the details of it. Her first glimpse of the Sandrock skyline was far more interesting than an old train interior, and that was something she’d never say aloud in front of Jensen.

By late morning, Lucy was ready for the next step of window repairs. She finished sweeping up the glass, removed the jagged remainders from the compartment walls, and prepped the area for the new windows.

She had enough materials to cover the replacements, and her hangover was finally going away, so she imagined this would be an easy fix. There would be very little satisfaction for the bandits, if they thought their little stunt would hold back the train from operational status for too long.

She headed back to her workshop immediately. She couldn’t care less about Yan’s feelings. She wanted to make good on her promise to help old train conductor and the rest of the Sandrockers. The exhaustion and downtroddenness of Justice and Jensen ignited a fury in her to get this thing back up and running.

The first thing to do was to check her storage. She had some prepared glass ready to go, but it was only about half of what she needed to replace the windows. As she loaded up dregs in the furnace’s fuel compartment and refilled the water tank, she spotted Mi-an walking nearby.

Walking.

“Mi-an!” she called, waving her down. “You alright?”

“Huh? Oh!” Mi-an drew closer. There were dark circles under her eyes and a faraway look on her face. “Hey, Lucy. I didn’t quite catch what you said.”

“I asked if you’re alright. Normally you’re zoomin’ all over the place. You got home okay last night, right?”

Mi-an yawned. “Yeah, Unsuur got me home safely. I’m just a little hungover.”

“Did you hear what happened?” Lucy gestured back to the parked train.

“Yeah, Elsie came and told me this morning…” Mi-an glanced over at it, as if she didn’t really see it.

Lucy closed the lid on the water tank and walked over, resting her arms on the fence as she peered keenly at Mi-an.

“You sure you’re okay?” she asked with a pointed look. “Not trying to be nosy, but you look like you have something else on your mind… If it’s about the train repairs, I’ve got it handled.”

Mi-an turned pink. “It’s not about work. Um… Just out of curiosity, has anyone sent you any letters? Letters that might be… unsigned? Anonymous?”

Lucy shook her head.

Mi-an twisted a lock of her hair. “I got one this morning. It was actually really nice. I’m just confused. Who could’ve sent it, I wonder?”

“Do you have it on you?”

“Y—yeah,” she said, her blush deepening. “I’ve been reading it over again, trying to see if I can guess who it is from the handwriting, but I really don’t know everyone all that well.” She gasped. “You don’t think it could be related to the bandits, do you?”

“Uh… Bandits sending nice letters? Let me see…”

Lucy took the folded piece of paper from her and opened it up.

Dear Mi-an,

It was pretty neat how you rebuilt the stage after the sandstorm. Actually, you’ve done a lot of cool things since you got here. You put together new benches for people to sit down, which is nice, because sitting is nice, especially in a place where there’s a bunch of uphill walking.

I like how you’re always working hard and helping people out. It’s a refreshing change of pace. If everyone in the world were more like you, well… at the very least, we’d have a lot of stages.

Anyway, here’s an opal. You don’t have to thank me.

I hope it can be the kind of pal that makes you say, “oh.” As the name implies.

“They sent you a gemstone?” Lucy asked, looking up at her friend with a bemused smile. “That’s quite a statement, don’tcha think?”

“Oh, hehe… It’s r—really nice… I left it at home. Didn’t want to accidentally lose it. Never know when an opal could come in handy. Um, so, yeah! You don’t think it’s related to the bandits, right?”

“I wouldn’t put it on my bingo card for bandit behavior.” She scanned the letter again. “I can’t put my finger on it, but it sounds so familiar. Not the handwriting, but the words they used. I’m pretty sure it’s someone in town. Whoever it is, sounds like they kinda like you.”

She gave the paper back to a positively brick-red Mi-an, who hastily tucked it into the pocket of her overalls.

“I gotta get back to work,” she said, her voice oddly high pitched. “It’s kinda hot this morning, huh? Thanks for the — something — Lucy!”

There she was again, running, but with an unmistakable pep in her step. Lucy stifled her laughter for the sake of her friend, then she turned back to her work.

Mi-an wasn’t wrong. It was a warm day. It was not lost on her as she put on protective gear for working with the furnace. She pulled on her sand goggles and mask, which now made her think of Pen and his mysterious smile. She couldn’t decide if that was a good or bad thing.

Now that she vaguely resembled an insect emerging from a cocoon, she prepared the dinas mixture. She poured it into the awaiting crucible, carefully loaded it into the furnace, and waited. When it was ready, she pulled out the molten concoction with tongs and poured them into an awaiting mold.

She hummed while she worked, distracting herself from the sweltering conditions of the day. The work was painstaking. She did what she could to keep her hands steady with every movement. She focused on the satisfaction of watching the process: how the molten liquid took to the cooling process quickly. She enjoyed watching the transition in states of matter. Meanwhile, her sweat soaked into the cloth band of the goggles and into the fabric of her mask.

She’d gotten halfway through her goal when she felt an aggravated rumble in her stomach. It was time to break for lunch. She decided to head to the Blue Moon, if only to avoid having to use any energy to cook.

Lucy removed her protective equipment and rinsed her face. There was no point in changing her clothes, as she’d be back at it again in short order. As she crossed the train tracks for the second time that day, she looked over at the Wandering Y Ranch.

In the distance, she saw Cooper and Mabel outside their home. The blond reporter from Atara was there, but he seemed to be leaving. His path merged with Lucy’s right by the Blue Moon’s exterior stage, which now sat empty. There was no evidence that a lively party had just gone down the night before.

“Excuse me! Builder!” The reporter waved her down, notepad hand.

“What gave it away?” Lucy said, chuckling.

“Sorry, I didn’t know your name,” he said, smiling sheepishly. “I saw you this morning fixing the train. I’m Ernest.”

Lucy’s stomach threw a mini tantrum. “I know. I saw you, too. I’m Lucy. Whatcha need?” After a few hours working in silence, her people skills had apparently diminished.

“I’ve been having a hard time these past few days,” he said, his shoulders slumped. “I don’t suppose you would be willing to answer some of my questions? About Logan. I can’t seem to get anyone to open up. It won’t be long. Just a few questions.”

Poor guy, she thought. I’m probably the worst person to ask.

“I don’t know what use I’ll be, but ask away,” she said.

“Alright, Lucy, for this interview, please try to be as objective as possible. Do you know Logan personally?”

She looked across the street at the wanted poster plastered to the Commerce Guild. Even from that distance, it felt like the drawing stared at her.

“Never met him,” she said, shaking her head.

“That’s alright. Still, you’ve lived here for a while, haven’t you? I believe your insight may yet be of use.”

Doubt it, she thought.

“Tell me what he looks like. I mean, have you seen the posters around here? They really couldn’t have found a picture of him without a bandana over his face? Just a simple description will do.”

This guy has such opinions, she thought.

Lucy was still staring at the poster, while Ernest looked at her expectantly. Maybe it was the angle, or the scar on the eyebrow, or the silvery hair that kept her attention. Was it the expression on his face? Such a determined look, captured by an expert artist’s hand…

“He’s hot,” she blurted out. “Wait, did I just say that out loud? S—scratch that. I was joking!”

She snapped back to the reporter, but he was already running with it.

“Oh, no!” he groaned. “He’s hot! Ugh. Why does everyone keep saying that? I’d say, rather…” He put pen to paper. “‘Logan has a disarming glare… Ice cold…’” He stopped and stared off somewhere in his memory. “I’ll never forget it. And even through the bandana you can see there are stories written on his face, just waiting to be told…”

Lucy raised an eyebrow. “Sounds like you think he’s hot.”

“Uh… Nevermind,” Ernest said, taken aback. “Just — f—forget that I asked that question. Now, about Logan’s accomplice…”

“Oh, his name’s Haru.” Lucy felt a surge of pride at having remembered that much.

“Haru… Alright. What do you know about him?”

“His name…”

Ernest’s pen hovered above the notepad, waiting for more. When none came, he looked back up at her with a puzzled frown. “That’s it?”

Lucy smiled apologetically. “I’ve only been here a month. I couldn’t even tell you when they started doing all this banditry. Sorry to disappoint.”

“Well, it seems like you’ve been pretty honest with me, so I appreciate that. I’ll let you get on with your day. If you think of anything else, I’m staying at the apartments here.”

“Not the Blue Moon?” she asked.

“The rooms are full of tourists from the train. Not to mention, I really gotta get this story right. I have a feeling it might take a long while.”

Lucy gave him a suspicious look. “That’s a lot of research for a news report. Sounds like you’re writing a whole book.”

The color drained from Ernest’s face. “H—haha! What an idea! I gotta run. You know where to find me if you have anything to share. Thanks, see ya!”

“W—wait,” she called. “I was gonna ask the sheriff, but he must be up to his ears in paperwork. Do you know what went down back there? I’ve only been getting bits and pieces myself, but I’ve also been working all day…”

“Ah…” He screwed up his face. “It all happened so fast. I was on the train. All of a sudden, it came to a halt. Logan and his accomplice — Haru, as you say — climbed on board, guns out. They told us to put our hands up. Logan kept watch over the passengers, making sure we weren’t going to do any ‘funny business.’ Haru ran off to go take something. The Civil Corps came, and bandits jumped out the window on gliders!”

Lucy crossed her arms. “What did they take?”

“That’s the thing. I don’t think they took anything,” Ernest said, shaking his head. “That’s the one detail that everyone seems to agree on. What would drive a man to do something like that? What are his motivations? I gotta get to the bottom of this…”

His voice trailed off as he flipped through his notes.

“Alright, I’ll leave you to it,” she said. “Thanks for the info.”

She crossed the threshold into the Blue Moon. It was packed. All the booths were taken by sour-faced tourists. Owen waved at her from behind the bar, his sleeves rolled up to the elbows. Half a dozen patrons crowded the counter, partially obscuring him from view. Grace came down the stairs and waved at Lucy with a tired smile.

“I’ll come take your order, if you wanna grab a seat,” she said.

“I’m gonna order at the counter,” Lucy said. “You look like how I feel.”

Grace chuckled and crossed her arms. “It’s been a wild ride, huh? I didn’t even drink last night. It’s been chaos this morning.”

Lucy took a seat at the far end of the counter and picked up a menu, while Grace headed back to the kitchen. Owen handed keys over to two customers, who grabbed their luggage and went straight upstairs. The next customers in line walked up to the counter, folding their arms over the bar top.

Despite the crowd, the atmosphere was far from jovial. Lucy scanned the guests’ expressions from the safety of her menu. Two of them were in the middle of a heated discussion in hushed voices, pointing around them on occasion. She distinctly heard the words “sh*thole” and “bandit.”

“Hey, Lucy,” Owen said, peering at her from over the top of her makeshift hiding place. There was a huskiness to his voice, like he was just waking up. The fine lines in his face were a little deeper. “What a day, huh? What can I get ya?”

She realized she hadn’t bothered to actually read the menu.

“Fried rice and tea, please,” she said quickly.

“You got it.” He smiled, but there was no twinkle in his eye.

“Owen, is there anything I can do to help out here?” she asked. “You look so tired.”

He flashed her a calming smile. “It’s sweet of you to ask, Lucy, but don’t worry about it. I hear you’re fixing up the train, so just focus on that. After you eat, of course.”

The loudspeaker by the stage played a jolly, fiddly tune, but the conversation — wherever it cropped up — was glum. Many of the passengers were strangers prior to the incident this morning, but now, they bonded through sharing their perspectives on the hijacking. She began to understand why Owen and Grace looked the way they did. If she had to stay here for a full work day listening to bandit horror stories, while people griped about how much they hated the sights and smells of this backwater town, she would become a bit tired as well.

The customer nearest to her paid his tab and got up to leave. Owen disappeared into the kitchen, and Grace bustled back out, carrying a tray laden with dishes. When she returned, she stopped by the now-vacant seat next to Lucy.

“No one wants to be here,” she said quietly. “Kind of a downer.”

“I wanna be here,” Lucy said in what she hoped was a reassuring tone. “They must be stressed with the train stopping. Nothing personal, right?”

Grace smiled softly. “You’re too kind for this ‘backwater hellhole,’ Lucy.”

“Hah, I dunno about that,” she chuckled. “I was kind of a bitch to that reporter.”

“I find that hard to believe, so you’ll have to give me the details in a minute.”

After another round of collecting dishes and taking orders, Grace reemerged from the kitchen with Lucy’s fried rice and summer sand tea. As Lucy dug in, the fry cook leaned over the bar top and spoke in a low voice so that only she could hear.

“Y’know, I know Logan’s type. Brash, bold, likes to show off. Total meat-head. Thinks brute force is the answer to everything.”

Lucy sipped her tea thoughtfully. She knew of a certain Protector of Sandrock that could fit the same description.

“Haru, I don’t get as much,” Grace continued. “Always the quiet ones, huh?”

Lucy frowned. “Couldn’t tell ya. I didn’t know ‘em…”

“Well, I guess you should be glad you didn’t.”

She wasn’t sure if she agreed. She felt like she was missing a key piece to the puzzle of Sandrock. There was so much energy directed toward Logan’s gang. It wasn’t present every day, but it was clear that the activities of Logan, Haru, and their accomplices had a blanketed effect on the town. Without knowing who they had been, she couldn’t share in the collective disappointment or anger at who they’d become.

Perhaps she was more like Ernest than she’d thought. She, too, was curious about Logan and Haru’s motivations. What drove them to this life? If Sandrockers were heartbroken over their chosen path in life, they must’ve been seen as upstanding citizens once. Good people, even. What changed?

Chapter 6: Water

Chapter Text

After the train was repaired, Sandrock settled into a period of tepid relief. The stranded travelers had gone, along with their sour attitudes. The subject of Logan dissipated from daily conversation, but he was never far from the locals’ minds. That disarming glare met them at every corner from the wanted posters in town, until a sandstorm took most of them away.

The Geeglers amped up their campaign for the next highest spot on the nuisance list. Graffiti appeared in increasing quantities and color variations around town, concentrated around the Civil Corps, the oasis, and the Wandering Y Ranch. Lucy caught a glimpse of the lizard-men once, while on break under the big tree across from the oasis. They crowded the Shonash Canyon bridge, but the Civil Corps quickly chased them away.

The sweltering summer heat eventually faded into a cool, dry autumn. The barren landscape hardly changed. The winds kicked up more debris, forming extra-large tumbleweeds. The few trees in Sandrock still clung to their leaves, but the occasional escapee fluttered across the desert expanse.

Lucy found an enjoyable routine for her new life here. She had her breakfast and morning coffee or tea, took a trip to the scrap yard, went into town to pick up a job or two, and spent the next few hours ruin diving or assembling commissions in her workshop. On the most efficient days, she was able to get finished products to her clients before sundown.

She ran into Pen several times in town, but they hadn’t engaged in conversation since Mason’s farewell party. She blamed Pen. The moment he saw her, he would shout “Skinny Arms!” at the top of his lungs, which only made her pivot abruptly and walk in the other direction. He must’ve been seeking her out on purpose to antagonize her, so she reverted to her original plan after the combat lesson incident: avoid him entirely. Whatever budding attraction she might’ve felt for him that one night in summer, however improbable, was most certainly due to the alcohol.

Lucy hummed to herself as she walked up to the Commerce Guild. She was in a particularly good mood. The weather was fair, and her surplus inventory was ready to tackle any project that came her way.

“Howdy, newbie!” Yan said, his voice coated in extra grime. “Got a commission just for you! Come get it.”

He tossed a flyer toward her and kicked his feet up on the desk. The paper was lightly creased, and pushpin holes adorned the corners.

Sandrock Commission: Stone Sword & Shield

Time to finish: 10 days after accepting

Request: Sandrock wants you! To build stuff for me!

Client: Pen

Every commission included a photo of the client to help identify them to the builder. Lucy cringed as she eyed his jawline, his pompous smirk, and his stiffly molded hair.

“Didn’t this just come off the board?” she asked, looking up at Yan. “I saw it up there the last few days. He didn’t actually ask for me, did he?”

“Newbie, newbie, newbie…” Yan rubbed his temples. “If you already knew it was waiting on the board, what gives?! The client — AKA the money — came in askin’ about the holdup! I told him I’d get one of you losers to take care of it on the double.”

She furrowed her eyebrows. “It’s not due to expire—”

“I don’t give a sh*t, newbie,” Yan snapped. “He pointed out your name on the board, so you get to be the lucky dipsh*t who takes care of it.”

“But—”

“I just delivered you a golden ticket to crawl your ass up the rankings. You wanna take it, or you want me to dock you a couple points for not being a team-f*cking-player?”

She chewed on her words for a second. If she said what she really wanted to, she’d probably get fired. And, no matter how annoying Pen was, he wasn’t worth losing her job.

“I’ll take care of it,” she said in a measured voice.

She snatched a second commission off the board — wood planks for Rian.

“Fix your f*cking attitude while you’re at it—”

Lucy wrenched the door open.

“—f*ckin’ newbie!”

She let it swing shut.

Grace stood outside the front porch of the Blue Moon, waving at her. “I heard yelling,” the fry cook said when she approached. “You alright? You look pissed.”

“I’m fine. Thanks.” Lucy shot a dark glance back at the Commerce Guild.

Grace crossed her arms. “I’ve seen Burgess tell a better lie than that. What’s going on?”

“Just Yan,” she muttered.

“Oh, say no more. I get it.”

Lucy took a deep breath and broke into a tentative smile. “Everyone’s gotta deal with an asshole for a boss sometime, right?”

“I dunno if I agree with that, partner. Owen’s great, not to rub salt in the wound. I’m sorry that Yan is an asshole. It looks like every time you and Mi-an walk out that door, you’re a little shot down. Just know that I’m here for you if you ever need to blow off some steam, alright? Don’t be a stranger.”

Lucy she felt a surge of gratitude. “Thank you, Grace. I’ll probably stop by to bitch about it around lunchtime.”

Grace beamed. “Counting on it.”

Lucy made her way back to her workshop, her fuming softened thanks to Grace’s intervention. Despite what she said, she was actually angry with Pen, not Yan. Her boss’s behavior was nothing new, Pen’s brand of annoyance was. He had the audacity to single her out for a commission without even asking her first. Then, he went around her back and made her look bad in front of her very unsupportive boss.

Feeling petty, Lucy decided to complete Rian’s commission first. She retrieved wood from her storage, and measured twice before turning on the processor. The saw whirred with a sharp ferocity as it tore through the wood with her guidance.

Things were going smoothly, until she was halfway through the second plank. A choking sound erupted from the machine. She glanced around, looking for the source, which was enough to mess up her hold on the wood. The saw’s teeth clamped onto an an area off the cutting path.

The kickback was imminent. On instinct, she guided the plank away from her body. She stepped aside and released her grip. The plank jerked and shot off the table, sailing past the fence and landing with a loud, wooden thud on the ground. A cloud of sand and dust kicked up at the site of impact.

The processor shuddered to a halt. Smoke emitted from the motor.

“f*ck me upside down,” she muttered.

The water tank was empty, and now the machine was overheating. She went over to her water storage and grabbed the first drum. It was too light. So was the next one. And the next one.

“Oh, it’s one of those days,” she growled, throwing her hands in the air. “Almost gutted by my own hands, again, and now I’m out of water, forced to work a commission for an asshole. Peach.” She put a hand to her chest and willed herself to breathe deeply.

Now, she had to decide between her list of problems: the water, the damaged processor, the ruined plank, and Pen’s commission. She hopped over the fence and inspected the plank. The saw gouged a hideous, curved line into it. Muttering under her breath, she heaved it up and slid it back over to the workshop grounds.

There was enough salvageable material to fashion the wooden portions of a sword and shield. She also didn’t need water for it — just the workstation.

“Alright, Pen’s stupid-ass commission first,” she sighed, defeated.

She rummaged through her storage. She wasn’t one to let her distaste for the Protector of Sandrock — or her series of mishaps — diminish the quality of work she was willing to produce. She picked out the best suitable materials she needed to complete the project.

When she was done, she saddled up Waddles, her rental yakmel for the week. She loaded the empty water drums and weapons into a wagon, and she hopped onto the mount. After she gave herself a few moments to acclimate to the height of her seat, she was off.

Lucy took the scenic route by the oasis. She liked taking this path, despite the minor risk of being flattened by a train. She enjoyed the beautiful, albeit melancholy views: the last vestiges of sapphire waters and its surrounding vegetation. The autumn air soothed her morning’s frustrations.

Up ahead, she saw three strange figures: a hulking mass in red and two smaller ones in green. As she got a little closer, she realized they had reptilian tails, lizard faces, and scales. The large red one seemed to be the leader. The other two handed him objects, which he threw toward the oasis.

She slowed Waddles to a halt. The Geeglers hadn’t seen them yet. She thought about getting the Civil Corps, but it could take too long to find them.

Someone cried out — someone who sounded like Burgess.

Lucy tensed up. She was still a novice yakmel rider, but there was no time to hop off, get the weapons in the wagon, and advance on foot. She did the only thing that came to mind: she applied pressure on Waddles, urging him to move again. He obliged, picking up his place quickly. She fought to stay on, gripping the reins for dear life as she jostled violently in the seat.

Her heart pounded. The wind whipped against her cheeks, and her hair flew back. The creatures were dead ahead, and they were armed with crossbows and scimitars.

The Geeglers turned and started shouting. Weapons pointed at her. She screwed up her face in concentration and charged. When they realized she wasn’t stopping, they backed out of the line of impact. She steered Waddles the best she could, following their direction. She’d be on their tails in seconds.

A blur of orange arrived. Justice and Unsuur appeared, leaping over the oasis fence, guns drawn and aimed at the Geeglers. Lucy and Waddles were about to crash right into them. She reined him in hard, and he protested, kicking up his front legs.

“FREEZE!” Justice shouted.

Lucy nearly slid off the yakmel, but his hooves came crashing back down on the ground in the nick of time. She used all of her remaining nerves to stay atop the massive creature.

“S—sorry,” she whispered to him, giving him several apologetic pats. She trembled all over as the adrenaline subsided. She felt like a bowl of limp noodles.

The Geeglers dropped to all fours as they zig-zagged and dodged bullets.

“COME AT ME, MISCREANTS!”

Lucy’s stomach twisted. Pen descended upon the scene from the Water World rooftop, flipping thrice before he landed with a blast of wind, just behind the Civil Corps.

The Geeglers vanished into the gap of the southern ravine.

“Cowards,” Pen called after them. “They dared not stand and fight. They fled at the sight of the magnificent Protector of Sandrock!”

“Or, maybe, they fled at the sight of bullets comin’ out of our guns,” Justice said, shaking his head as he holstered his weapon. “You’re a lil’ late to the party.”

“This wasn’t exactly a party, sir,” said Unsuur. “Maybe more of a parting.”

Pen started a retort, but he clocked Lucy at that moment. She was doing a horrible job of dismounting Waddles, her thighs burning angrily.

“SKINNY ARMS!”

“Lucy, what’re you doing here?” Justice asked, startled by her presence. “You were two steps away from danger!”

“I was trying to help,” she said weakly, gesturing at Waddles. “Saw there was some trouble, thought I’d do something about it.”

“Courage, Skinny!” Pen cheered, while Justice said something regarding proper protocol. “That’s what I’m talking about! You are learning a thing or two from ol’ Pen!”

She glared at him. “It’s got nothing to do with—”

Someone sniffled on the other side of the shrubs. She peered through the sparse leaves, catching a glimpse of Burgess in his yellow jacket.

“Excuse me,” Lucy said, pushing past them. Over her shoulder, she added, “Pen — your commission’s in the wagon. Figure you can grab it yourself.”

The oasis was marred by trash in all stages of decay, from old ripped jeans to rusting cans with mysterious liquid seeping out. Burgess’s watering can lay on its side near the waterfront, a trickle running down like tears into the oasis. Burgess stood, unmoving, in the middle of it all.

“Hey Burgess, you alright?” Lucy asked softly.

“Can you believe this mess?” he whimpered, coming to life with misty eyes. “The water…”

“I’ll help you clean it up. I brought the wagon. I can throw some of these things in the recycler or, worst case, use ‘em as fuel.”

“Skinny Arms!” Pen called. His bulky form pushed past the greenery and into the clearing.

“Not now, Pen,” Lucy said through gritted teeth.

“I’m afraid it can’t wait.” He approached her, a small satchel in hand. “Your payment. The weapon and shield are of outstanding condition. You do excellent work, Skinny!”

She winced at the compliment, and she did not take the money. Instead, she moved away, hopping onto the boardwalk to grab an empty crate. She made every effort not to look at him as she shook the crate free of dust and set it down by the shore.

“You can leave the money. I’ll get to it. Enjoy your weapon or whatever.”

She walked the perimeter of the oasis water, snatching up soggy trash and placing them in the crate.

Pen chuckled. “Oh, it wasn’t for me. Burgess will find it most useful the next time he finds himself accosted by the dangers of the desert. Isn’t that right, Burgess?”

Lucy looked up at Burgess, who turned pink.

“I lost my set,” he said. “Pen’s been teaching me how to defend myself.”

Her lips parted in surprise. “He’s actually teaching you? Not… using you as a punching bag?”

Burgess scratched his head. “Yeah. He’s teaching me proper technique, and how to channel the spirit of a fledgling warrior. Not saying it’s going great, but it might’ve been nifty to have the sword and shield when the Geeglers showed up just now.”

“Humility, Burgess,” Pen drawled. He used his foot to lift a piece of trash, balanced it on the toe of his shoe, and kicked it so that it landed squarely in the center of the crate.

“Right! Sorry, Pen! I’m doing my best to be humble! No – I can’t say it like that, can I? I am… sucking at being humble… Trying to get better…”

Pen smirked as he stooped to pick up an old newspaper.

“Are you actually helping us clean?” Lucy asked, finally looking at him in disbelief.

“Hah! You think me fearful of a little bit of filth?” He waved the newspaper like a muddy flag. “A true warrior has no qualms about vanquishing even the most inanimate of villains: rubbish! I welcome the challenge. Get me dirty. Mud me up! You’ll be glad you did.”

Lucy did not respond, though she shamefully harbored a laugh inside.

With all three of them pitching in, the oasis soon sparkled again. Lucy wiped her hands on the outside of her work pants. Pen lifted the heavy crate into Lucy’s wagon, nudging over the several empty water drums.

“Back to work I go,” Burgess said with a sigh. “Those poor trees have been waiting for a good watering all morning! Thank you so much for your help, you two! I can feel the telesis coming back here already!”

Lucy hesitated. “No problem, but I, uh, was hoping to get stocked up on water.” She peered over at Waddles. To her horror, shrubbery poked out of his mouth as he chomped happily on the oasis greenery.

Burgess picked up his watering can. “Oh. I suppose… The trees can wait a little longer…” His eyes darted from side to side. “Caught between my duty to bureaucracy and my duty to the trees! Oh, boy.”

“Allow me,” Pen said. “I might as well use my extra large muscles to help move some water.”

“You’re the best, Pen!” Burgess said, handing him the keys to storage room. “That way, we can water two flowers with one can! You know, there’s a saying from the old world about killing two birds with one stone, but who would want to do that?”

Lucy nodded slowly. She couldn’t beg him to forego his tree-watering ritual. “Right… I guess I’ll grab the wagon.”

Once Burgess was out of earshot, Pen flashed her a smile. “Well, looks like it’s just you and me, Lucy.”

“Yep,” she said, avoiding eye contact. “I’ll walk Waddles around to the front of the shop. He has trouble using the stairs. Meet us at the top?”

“Y’know what I like about you? You get straight down to business.”

Her nostrils flared. “Unlike someone I know,” she muttered under her breath.

When they reconvened at Burgess’s domain, Pen tilted his head as he looked at Lucy. “What did you mean by ‘unlike someone’ you know? Who is this roundabout rabble-rouser?”

“You,” she said flatly. “You went behind my back to get me to work on a commission, and you didn’t even bother to ask me first.”

She set out food for Waddles. With any luck, he’d focus on the potatoes and spare the little sprigs of vegetation trying to survive in the sand. Meanwhile, Pen opened the door to the shed. Different sized plastic and steel drums lined the walls, all painted blue.

“Right.” He leaned against the doorframe, crossing his arms so his biceps pushed against the cloth of his tracksuit. “Because you don’t turn tail like a fleeing ne’er-do-well whenever you see me. Would’ve asked if I had the chance, Skinny.”

sh*t, she thought. He got me.

She grabbed one of the empty water drums from the wagon. “I’d be more willing to talk to you if you didn’t shout ‘Skinny Arms’ across the town at seven o’clock in the morning. It’s a bit much, even for you.”

He followed her lead and picked up two containers. “One thing you should know about me, Skinny, is that I never do things half-assed. Full ass, or none at all. That’s the ticket.”

“Lucy,” she corrected him, blushing. “And, you are a full ass.” They entered and placed the drums in the spot designated for returns. She gestured toward the opposite wall. “I’ll need 25 units of the 20 gallon drums.”

He made his way over to the stacks. “A quick weight lifting lesson: bend your knees, and lift with your legs. The last thing you want is to throw your skinny back out.”

Pen lifted two drums at once, one in each arm like he was shoulder pressing them. He didn’t look like he was having a hard time, but his face was focused as he walked them out to the cart. Her eyes wandered while he had his back turned. His shoulder and arm muscles were flexed, the curves of them visible even through the tracksuit. His cape hid the rest of his back.

Am I actually checking him out? she thought. What is wrong with me? Her cheeks turned red, and she quickly looked away.

She walked up to a water drum, bent at the knees, and hoisted it up. It felt good as it rose with her exhale. It’d been a few months since she did any weight lifting.

They crossed paths on her way out.

He nodded appreciatively at her. “You continue to surprise. Maybe you are stronger than you look.”

“It’s just 50 pounds,” she muttered, depositing the drum in the wagon. “That’s the third compliment you’ve given me. What is this? Compliment Lucy Day?”

He hoisted the next two barrels over his shoulders. “Compliment Lucy Day has a nice ring to it, but National Pen Day is a lot cooler. It passed, by the way, in the summer. You missed your chance to shower me with gifts this year. What a shame.”

Lucy groaned. “I don’t get you. You say something nice, and you immediately follow it up with something self-centered.”

Lucy realized that Pen was inches away from her. They were about to claim the same water drum. The light shone through the windows, illuminating the sharpness of his cheekbones.

“What I don’t get,” he said quietly, “is why my words seem to have such an effect on you.”

“Th—they don’t,” she said quickly.

“Sure, whatever you say, Lucy,” he said with a teasing smile.

Her chest tightened. She was speechless for the remainder of the work, but she was having a hell of an internal dialogue about all this. He seemed to notice, too, as he didn’t make any more remarks — self-centered or otherwise. In record time, they finished loading the wagon, and she paid the fee.

Pen leaned against the side of the cart. “If you need assistance unloading these at your little workshop, I am happy to lend my strength once again. It’s nice to switch up workouts once in a while and work all the different muscles.”

Lucy’s initial thought was to decline, but she did need to get back to fixing her processor and making the planks for Rian. Pen’s strength, as much as she did not enjoy the snark that came with it, made things a lot faster.

Pen stood upright. “If not, I’ve still got like a thousand more squats to do today, so…”

“Fine,” she said with some difficulty. “Yes. I would appreciate it, if you could help.”

“Excellent! Let us away upon your steed!”

Lucy hadn’t thought this through. Pen put his hands on her waist and lifted her with ease, like she was as light as a rocket rooster’s feather.

“Really… not… n—necessary,” she grunted, getting a hold of the reins and swinging her leg over.

“Wait ‘til you see this!”

He stood back, gave himself a starting run, and performed a front flip before landing right behind her in the saddle. Waddles snorted.

“Was that necessary?” Lucy asked.

“Would you rather have pulled me up?”

“No.” She swallowed, feeling the warmth of his body close in on hers. “I probably should’ve sat behind you, though.”

“Hah! You think I know how to steer? I’ve only ever needed to rely on my own super speed and acrobatics to get around!”

“R—right.”

Lucy was distracted. Pen’s hands were on her waist again. This time, he was holding onto her. His grip was surprisingly gentle and, arguably, polite. Even so, the warmth of his hands flowed through her clothing and onto her skin. He sat just far enough behind her so that the air flowed freely between their bodies, but his breath was dangerously close to the back of her neck.

She shivered, and in the immediate panic that followed, she urged the yakmel forward, trying to disguise the two actions as one. If Pen noticed, he made no comment.

The ride to her workshop was excruciating. Waddles walked at a leisurely pace due to the wagon’s weight, though he seemed to enjoy the stroll. Lucy’s arms and legs were sore, making it difficult to stay steady atop the saddle even now.

All of that paled in comparison to being so close to Pen. The jostling of the yakmel forced their bodies to shift and brush against each other. Her back against his chest. His hands up or down her waist. Her rear and her thighs against the crook of his legs.

She tried to direct her attention anywhere else. The buildings they passed. Macchiato sleeping on the chair outside Vivi’s. But her mind wandered back to Pen.

He showed a different side of himself today, however muddied by his commentary. He helped clean up the oasis, he’d ordered a commission on behalf of Burgess, and he offered to help her with this water chore.

Was that enough to forgive his arrogance? Absolutely not. But… If he was capable of kindness, did that mean he was truly all that self-centered? Was it just for show? And, why on this sandy earth would he want to act like that?

She slid against his hands again, his fingers brushing up to her ribs before coming back down. He tightened his grip ever so slightly against her waist. She tensed up, straining to keep as steady as possible, to avoid falling back into him. He seemed to sense it, and he relaxed his grip.

It dawned on her: she was the one being jostled, and Pen was holding her to keep her steady. She was the one that was sliding in every direction, coming back to the place where their bodies pressed against each other.

“You’re quiet,” Pen said as they reached the edge of town. “Brooding again, Lucy?”

His voice laced through her hair, tickling the base of her ear. Her heart drummed so hard, she wouldn’t have been surprised if he could hear it.

“You’re quiet, too,” Lucy shot back, but her voice betrayed a small quiver. “Usually you’re making an entire speech about yourself every second you can get.”

He chuckled softly, his breath warm on her neck. It took all of her willpower to fight back another shiver. She stared hard at her workshop just up ahead. If they didn’t make it there before he laughed again, she was going to pull a muscle.

“Well, since you asked,” he said, pompous flair bubbling up to the surface. “I’ve always wanted to suplex a train. I bet I could.”

She was the one to laugh this time, and she was glad for it. The tension released from her body. “If you wanna try to suplex the next train you see, be my guest. If you succeed, you can add another list to your mantra of self-love. If you fail… I guess that part’s obvious.”

They arrived at her workshop. Pen dismounted without ceremony. The autumn chill pressed into the curves of Lucy’s back. She shivered and scrambled down the yakmel.

“Suplex a train for no good reason?” Pen asked, incredulous. “Who do you think I am? A criminal, like Logan and his ilk? I’d only do it in the name of justice!” He sighed. “Y’know, it really messes with my vibe knowing there’s someone here named Justice.”

Lucy chuckled to herself. “What an ass…”

“Yes, my ass is amazing, thank you. That’s the only bummer about a cape. It gets in the way of showing off the goods.”

Lucy stared in disbelief. “You’re… I don’t even know what you are.”

“You’ve got my list,” he said, smirking. “Protector, knight, ridiculously charming, strongest man in the world…”

She shook her head. As they unloaded the water, the landscape shift slightly under the early afternoon sun. They wrapped up the work in a fraction of the time it’d have taken Lucy by herself. She walked with him to the gate of her workshop, a mixture of confusing feelings brewing in her mind. Just hours ago, she was furious with Pen. Now, she was begrudgingly grateful for his aid and deeply confused about her body’s reaction to the slightest physical contact with him.

“Pen, I have a question,” she said slowly, stopping them halfway to the gate.

“What’s up, Skinny Arms?” At the look on her face, he rolled his eyes. “I can’t always help it, you know, not when the nickname is so perfect.”

She swallowed her annoyance. “Why did you want me, specifically, to do the commission?”

“Isn’t it obvious, Lucy?”

Her neck stiffened at the sound of her name. He grew serious for a moment, his gaze softening as he scanned the features of her face.

“It’s… not,” she said with some effort.

Pen shrugged, and he broke into a grin. “I like the work you do. It’s got a certain… builder-y… rustic-y… cobble-y thing going on.”

Her heart made one single thud. Was that disappointment she felt? What kind of answer was she expecting?

“Makes sense,” she said, nodding. “Next time, do me a favor and send me a letter if you can’t get a hold of me. Don’t make Yan give me the commission. He, uh, can be tough to deal with.”

Pen’s smile faded. “Oh? What did the mustached man say to you?”

“He implied that I was not a team player, with a lot more colorful language.”

A shadow passed over his eyes, but it was gone in a moment. “Duly noted.”

Something bright and red shot up in the sky on the other side of Sandrock.

“Huh, looks like someone set off a firework,” Lucy said, gesturing toward it. “Odd, for this time of day.”

Pen spun around. Gray smoke trailed up from the same location, dark and billowing.

“No… That’s no firework.” His voice rose, alarming and gleeful at once. “Danger is afoot at the Moisture Farm, and I’m gonna kick its butt!”

Before she’d fully processed his words, he ran across her workshop, leaped over the fence, and sped toward town.

“Wait up! I’m coming with you!” she cried. “Light, he’s hauling ass…”

Chapter 7: Centrifugal Motion

Chapter Text

Lucy dashed across her yard, snatched up her daggers, and strapped them to her back with all the speed her aching body could muster. As she finished detaching the wagon and scrambling up on Waddles, Pen’s cape disappeared past the east entrance of the city.

The ride was topsy-turvy. They stampeded across the train tracks, past Hammer Time, and up by the Research Center. Qi emerged from the downstairs exit, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. As Lucy and Waddles zoomed by, the resulting buffet of wind whipped up his tie, making it slap the back of his hand.

The multicolored blur that was Pen descended the hill by Fang’s clinic. A handful of tourists shouted in surprise as Lucy and Waddles barreled down after him.

“‘SCUSE ME,” Lucy bellowed, and they scattered. “SORRYTHANKS.”

A pillar of smoke billowed up ahead. The Moisture Farm’s glass dome came into view, just in time for Lucy to make out the body of a Geegler rocket through the top, flailing and hissing. It arced down and fell out of sight — certainly to its death.

Lucy halted Waddles at the entrance of the old building, slid off, and drew her daggers. Grimacing at the cramp in her side, she threw the doors open.

Flames, smoke, and vapor consumed a large structure at the center of the circular room. Zeke and the Civil Corps officers were scattered around the destroyed mechanism, each taking on multiple lizardfolk.

Zeke grabbed one by the tail and spun, generating centrifugal force with his own body. Four other Geeglers surrounded him, hesitating. Then, he released his victim, and it hissed all the way out like an angry jet of steam.

Nearby, Justice squared off with two Geeglers, wielding a massive hammer. Unsuur charged at a trio of archers. One loosed an arrow, grazing his arm.

Lucy ran behind one of the archers and drove a dagger into its back. It pierced its vest and sunk into its flesh. She reached up with the other blade and sliced its throat for good measure. Ichor and blood dribbled down the Geegler’s neck as its body went limp.

One of the remaining archers aimed its bow at Lucy. Taking advantage of the new distraction, Unsuur raised his greatsword overhead and cut down at its shoulder.

A projectile Geegler smashed into the last archer, a gift sent by Zeke. The botanist rubbed his shoulder and groaned. Justice and Unsuur rushed forward to aid him against the rest of his assailants, who were dancing around him like he was a meal they couldn’t wait to rip into.

Lucy engaged in a deadly dance with an enemy wielding two scimitars. It parried two of her strikes and pushed hard with surprising force. She fell onto her back, the wind forced out of her lungs in a cough. It made a guttural sound as it kicked her hard in the side. She grunted in pain. A dagger fell out of her hand, clanging on the floor.

The Geegler pounced, but she managed to roll out of the way. It lost balance, and she stuck her remaining dagger in its outstretched arm. As it curled over the wound, Lucy pulled herself to her feet and retrieved her fallen weapon. Before the Geegler could recover, she sliced at its back. It hissed and writhed, falling silent when she stuck a blade straight through its thin frame.

She fought to catch her breath. The heat from the mechanical pyre radiated out across the farm. Sweat dripped down her forehead.

A body slid across the floor on the other side of the burning machine. Haze obscured its features. Lucy dashed over, thinking it was one of the Sandrockers, but it was a dead Geegler. Nearby, Pen pinned another one to the ground.

He drove a fist into its skull, resulting in a loud crack. Blood spurted out one of its eyes. It screamed in agony. Pen punched again. Its face caved in, and the screaming stopped.

Another enemy charged behind him. In one fell swoop, Pen stood and sent a fist at the newcomer. It aimed true: he shattered the lizardman’s teeth. The creature staggered back, but it could not get far enough. Pen grabbed it by the neck, leaped high in the air, and slammed it down on the corpse of the previous Geegler. The body collided with dead flesh and cement. The force of the impact severed its spine. It did not get up again.

The Protector of Sandrock stood up tall, his breaths even and measured. Blood stained his neck and dripped down his uniform. He wasn’t a predator, searching for prey. That would imply something natural about him at this moment. His eyes were vacant, and his lips bore no smile of joy, nor grimace of pain.

Pen found Lucy’s gaze, and a glimmer of life returned to him. His jawline softened. But the moment — however misplaced in the heat of battle — was cut short, as something moved in Lucy’s peripheral vision. A Geegler, crouched discreetly in the rubble of the machine, aimed its crossbow at Pen.

She lunged at it, but too late. The lizardman launched a bolt. Lucy kicked the crossbow out of its hands. Before it realized what was happening, she skewered its back. It gurgled and cried out as she pulled it toward the ground, extracted her blade, and stabbed down again, this time at its heart.

It was quiet, save the sound of her own ragged breaths and the machine’s groaning death. She was drenched in sweat and blood, staring down at the unseeing eyes of this mutant. Its wide-brimmed hat lay on the ground, bearing an emblem of a skull. Footsteps hurried over.

“That’s the last one,” Justice said. His shadow loomed over her as he peered at the gutted corpse. “Light, Lucy, thanks for helping out, but what are you even doing here?!”

Lucy stirred, standing up on trembling legs. “Saw there was trouble. Wanted to help.”

“Hey, is that the other new builder? I’m Zeke, nice to meet you. Mi-an’s told me a lot about you.”

The botanist gave her a wave, which she returned, daggers still in hand.

“Now ain’t the time for pleasantries, you big palooka!” Justice said. “Look around, the whole Moisture Farm is trashed! I can’t believe those darn lizardmen could be so audacious! This is a clear escalation!”

“The good thing about plants, Justice, is that they grow back. We’ll be fine.” Zeke’s voice was husky and calm. He didn’t sound like he’d just launched three Geeglers to their doom.

“What about this thing?” Lucy asked, gesturing at the busted machine. “Looks kinda important.”

“Oh. Yes. The Hydrogel. All the crops will die without that.”

“What?! You’re joking, right?” Justice cried. “I can never tell if you’re serious or not…”

“No, haha,” Zeke said, a small, awkward smile peeking through his beard. “I’m afraid there’s nothing funny about it. Without a replacement, we could be in dire straits, and this main part of the machine is kind of rare…”

Lucy’s heart sank.

Unsuur approached the group, gripping a ripped piece of cloth against is shoulder. Blood was spreading outward from the center. In his ever-serene way, he said, “Permission to go to the clinic, sir.”

Justice sighed. “You don’t need permission, partner! C’mon… I wanna make sure you get there safely. Lucy — can you talk to Zeke about this thing? Hate to put more on your plate, but…”

“I got it,” Lucy said firmly. “I hope it heals up quickly, Unsuur.”

“Thanks, Lucy. I hope so, too.”

She held onto her nerves while the two officers left. If her body could, it’d glow red and blare an alarm. She sheathed her daggers before her fingers gave up.

Zeke scratched his head, scanning the corpses littered across the farm. “Why don’t you go get Director Qi in here to see if he can make a diagram for a replacement Hydrogel? I gotta clean this mess up. This, uh, can’t be good for the crops… If they survive, we don’t want lizard blood in the soil… Don’t know what it might do to it. Probably not a good thing to wait and see.”

“Good idea on both fronts,” Lucy said, grimacing. “I can help you clean up, too.”

He shook his head. “Talk to the Director. I’ve got this.”

She obliged, heading toward the door. The silhouette of something colorful and bloody came into her peripheral vision. Pen was silently collecting the bodies into a neat pile. When he saw her approaching, he nodded in acknowledgment.

“Skinny Arms… Not bad with the fighting back there.”

There was no sneer in his voice. He was being genuine. She scanned his features, recalling that fleeting vision of vacancy. She looked down at his chest, where the crossbow bolt was headed. Nothing but a little splatter of blood adorned his armor — someone else’s blood, of course.

His lips curled into a smirk. “See something you like?”

Perhaps she imagined it after all. The goofy meat-head was alive and well.

“I was checking for injuries,” she said, fighting back a smile. “Last I saw, you were about to get shot. Lucky for you, I got the Geegler.”

“Lucky? You could’ve been witness to my uncanny ability to catch projectiles mid-flight with my bare hands!” He pantomimed the movement.

“Next time, I won’t try to help you,” she shot back. “Is that what you’d prefer?”

“Ouch, Skinny. I think I’ll manage either way,” he said, dumping another body on the pile of dead trophies. “But — no hard feelings. I’ll always look out for you.”

She started to speak, but Zeke’s voice boomed from across the farm. “Hey, I hate to interrupt, but we’re in the middle of a situation over here.”

“S—sorry Zeke,” Lucy squeaked. “I’m leaving now!”

Without another glance at Pen, she exited the building and walked Waddles down to the Research Center. She was afraid she wouldn’t be able to get back up the saddle, let alone climb back down.

Half an hour later, she finished explaining the situation to Qi, who responded with a placid nod. “So that’s why you were in such a hurry earlier.”

“Right. Sorry about that,” she mumbled.

“Geeglers are interesting. New intelligent species appeared near the ending of the Old World due to genetic experimentation. Records show that’s one of the reasons that led to the Day of Calamity. But intelligence and aggressiveness varied…”

Lucy nodded, though she was in danger of getting lost in this science talk. When she saw an opportunity, she cleared her throat. “So, Qi…”

“Director.”

What was it about the Sandrockers and their titles?

“Director,” she repeated. “do you wanna head over and take a look at the Hydrogel?”

“I have a few ideas about how to make one. I do not have the need nor the desire to see it in person. A summary explanation suffices, which you have already provided me.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Oh, and I am quite certain that one of the materials you’ll need for this, a condenser, can be acquired at the Breach. It’s a ruin in town that has been closed off by the Civil Corps for some time. Speak with Justice about letting you in.”

Condenser. Breach. Justice. She committed the words to memory as she turned to leave. Before she got to the door, she spotted a half-eaten bowl of soup on the Director’s work desk, alongside drinking cup that looked like the ones from the Blue Moon Saloon.

“Does the Blue Moon deliver?” she asked.

“…What?” He wheeled around.

She pointed at the dishes.

“Oh… No. They do not deliver, but I do not see how that is relevant to… anything at all, really.”

“I was just curious.”

“Your curiosity is misplaced.”

Lucy sighed. “Alright, I will make a note in my… social research. Let me know when you got the diagrams.”

“Social research…” He frowned. “It sounds tedious.”

She agreed silently. The large machine at the end of the room made a clunking noise, and she was suddenly brought back to the heat of the moisture farm, next to the burning Hydrogel. A dim vision of the last Geegler’s death came back to her. The image evoked nothing in her, but she saw it all the same. She expected her pulse to quicken, her breath to sharpen, but nothing.

Angry words surged forward from the fog of her past — the voice of another. You choose to feel nothing, when it’s convenient for you.

She shook her head as if she’d been accosted by a troublesome mosquito. Qi’s back was turned to her, probably under the assumption that she’d already gone.

“Qi, I really hate to bother,” she said slowly, “but can I ask you a question? For research purposes.”

To her surprise, the Director almost smiled. “Oh, are you performing experiments of your own?”

Lucy thought of Pen’s blank stare as he broke his enemies. It awakened something in her, something she wasn’t sure she was ready to face. But, here she was, scratching her head over it.

“Not quite yet…” she said slowly. “I’m wondering, do you think it’s possible for someone to shut their emotions off at will? And, if it is, what does it say about the person?”

His almost-smile faded. “Philosophy? Really? Builder, I’m disappointed.”

“It’s psychology, not philosophy.”

He pushed his glasses up his noses. “Your questions are philosophical in nature. I thought we were going to talk about something concrete.”

“You don’t have any thoughts on the matter?” She frowned. If anyone could’ve given her some logical insight to this, she would’ve bet all her Gols on Qi.

“No, merely some uninteresting factoids I gathered, which were tangentially related to other studies of actual merit. It sounds like you are referencing psychopathic behavior.”

Her past echoed again from the same place, but the voice was quiet and soft this time. I still believe that you loved me, on some level, in your own way. But it took a toll on you.

She looked at the ground. “Psychopaths can’t switch it on and off, can they? What if the emotions in question were just… romantic in nature?”

She thought back to meeting Owen, how his charming smile and demeanor gave her butterflies. The moment she noticed them, she closed up. She even thought about Pen. The way he called her Skinny Arms, and how she latched onto that with ferocity, using it as an anchor — as an excuse — to keep from engaging with him.

Qi rifled through some documents on his desk. “Builder, I must stress that I do not find this topic of conversation engaging nor worthwhile to pursue. The sooner I can get back to my work, the sooner you will have your Hydrogel diagrams.”

“Right. Sorry, Director.” She placed her hand on the door.

“For the record, if the subject in question is you, I find it highly improbable that you are a psychopath. Quite the opposite. You have an overextended sense of responsibility and empathy for others. So does the other builder. That is as far as I will hypothesize on the matter.”

He wasn’t looking at her, but she smiled. It was something she needed to hear, and he didn’t have a clue, nor did he care. “Thanks, Qi — I mean, Director. I’ll leave you to it.” She left the Research Center, unexpectedly uplifted.

She found Unsuur at the clinic, but there was no Justice. Fang had gone to forage for medicinal herbs, taking X with him.

“Oh, hey, Lucy,” said Unsuur when he saw her approaching. His uniform had been removed and folded neatly beside his bed. He was just in an undershirt beneath the hospital bedsheet. A large bandage was just visible over his shoulder.

“I wanted to check and see how you’re doing,” she said, placing a ginger hand on the railing of his bed.

“Thanks. You didn’t have to.”

“I know,” Lucy replied, feeling a surge of fondness for Unsuur’s quirkiness. “I wanted to. How long will you be here?”

“Until tomorrow. It’s up to Justice and Captain to keep the town safe until then. They should be able to handle it. They’ve done it before.”

“Is there anything I can get you?”

He shook his head. “No, but if you do find some cool rocks that you want to give away, I’ll never say no to that. It doesn’t have to be before tomorrow, either.”

“You got it, Unsuur.”

As she stepped out into the afternoon sun, the images of bloodshed played back through her mind. She shuddered. Maybe she wasn’t numb to it after all. The talk with Qi had bolstered her resolve against her internal struggle. Waddles nuzzled her gently, bringing her back to the present. She needed to find Justice and get access to the Breach. She led the yakmel up the earthen path to the Church of Light. With any luck, Justice would be there. Worst case, she could use it as a vantage point.

As she circled around the back of the church, Pen emerged from the dormitory. He was still dressed as a superhero with a cape, but the color scheme was more muted: dark gray with orange accents. He’d also cleaned the blood from his face.

“You have that outfit in different colors?” Lucy asked, incredulous.

“Of course! Pretty cool, huh?” He put his hands on his hips. “You might be on your way to earning an outfit of your own… eventually.”

She rolled her eyes. “We’ve already been over this. Capes are not functional for a builder.”

“Not with that attitude.”

She started a retort, but she recalled Zeke yelling at them earlier.

“Hey, how did it go with the cleanup?”

“The loathsome lizardmen are disposed of,” he answered nonchalantly.

“What do you think they wanted with the Moisture Farm?” The intrusive thoughts of their dying faces — smashed in, toothless, and bleeding — came back with dull persistence.

Pen shrugged. “Destruction, as we saw with the hydro-jelly thing you’ve signed up to fix.”

He stood on one leg and pulled the other into a quad stretch. She gave him a quizzical look.

“I’ll leave you to that,” she said, turning to leave. “I gotta talk to Justice to get into the Breach.”

“Those hazardous ruins in town? Already hungry for another fight? You haven’t even cleaned off the evidence of the first round.”

Lucy looked down. Blood stained her hands, her shirt, and her pants. A lump formed in her throat.

“I understand,” Pen continued. “It can feel like a mark of honor. I wouldn’t recommend letting the stain sit, though. It can be tough to get out.”

She ran her fingers — her bloody fingers — through her hair, to her immediate regret. “Ugh. Wonder why Qi didn’t say anything. I was talking to him for forever.”

He swapped quads. “The Director? I tried to give him a combat lesson once, and he shut the door in my face. The nerve!”

I’ll have to give Qi a high-five one of these days, she thought.

“Wish I could recommend your little lessons,” she said, smirking, “but my experience was pretty less than stellar.”

“That was no fault of mine, I’ll have you know.”

“It was at least fifty percent your fault.”

“One hour with Qi, and you’re speaking the science-y language of statistics!”

Pen stood up tall and looked around them. Lucy figured he was scanning the area for nearby people. This was the key to deciding whether he was going to annoy her with “Skinny Arms” or unknowingly make her tense up with “Lucy.”

From her brief revelation in Qi’s Research Center, she didn’t quite care about his nickname as much as she’d thought. What actually bothered her? It could’ve been his voice, or the way that he smiled at her when no one else was around, or, more recently, how she felt when he was close to her.

It was hard to decipher. These fleeting moments were quickly squashed by his idiotic quips and her own uncanny, apparently-non-psychopathic ability to divert unwanted feelings.

The hilltop was empty, and the sun felt hotter up here. Matilda, Miguel, and the other church members must’ve been in City Hall, dealing with the aftermath of the Hydrogel’s destruction and the Geegler attacks. A fireside meeting was surely imminent.

“Lucy.” The sound of her name was like a gentle hand to her chin, turning her to face him. The follow-up was far less tender. “I’m about to do my thousand squats. You’re welcome to stick around and enjoy the show, but I think you were on your way to go do something boring.”

She squinted at him, that all-too familiar vexation bubbling up. “Good call. See ya.”

By the time Lucy found Justice, she grew deeply concerned with how insane she must’ve looked, wandering around town with blood-stained daggers, hands, clothes, and — most likely — hair. No one asked questions, but she did garner some strange looks from Grace, Arvio, and Heidi in passing. She would have to explain to them later. Perhaps they already heard about the incident.

Justice and his horse Truth were in Martle Square at her fifth or sixth visit. She lost count.

As she went over her paraphrasing of Qi’s recommendation, he nodded thoughtfully. With some hesitation, he agreed that getting a condenser from the Breach was a matter of life or death.

“But,” he said, raising a finger, “I won’t open it up until tomorrow. You need to take a beat, partner.” He gestured toward the various marks of battle on her person.

“I can take care of it,” she protested, even though her body vehemently disagreed.

“It could take hours in there, and there are definitely monsters and all sorts of hazards still. We never got around to clearing it out.”

Her stomach growled, and she let out a heavy sigh. “Damn, when you’re right, you’re right. I just… want to do something about all this.”

She balled her hands into fists. Concern etched deep lines in Justice’s face.

“Lucy, there ain’t no sense in rushing into danger when you got time to prepare. Look at yourself. I can see you’re tired. You’re covered in blood. You’re not gonna get the diagrams ‘til tomorrow at the earliest, so take a step back and really think about what you’re tryna do here.”

Lucy ran her fingers through her hair. “Okay,” she said, defeated. “I’ll go prep for tomorrow, then. That gives me time to get medicine and extra supplies.”

“Now you’re talkin’ sense!”

He took his leave to continue his route, stretched thin as he was. Lucy headed home, washed up, and changed. The anxiety and itch to take control over the situation subsided, and she was feeling calm enough to entertain the idea of an early dinner. Her stomach, threatening a riot, rejoiced at the decision.

At the Blue Moon Saloon, she found Justice once again, in the middle of a conversation with Owen and Grace. From the looks on their faces, there seemed to be a bit of a disagreement.

The sheriff crossed his arms. “Talk to me again when your fightin’ chops are up to snuff, like, say… Lucy’s here.”

She joined the group. “Did I hear ‘Lucy?’ What kinda trouble am I in now?”

Owen chuckled. “Grace is trying to get into the Breach for some archaeology research.”

“It’s been closed forever,” Grace said, nodding, “but now Justice is saying he’s opening it up to help repair the Moisture Farm. I want in!”

“Hey, now,” Justice said, shaking his head. “I said I was temporarily giving restricted access to Lucy.

“How about this: if I were to commission Lucy to enter the Breach on my behalf, you’d have no objections to that, would you, Sheriff?”

“I’m up for it,” Lucy grinned.

“Well… Alright. I s’pose that’s by the book in my book,” Justice said slowly. “None of this is happening ‘til tomorrow, though. We all need a good night’s rest after what happened at the Moisture Farm today. I reckon it’s on you and Lucy to work somethin’ out.”

The sheriff excused himself to continue his patrol, while Lucy, Grace, and Owen chatted about Grace’s specific needs. She wanted to see if there was anything under the category of Old World audio-visual media, from memos to electronics.

“I’ve discovered a concept known as ‘hooky,’ which I’ve surmised to mean ‘listening to music at work.’ So, when you head in there, just keep an eye out for anything that might be related to music. Posters, discs, and small chips, too. For… reasons.”

“Wonder why it’s called ‘hooky,’” Owen said, scratching his chin. “If you ever gather the reasoning behind that, I might have to steal it for one of my story nights.”

Lucy smiled. “Sounds good. I’ll make sure to check. D’you guys mind if I sit here and eat?”

They ushered her into a booth, and Grace asked to sit with her. As she slid into the seat opposite to Lucy, she gave her a concerned look.

“You alright?” she asked. “Actually, let me rephrase that. You didn’t come by earlier today, and then the next time I saw you, you were covered in blood. What happened?”

“Uh… The Moisture Farm happened. Assuming you’ve already heard.”

Grace’s eyes grew big. “I heard it got attacked, but that was it. Owen’s already planning solutions, if sh*t hits the fan. I didn’t know you were at the scene. How are you holding up?”

The builder ran her fingers through her hair. “It feels surreal, like I wasn’t really there. I’ve never killed people before, let alone any creature that was close to human — that is, if they are...”

Grace observed her keenly, listening with great care as Lucy tried to explain the images that kept coming back in her mind.

“I started to think there was something wrong with me,” Lucy said with a dark laugh. “Like, am I supposed to be freaking out right now? Is it okay to be numb — to feel nothing? Or, is that just me and how I deal with this kind of thing?”

“No one can tell you how you should and shouldn’t feel about it.” Grace placed a thoughtful hand beneath her chin. “You can never be properly prepared for something like this.”

Lucy blinked slowly. “I’m gonna have to get used to this, somehow.”

“It’s okay if you don’t ever get used to it,” Grace said, shrugging. “But, for what it’s worth, I think you’re stronger and more capable than you know.”

“That means a lot,” Lucy smiled softly. “I guess we’ll see how I deal with it when I’m in the Breach.”

Against expectations, she slept soundly that night. It could’ve been exhaustion, or the words of Qi and Grace could’ve had a soothing effect on her psyche. The morning came, crisp with promises of ample sunlight later in the day. She got ready, had a quiet breakfast at home, and headed into town.

She ran into Yan, who was hobbling downhill toward the Commerce Guild. He gave her a sickly wide grin.

“Newbie!” he cried. “Heard you’re takin’ care of some business down in the Breach. Y’know, I don’t normally condone…” Lucy blinked slowly, phasing out of conscious awareness. “…but, hey, you’re makin’ a name for yourself, and that’s good for the guild, too!”

She shook her head, not fully understanding. “Sorry, I didn’t catch that last part.”

Yan shrugged. “I know I’ve been hard on ya, but that’s ‘cause I demand the best from my employees! So, keep up the good work, is all I’m sayin’. You, uh, got some real potential!”

Is he giving me a PEP TALK? she thought, staring after him as he started limping to the office, rubbing a spot on his lower back.

“Uh… Yan?”

“What’s up, newbie?”

“Are you okay?” She wasn’t sure if she really cared, but she was curious.

His mustache twitched as he forced a smile. “Yep, just fell down some stairs. I’ll catch ya later.”

He turned back and muttered under his breath as he shuffled in. With a dark laugh, Lucy figured Yan was killed and replaced by a kinder, less evil twin.

In Martle Square, the ginger tabby Macchiato stretched out on the pavement, snoring into the grooves of the stones. A little ball of paper was nestled between his fluffy paws. He must’ve fallen asleep mid-play. Lucy smiled at him, mentally promising him scratches and treats later.

She found Justice taking down the barricades at the Breach.

“Mornin’ Lucy. Bright and early, I’m not surprised.”

“Yep. Might as well knock it out.”

Justice ran a hand over his hair. “You say it like it’s gonna be a cake walk. You sure you’re ready to go in there?”

“I am,” she said. She gestured at her equipment.

“I’ve been thinkin’ on it, and I gotta ask: have you ever been in a hazardous ruin before?”

“No, I haven’t.” Her cheeks turned pink.

“It might best if you take somebody along as backup.”

She shook her head. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll be alright.”

He gave her a skeptical look. “Look, you did great back at the Moisture Farm yesterday, but I wouldn’t take any chances down here. I can’t guarantee you won’t find somethin’ nasty. We haven’t had the time to check this place out in a few weeks.”

She bit her lip. There was a line between being brave and being stupid.

“Alright,” she said. “Should I put in a request at the Civil Corps office?”

“Nah. I think it’s better to get it done quicker than paperwork would allow, given the circ*mstances. Not to mention, Unsuur hasn’t been discharged yet, so I’m still rolling solo on patrol. I can’t leave my post for long.”

She frowned. “That’s the whole Civil Corps…”

“You’re tellin’ me,” Justice said with a strained smile. “Take Pen with you. He’s a pain, but he’ll back you up in a fight.”

“That guy,” she groaned. “Really?”

“Hey, I thought you two were starting to get along,” he said, chuckling. “You wanna take the chance and go alone, don’t say I didn’t warn you. But, uh… speakin’ of… Here he comes.”

She wheeled around. Sure enough, Pen was coming down from the church grounds. His cape gently dusted the stairs behind him.

“Ah, the Breach is open for business, eh?” he asked nonchalantly.

“Lucy’s gotta go in there to get equipment for the Moisture Farm.” Justice shot her an apologetic glance. “I was thinkin’… that you should go with her, be her backup and all that.”

“You mean I get to dish out fists of justice right on our doorstep? When do we go?”

“Now,” Lucy muttered. She yanked the doors open.

“Who am I to turn down a good time?!” He pranced forward and followed her in.

“Hey, y’all be careful, now!” Justice called after them.

The Breach doors shut with a metallic echo. Lucy and Pen stood on the top of a staircase. They were swallowed by the large walls, sharp lines, and flat textures of the Old World, dinged and marked by centuries of war and neglect. Their steps echoed on the cold metal floor. An old billboard greeted them with a brightly colored drink, the image frozen in time.

“So, this is a hazardous ruin,” Lucy said. “It doesn’t look very… hazardous.”

“You’ve taken two steps, Skinny. Slow your roll.”

“Lucy,” she corrected, more out of habit than anything. “We’re alone now.”

Her chest tightened at the thought. We are very much alone.

Chapter 8: A Pen for Your Thoughts

Chapter Text

Lucy and Pen descended into the first level of the Breach. It was quiet here. It looked like an old terminal or waiting room. A bench was on the far side of the room, its cushions moth-eaten and deflated. A fallen exit sign took up half the floor. Cubbies lined the opposite wall. Various objects still sat there: purses, backpacks, file folders, and the like.

“I’m looking for some relics besides the condenser,” Lucy said, tracing her fingers along the edges of the cubby shelves. She started reaching into containers on the left side. “Anything that might be media related. If you wanna help, that’d be nice.”

Pen ventured to the opposite end of the cubby, took a backpack, unzipped all the pockets, and turned it inside out. Its contents clattered onto the floor.

“Pen,” Lucy cried, “not like that! You could damage the relics!”

He sighed. “This is a lot more boring than I thought it was gonna be.” He picked up the debris and placed them with exaggerated care on the shelves. “There.”

She glared at him. “You could’ve stayed in town.”

“If only it were that simple, Lucy. Such is the duty of the protector.” He withdrew a small, thin booklet from an old, moldy filing box. “Does this meet your criteria?”

She took it from him and dusted off the cover with the edge of her shirt. “Gordana,” she said slowly, reading the name at the front. It was a traveler’s sized notebook, and the writing in it was oversized and child-like.

“Looks like a journal,” she said. Pen arched an eyebrow at her as she read the last entry in silence.

(1)

Papa said it was getting dangerous. He really believed that there’ll be a war. I didn’t pay attention to the news before. I should have.

I’m still in shock. My power pack is low. I ran out of food 6 days ago. I feel like I should write everything down before... the end. Maybe someone will find this one day. But here it goes:

I didn’t go to school on that day, Papa’s orders. I thought I would do some chores and then chat with friends on Wetalk. Around noon, when I was just finishing my lunch, there was a boom and a blinding light outside. Then the ground started shaking and the wall broke in half. Our house was thrown almost sideways. I was so scared. Mama came running and pulled me into the master bath tub. The shaking and the booms lasted forever. Mama just hugged me tight the whole time.

(2)

When the shaking finally stopped, our house was reduced to rubbles. In fact, my entire neighborhood was in ruins. Smoke and dust filled the air. Randal, our house AI was crushed beneath a wall.

Mama tried to call Papa, but the network was down. I remember an emergency PA telling people to look for help at designated shelters. So we grabbed whatever we could and headed for the nearest one. There really weren’t anything resembling roads left, we sorta just climbed and hiked across a ruined landscape.

The shelter wasn’t there anymore. I don’t know where it went, but in place of the shelter was the art museum from across town. I think that was the point where it dawned on me that the world will never be the same again.

(3)

The sky became very dark. I couldn’t even see my hands anymore without a light. It’d been a few days since the event. We still couldn’t find Papa. Mama cried when she thought that I was asleep.

We met up with a few other survivors. There were about 30 of us, and we lived in the art museum. They’re saying that fighting was still going on around the moon, and that our orbital platforms were all destroyed. I tend to tune them out when they’re discussing this, I didn’t want to think about it.

Our group managed to gather some food, but we still didn’t see any signs of law and order. It seemed like the government was wiped out.

Lucy read the pages twice over, her heart heavy. The child ran out of food six days before writing this, she thought. She knew she was going to die.

“Pen, look at this."

She observed him as he flipped through the pages, digging for a glimpse of anything — sadness, shock, even indignation. Nothing. He handed it back to her silently and resumed rummaging through the cubbies.

“Did you even read it?” she asked.

“I did.” He emptied out the last container, revealing some old, crusted makeup, a broken pencil, and what looked like a far-gone candy bar.

Lucy spotted a metallic calendar and placed it in the satchel she’d brought for relics. “You don’t have any thoughts on the journal, then?” Her voice was laced with disappointment.

He paused at the entrance to the next passage, waiting for her to catch up. “What thoughts would you expect me to have?”

“Any thoughts would do, Pen,” she said hotly. “It’s the diary of a child from the Age of Darkness. Not only that, she witnessed the f*cking Calamity. I can’t even begin to express how heartbreaking that is.”

Pen leaned against the doorframe, crossing his arms. A soft wrinkle formed between his brows. “It is the reality of that time, Lucy. The true nature of humanity reared its head, and children like her paid the price.”

“You talk about it so casually. It was the worst moment in our world’s history. It’s the reason we’re even here now, digging through all this, scraping by for fragments of who — and what — we used to be.” She shook her head in disbelief. “As someone who is so hell-bent on protecting the weak, I thought it might have more of an impact on you.”

“I understand that it’s upsetting,” he said, frowning slightly, “but being bummed out isn’t my style. We can talk in circles about how much this sucks, but that’s not what we came here for, is it?”

Lucy sighed. “It’s not. I just didn’t expect to see something like this here.”

Pen nodded toward the hallway. “Can’t do much for the poor kid in the book, but you can take out your frustrations with a good ol’ fashioned beat-down. Whaddaya say, Skinny?”

Lucy stilled her quivering lips. The logical side of her was in full agreement with him. She came here on a mission — two, in fact — not to wallow in the horrors of the past. She shoved the journal into the satchel and followed Pen’s lead.

They descended another staggered flight of stairs. A mechanical humming sounded from the next level below. They crouched and slowed their pace, and Lucy drew her knives.

All she saw was a slightly charred doorway and a glowing shape passing by once in a while.

“Sounds like some wayward machinery is cruisin’ for a bruisin’,” Pen whispered.

They moved forward and entered the room. Five Old World cleaning robots hobbled around the white-walled office. The glowing shape Lucy had seen was a small, spherical trotter, with a clinically white body and electronic eyes.

It was the worst moment for her to lose focus. She wondered if these AIs had gone berserk centuries past, if they were just creeping here ever since, trampling the corpse of children like Gordana. The thought took her away long enough for the trotter to raise its little tubular arm. A blaze of light flared, and Lucy rolled to the ground. She was too slow.

Lucy yelped. The attack burned a hole in her shirt, and the flesh on her back shoulder seared like meat on a grill. She pushed against the ground, adrenaline surging through her, numbing the pain long enough for her to stand. A cleaner-bot charged toward her, green attachments whirring with killer intent.

Dizzy from pain, she jabbed wildly at the blur of green metal. Her daggers were made for flesh. It poked holes in the bloodless being, but it did nothing to keep it from trying to sweep her to death. Her injury screamed with fury, but Lucy refused to let it win.

In a bout of desperation, she dropped a dagger and used her free hand to grab one of the eye stalks. With her remaining dagger, she groaned in pain as she tore at the synthetic metal-and-rubber neck. Sparks flew where her dagger struck, but she managed to rip it apart. Sparks and rogue wires flew wildly as the sweeper fell in a heap.

Lucy blinked through tears, trying to find the next enemy. But there were none left.

“Nice, Skinny,” Pen said, standing in the middle of a pile of destroyed robots.

“Shut up,” she snapped. She grabbed a hemostat vial and unscrewed the cap. She tried to reach the dropper over her injury, but the movement was unbearable. “f*ck!”

Realizing that she was injured, Pen crossed quickly over to her. “Allow me.”

She shoved the dropper in his outstretched hand, tears welling up as her adrenaline faded. He moved in closer, his head directly above hers as he stooped over her. She could feel his breath coming down steadily against her neck. It mingled with the pain from the back of her shoulder, a paradox of sensations.

He swept her curtain of hair to the side and out of the way. She tilted her neck to give him a better vantage point, and the stretch of her skin tugged at the wound, making her wince.

“It f*cking hurts,” she whimpered. She could feel the air of the Breach seeping into her body, hot and cold at once, unwelcome all the same.

“Take this.” He reached a hand out so she could see it. “Squeeze if it hurts.”

She obliged. Her cold fingers slipped into an envelope of warm and calloused skin, as his hand eclipsed hers.

“Ready?” His steady voice sailed to the edge of her ear, wrapped around the base of her neck, and down her spine. Her pulse quickened. She nodded wordlessly, before fear could take hold.

Cool liquid splashed onto the laser-cut groove in her shoulder. She heard it before she felt it: a sizzle. Behind her field of vision, vapors rose up from the impact site.

Her free hand balled into a fist, while the one holding onto Pen squeezed hard, down to the bones of his knuckles. If it hurt him, she wouldn’t have known, for he was silent while she whined in agony.

The wound seared, like she was being freshly shot in slow motion. White-hot pain ripped her open. Her flesh convulsed as the layers of tissues webbed toward each other. Lucy shut her eyes so tight, blazing patterns appeared behind her lids, a kaleidoscope of pain.

Pen discarded the used dropper and wrapped both arms around her, careful not to touch the healing injury. Her hand traveled to his back, and she dug her nails in. She dropped to her knees — slowly, with Pen keeping her from crashing. Her tears soaked into his tracksuit as she sobbed into his chest. He slowly lowered his cheek to the top of her head.

“Steady, Lucy,” he said, his voice rumbling in her hair. “It’s almost over.”

She grunted in acknowledgment, coherence evading her.

Then, the crippling pain finally subsided, giving way to intense itching. Her skin was on fire. She fidgeted, but Pen held her still, one hand laced through her hair as it cradled her neck. They crouched like this together for an eternity. The bulk of his body blocked out the light from her field of view. Lucy focused on Pen’s measured breaths, the rising and falling of his chest against her forehead.

The last of the medicine melded with her body, leaving behind the webbing of a fleshy scar. She couldn’t see it, but the wound now looked days old. Her breathing slowed, buried in the fortress that Pen built around her.

“How — deep — was that — f*cking cut?” she said between gasping breaths, her voice muffled.

“Well, lemme put it to you like this, Skinny: might’ve seen some bone poking out.”

She pulled away from him, horror-stricken.

“It was a jooooke,” he chuckled. “C’mon Skinny. It was just a flesh wound! A really deep flesh wound! But you’re alright now. Right?”

She glanced at the pile of dead robots, then back at Pen. “Y—yeah.” She sniffled and wiped her tears away.

“That was just the first fight,” he said as he got to his feet. “Maybe you oughta stick behind ol’ Pen in the future.”

“No.” She shook her head, standing on her own accord. “I was distracted this last time. I’ll be ready for the next fight.”

“Words of a fledgling warrior! Music to my ears.”

She pulled out her pickhammer from her tool belt and carefully broke apart the haywire robots. After scrounging for a bit, she was able to retrieve a small, intact microchip. She placed it gingerly in a pocket of her waist bag, not wanting to get it lost in the larger satchel.

As they went through the next hallway, Lucy prodded Pen’s arm. He looked over his shoulder at her with a questioning look.

She swallowed, recalling the gentleness with which he held her — something she couldn’t recognize mid-crisis. “Thanks for the help back there.”

Pen winked at her. “Just doin’ my job.”

“I don’t think your job includes holding me during a hemostat application,” she said with a wry smile.

“Hah! Don’t get too excited. I was restraining you from running like a madwoman into the next room. In a way, I was protecting you from yourself!”

“Sure, Pen.”

The next level down delivered on Pen’s wish for a second fight. As promised, Lucy was ready for it. Side by side, they charged forth, diving and weaving between more clunky bots. Lucy used her pickhammer’s hooked end to pull a cleaner-bot close to her. Her dagger sang, metal against metal, as she cut off its arms and eye stalks, ripping apart the machinery while its gears still turned.

“Heads up, Skinny!” Pen’s voice sailed, followed by a squealing, ball-shaped trotter.

She met the flying object with the flat side of her pickhammer. The digital screen shattered as it volleyed back to Pen, who landed the final blow with his fist.

When the dust settled, another half-dozen mechanical scrap piles laid at their feet. Pen’s chest heaved, the symbol on his costume glistening in the fluorescent light. One of the cleaner bots had gotten hold of his right sleeve and suctioned it clean away. His arm was exposed, from the well-defined bicep to the trunk-like forearm.

He met her gaze with a look of surprise. “Lucy, after the whole laser incident, I thought I was gonna have to hard carry us through this place. But the way you swing those skinny arms of yours with such force — I’m impressed!”

In spite of herself, she giggled. “Because my arms are NOT skinny!”

“You know what I mean by that,” he said. “Skinnier Arms Than Mine.”

“I’ll give you that,” she said. “I’m not as jacked as you.” She pointed at his exposed arm.

“Oh, yeah, they gave you a little eye candy on the way out.” He flexed his bicep. “I’d be shirtless all the time, but it’s really for the good of the people that I hold back. I’d just cause a distraction in the streets.”

She held back a snort. “I hate it.”

“You dig it.”

She raised her pickhammer, a goofy grin on her face. “Dig it?”

Pen groaned audibly. “Okay, Skinny, we’re done here.”

“Far from it! We still don’t have a condenser, and I don’t think I have enough media relics. Let me see.”

Lucy dug out another microchip from a dead hauler. She combed through the piles of rubble and inspected the different cubbies, extracting a few unlabeled discs. As she peeled off an old poster from the nearby wall, she spotted something wedged behind a storage unit — a bundle of paper with handwriting on it. She grabbed the unit and tried to pull, but it didn’t budge.

Pen approached and pulled the bookcase from the wall as if it were on wheels. She snatched up the fallen papers, recognizing the handwriting immediately. It was the rest of Gordana’s entries, separated from the original binding. She sat down on a nearby crate and read, her heart pounding.

(4)

It was a few days after that that our group was attacked by two men with guns. Mr. Arby confronted them. They shot him. The tall one was telling us that they’re the law now. If we wanted to survive, we had to listen to them and do as they say.

How did we go from a civil society to this?

A few men resisted, and there was chaos. Mama took me and we ran into the darkness outside. I don’t remember how long we ran, but we only stopped when we reached a tear in the ground.

(5)

We didn’t bring much when we ran. I had my mobile, and Mama had a few ration bars, but that’s it. It was cold. Not wanting to attract attention, we decided to climb down the tear. Well, it was more like a massive cliff, with skyscrapers buried beneath. I didn’t even know we had weapons that could do that.

We broke a window to enter one of the buildings. It turned out to be an office building. There were a lot of bodies inside. It smelled of rot.

Some parts of the buildings still had power. Mama tried to log onto the net and contact Papa, but the network was still down. The cleanerbots were cruising aimlessly, probably disconnected with their Allsource. There were blankets in the office, but I still felt cold.

(6)

We ran out of food a couple of days later. Mama searched the building but didn’t find any other food. Seemed like it’s been looted already.

Mama decided to go outside to look for food, she told me to stay behind because it was dangerous. I told her not to go. I begged her. Mama hugged me and told me to be brave, then she left.

This was 4 days ago. She’s still not back.

(7)

I slept away most of the time. I had dreams where Mama and Papa take me to the beach. Then I’d wake up in the darkness.

I don’t know what to write next. I’m hungry, I’m cold.

I miss you Mama, Papa. I’m sorry for all the times I caused you trouble. I’d do anything to take these back. I love you.

I guess I’ll stop here. My name is Gordana.

She pictured the scenes described. She was in a trance brought on by Gordana’s shaky handwriting. She was cold and alone in this Light-forsaken building. Did she die in this very room? As if expecting to see the ghost of a scared child, Lucy scanned the area. But it was just space with broken machinery and trampled belongings.

Of course she wouldn’t be there. She died hundreds of years ago, hungry, waiting for her mother and missing her father. Her body was long gone, decayed and turned to dust. Her last thoughts were etched onto those pages, in hopes that someone would read them one day. Well, here she was. Lucy was that someone.

“Talk to me, Skinny.” Pen gently pulled the pages from her grasp, inserted them in the book where they belonged, and put the journal in the satchel.

“You don’t care,” she said listlessly.

“Bold of you to assume.” He dragged a cleaner bot over, the metal scraping loudly against the floor. Then, he sat on top of the flat surface of its body. “Hit me with your best shot.”

Lucy took a deep breath and let out a shaky sigh. “She died alone. No one came to save her. And she knew they weren’t coming.”

The final scrawl burned into her retinas: “My name is Gordana” written shakily, each thread of ink ragged with exhaustion, with final acceptance.

“No one could save her,” Lucy corrected herself, blinking away tears. “How can people have caused something like this?” She gestured at the ruins around them. “They did this to each other… to their children…”

Pen looked at her with something from the quiet corner where softness and shadow met. “What surprises you about it?”

She swallowed, thinking about the answer for a moment, fighting back the dramatic visions of the girl’s last moments. “They talk about these events at school, as a part of history. It’s dry. It’s emotionless.” She took another breath. “But, being here, and seeing that journal, it’s like I’m there with her. I can’t see her face, but I can see her writing, and I wanna reach out and… protect her somehow. But I can’t.”

There was movement in his jawline, in his lips, but he was quiet for a long time. If only to keep from drowning in silence, Lucy spoke again. “I was excited to learn about the Old World outside of history books and lectures. Call me naive, but I didn’t think it’d break my heart like this.”

“I don’t think you’re naive,” he said matter-of-factly.

She bit her tongue, thinking of another’s voice. “I used to shut down my feelings easily. Someone brought this up, like it meant that I was a monster, unable to feel at the right moments.”

“Do you agree with them?” Pen asked.

“Not anymore. I could use it now, though. Feelings are a distraction here.” She gestured around them. “I don’t know why I’m so affected.”

“I have an idea of the reason.” At her inquisitive gaze, he smiled softly, like he was hoping to hold onto this secret a little longer. “Humor me, first. Do you think humans are born good or evil?”

Lucy furrowed her brows, taken aback at first, but found herself intrigued by the question. “I’d go with a third option. People are born neutral — blank slates.”

“I think we are born evil,” he said, his eyes fixed on the satchel with a measure of quiet disdain. “So, it doesn’t surprise me if people don’t rise above it.”

“The nature of humanity reared its head,” she said, repeating his own words back to him. “That’s what you meant. You think it’s in our nature to be evil — to hurt others?”

“It’s in our nature to fight for survival,” he said, leaning forward. “To survive is to put your needs above others. To be selfish. We might not go out of our way to hurt others, but we will do so when backed into a corner.”

She tilted her head, turning the concept over. Her tears stopped. “Maybe if you are alone, but we don’t exist in a vacuum, Pen. Humanity turned toward destruction and chaos for an age, but the pendulum is swinging the other way, don’t you think? We are here now, building back up together, trying to learn from the past. That — that gives me some hope, that we can do better.”

“There’s your answer,” Pen said. “You expect better from humanity. It’s not a bad thing. You’re a good person.”

“You don’t think you’re a good person?”

“That, Lucy, is something I’ve never claimed to be.”

She stared at him, wanting to dig deeper. She wanted to know why someone who claimed to be so noble, to look after the weak and protect the innocent, would default to such darkness at his core. But she couldn’t find the words.

All she saw were his eyes, as she noticed their color for the first time. Sapphire blue, prismatic and deep, with a facet of sorrow just visible in certain lighting. The smirk on his lips did not quite reach all the way.

“Well, that was fun,” he said, getting to his feet and handing her the satchel. “A little battle of the brains, huh? How ya feelin’ now?”

She blinked hard as if waking from a dream. She couldn’t believe she just had this kind of conversation with Pen, of all people.

“I do feel a little better. I’m not shocked anymore about the journal, but about the fact that you brought up such a deep topic.” She stood, chuckling softly in spite of herself. “Now, I’m just sad.”

“Ah, I’ve got a remedy for that, too.” He spread his arms wide with a cheesy grin.

She raised her eyebrows. “R—really?”

“Don’t make it weird. Bring it in, Skinny!”

Lucy closed the gap between them, standing on her toes as Pen wrapped his arms around her. Still taking care to avoid her injury, he leaned down and gently pressed their bodies together, as if he were trying to squeeze all the sadness out from her. She found the grooves of his back muscles and nestled her hands among them, thumbs tracing the defining lines. She felt like she was floating until she realized he’d lifted her slightly off the ground.

She didn’t know how long they stayed like that. She felt herself melting into him, her own muscles relaxing. When he pulled back from the hug, her legs wobbled as they stood on their own accord again.

Pen looked down at Lucy, his soft, barely-there smile hovering inches from her face. “Let’s get you that condenser before you get all weepy again.”

He headed toward the next hallway. She followed, speechless. He must’ve squeezed out her voice, on top of her sadness.

As they traversed the next passage, his words lingered in her thoughts, as surely as the scent of her hair lingered in his. Beneath his exterior of seemingly limitless confidence, the idea that he’d think he wasn’t a good person perplexed her. It didn’t make sense.

Lucy found another poster for Grace, and she carefully tucked it away in the pack. They climbed a non-operative escalator, marked with trash, burn marks, and old stains of battles past. Dust had since fallen like snow over it all, and their shoes made prints in the cover.

Her shoulder ached. She knew the hemostat wouldn’t resolve all the complications that came from being zapped by an Old World robot, but she hated the fact that it had to happen during their first combat encounter. Had Pen not been there, her recklessness and lack of focus might’ve gotten her seriously injured. She felt a tug of gratitude toward him, mingled with shame for thinking she’d make it out of this place on her own.

They entered a long hallway lined with discarded furniture and oblong sculptures that might’ve been fountains. Two Geeglers stood at the far end, crossbows at the ready.

They fell before they could fire. Pen dashed forward and landed crushing blows into their weapons, one fist for each. The bows shattered, sending wooden shrapnel into their stunned owners. For the final effect, Pen clunked their heads together with a resounding crack.

“Cool, so that worked,” Pen said. “I’ll have to add that to my list of combos.”

Lucy shook her head, perplexed. “Doesn’t all this punching hurt your hands?!”

He gestured toward his fingerless gloves. “Hah! Not one knuckle out of order.”

“Uh… You got somethin’ right there, Pen.” She pointed at large, jagged splinter stuck in his neck.

“Ah, unfortunate.” He yanked it out with a grunt. “What’s that look for? I appreciate your concern, but I’m fine, Skinny.”

He turned to show her the sizeable cut left behind. It trickled blood down to the neck of his tracksuit. By the time she pulled a hemostat out of her waist bag, it stopped bleeding.

“That was fast,” she said, wide-eyed. “Were your parents genetic super soldiers, or something?”

“Hah!” Pen kicked aside one of the Geegler bodies to make room for Lucy to walk. “Skinny, this is a carefully managed regimen of hitting my daily macros, working out twice a day, and never backing down from a challenge. You just gotta get good.”

“That’s bullsh*t,” she said flatly. “Maybe it just looked worse from where I was standing.”

They approached a circular room with a large opening in the middle. The elevator at the far end was no longer functional, covered in debris and sand. A large steel frame jutted up through the center.

“Down we go,” Pen said.

He leaped into the air and glided down to the bottom, the wind catching in his cape. He landed silently, kicking up a small dust cloud. Lucy stepped to the edge. Vertigo swelled at once, and she jumped back.

“Skinny Arms?”

“Just a second,” she muttered.

She wiped her palms on her pants, sheathed her daggers, and shuffled forward again. With shaking hands, she reached out to grip the steel beam in front of her.

Don’t look down, she told herself. It’s a short ladder. It’s just a step stool.

She tried to step onto the beam without looking down, but she couldn’t find footing. She ventured a glance toward the lower sections of the beam, but vision shot straight to the bottom. Her heart jolted, and her eyelids fluttered shut. One of her hands slipped. Now, she was half off the ledge and no more on the steel frame.

“f*ck,” she whimpered.

Something swooshed nearby. Pen’s voice sounded right behind her. “Incoming!”

Two hands gripped her by the waist and pulled her back. Like she had been transported to the moon, she lost grip on gravity. She lay across his arms, one each under her back and legs. She looked through half-shut eyes at the underside of Pen’s chin.

“Might wanna grab on,” he said.

Realizing what was happening, she threw her arms around his neck, her injured shoulder aching. She locked her fingers together and closed her eyes again. He leaped once more off the ledge. The wind rush through her hair as she felt them plunge.

“FUUU—”

He rolled her toward him, pressing her face into his shoulder and muffling her voice. Then, it all stopped. In reality, it took two or three seconds. To her, it was a lifetime of falling into an old, dusty hell.

Pen helped her back into a standing position. “Don’t give away our position, Skinny! Geeze…”

“Peach’s sweaty ball sack,” she whispered, putting a hand on her chest. She trembled all over. “Um… Thank you, I think.” She realized his hand was still on the small of her back, ready to act if she were to faint or stumble. She followed the trail of his arm up to his shoulder, then to his face.

Was that… concern?

“You’ve got some drool right there,” he said, holding back laughter.

Of course she did. She couldn’t help but laugh, too, as she wiped the saliva from the corner of her mouth. He released his grasp on her, and she felt the absence of warmth where he’d been.

“Hey,” she said quietly, “you’ve been a good friend to me today. You’ve saved my ass a couple times. Thank you.”

“That’s what I’m here for,” Pen shrugged. “Y’know, for someone who swore up and down that they could handle their own, you kinda oversold it.”

“Don’t make me feel worse than I already do.”

The next room hinted at how bad the Geegler incursion was becoming. A massive hole in the wall stared back at them from the other side of half a dozen lizardmen.

Lucy drew her daggers and caught one Geegler mid-swing of his scimitar. She kicked him away, then she maneuvered around him to get closer before striking. She dodged his attack and swiped her dagger at his abdomen. He fell back with a hiss of pain and doubled his efforts, more erratic this time.

Pen made quick work of some of the lesser “interns,” sometimes using them as weapons against each other. He ran by Lucy’s target and laid a sharp elbow into his back, forcing him to stumble forward onto Lucy’s awaiting blade.

“Didn’t need your help!” she shouted.

“You’re welcome anyway!” he shot back, grabbing one by the ankles and slamming him against the wall.

When the battle was over, Lucy groaned at the residual pain in her shoulder as she inspected the body of the apparent leader. He had a hat and an old, raggedy vest with a nametag pinned on the chest. Apparently, he was Vice President Gary.

The room was large and messy, filled with crates, discarded machinery, wooden planks, and broken furniture. Several rooms shot off from the center, but none held any more enemies.

Over the next hour, Pen helped Lucy with lifting particularly heavy objects and busting down side doors that didn’t want to open politely. Her relic satchel jingled merrily with potential. They finally retrieved a condenser after dismantling an old air conditioning system, and Lucy even patched the hole in the wall to discourage the lizardmen from sneaking back in.

They emerged from the Breach, condenser and relics in tow, in the late afternoon. Matilda, Miguel, and Owen were in Martle Square, heading toward City Hall. As the two groups greeted each other in passing, Lucy noticed Matilda’s hair — usually big enough to hide a small child in it — looked a little deflated.

On their way to her workshop, they stopped at the Blue Moon. The mood inside was grim. Lucy felt like she’d spent hours in another universe altogether, returning to a darker Sandrock. She brought the satchel up to Grace at the bar.

“Dang, this is great. Thanks, Lucy!” She beamed.

“Word got around, huh?” the builder asked, gesturing discretely around them.

Grace leaned over the bar top and dropped her voice. “People are worried about a food shortage, and Cooper’s just making it worse. Owen’s meeting with Matilda at City Hall about his ideas for a food drive.”

She glanced over Lucy’s shoulder at Pen, who was leaning against the entryway.

“He helped me with the Breach,” Lucy explained. “Justice insisted.”

“That must’ve been fun,” Grace said, smirking.

The builder stifled a snort. “I hate to admit it, but he was very helpful.”

Sunset began as they approached Lucy’s home. She showed Pen where to unload the condenser, and she allowed herself, just this once, to watch his bare arm flex as he carried the mechanism to its destination. The golden lighting accentuated the curvature of his tricep and bicep. He bent his knees and lowered the unit carefully, his cape sweeping to the side and unveiling his well defined—

“I see you checkin’ out the goods, Lucy.” Pen stood tall, the vision of arrogant satisfaction.

Her stomach sank into an shriveling bath of shame. She bit her lip, accepting defeat. “Yep,” she said, throwing her hands up. “You got me. I was being a creep.”

“Hey, I know I got it going on. You can look all you want!”

Lucy shook her head. “Trust me, inflating your ego is the last thing on my mind.”

“On the contrary, looking this good is a small service for your benefit.”

Lucy shoved her laugh back down her throat. “Okay, thank you for everything today, but I believe you’re leaving now.”

He allowed himself to be herded through the gate, but as he crossed the threshold, he shot her a mischievous grin. “Speaking of coming to terms with how awesome and attractive I am, did you say I was a good friend earlier? We’re friends, now?”

Her cheeks flushed. “I kinda did, didn’t I?” She sighed. “Well, I don’t think I’ll avoid you like an Old World plague anymore. Does that count?”

“I knew you’d come around, Lucy.” He put his hands on his hips. “Gotta tell ya, I had fun today, waylaying those miscreants. Ahh, there is nothing like it.”

“It was… an experience…” Her mind fluttered through the journal, their talk, and the three times she ended up in his arms.

“When you get better at fighting, we oughta team up more.”

Her shoulder pulsed in agreement. “I’ll admit, I need to work on my technique a bit.”

“That’s the spirit! Before you know it, you might even be ready for the next combat lesson!”

She chuckled. “I promised Justice no more combat lessons.”

“What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him, unless he’s someone that you need to punch. I’ll catch ya later, Lucy.”

“Wait, Pen—”

He turned back to face her. The pair of deep blue sapphires stood stark against the light of the sun, daring to defy the light. She struggled with the questions she had, hovering just above her tongue.

She thought about that sliver of sadness she’d seen in the Breach. Where did it come from? Would he even want to talk about those things now? Did she have any right to bring it up? She recalled Qi’s observation: You have an overextended sense of responsibility and empathy for others.

“I forgot what I was going to say,” she mumbled, the momentary flame of her courage snuffed out. “Nevermind.”

“Let me know if you ever remember,” Pen said. He pointed at his exposed arm. “I gotta go make sure this baby is covered up before I get an uneven tan.”

Lucy watched him walk away, her mind reeling. The idea that Pen, someone so unserious on the surface, could harbor such depth made her ache for understanding. She hoped he would feel safe enough to tell her about it, one day. Just as he had made her feel safe during those fleeting moments in the Breach.

Chapter 9: Doodles on the Lam

Chapter Text

After the tense fireside meeting about the Moisture Farm, attendees piled into the saloon to take the edge off. Lucy hung back at Martle Square when she saw Pen turn the opposite direction and head uphill.

Elsie called out to her. “Lucy! C’mon, slowpoke!”

“I’ll be right there,” she said, half-turned away. “I, uh, think I left something at the clinic.”

She mentally kicked herself. There was no reason to lie. Pen was a very public figure in Sandrock. It wasn’t like she was going for a secret meeting with Logan’s bandit gang.

“Pen,” she called as she rounded the corner on the stone staircase.

“Skinny Arms! What’s up?”

He was a few steps above her. The evening lamplight and starlight bounced off the gemstone in the center of his chest armor.

“Not gonna join the afterparty?” she asked, nodding toward the shifting crowd. “Well, it’s not so much a ‘party’ as it is a gathering of depressed townsfolk, but still.”

“Hah! Hate to deprive the masses of my presence at the local eatery, but I’m gonna pass.”

“Right. Being bummed isn’t your style.”

“You get me, Lucy.”

As he turned to go, she climbed another step. “I wanted to ask you something else.”

“Oh?” He spun around and pointed to his arms. “Want another glimpse of the Pen Show, huh?”

“No, I did not,” she said, rolling her eyes. “D’you know anything about Yan’s behavior lately?”

“What would I know about your little mustached boss-man?” Pen asked, arching an eyebrow.

“Well, let me paint you this scenario.” She fidgeted, running the edges of her nails gently against her thumb. “A couple days ago, I told you that he can be difficult to deal with. Yesterday, before we went into the Breach, I saw him looking f*cked up. Instead of giving me sh*t about taking the day for ruin diving, he gave me a pep talk.”

Pen put his hands on his hips, but he said nothing.

“Apparently, word got out that I was injured,” she said, climbing the steps until she stood right next to him. “Instead of letting me pick up a commission this morning, he sent me to get cleared by Fang first.”

“Well, isn’t that great news?” he asked, co*cking his head. “You gotta make sure those skinny arms of yours are up to snuff.”

She had to crane her neck to look him in the face. Her eyes narrowed into slits. “Fang didn’t clear me, Pen. Now, I’ve been told to take it easy for a week. I’m not allowed to pick up any commissions.”

“And… this is a bad thing?”

“It means I’m out of work for a week,” she said. “It’s a very bad thing!”

“I don’t see how this has anything to do with yours truly,” he drawled.

“Pen, my boss is being nice all of a sudden.” She threw her hands up in the air. “Call me crazy, but I just know you had something to do with it.”

His eyes widened for a moment, and then he laughed. “Jumping to conclusions when you could be learning to leap across buildings! Listen, Skinny. My fists might’ve paid his spleen a visit after the whole commission deal, but I did not tell him to send you to the bird-doctor. His concern for your wellbeing may just be an added side effect to the righteous thrashing I gave him.”

The satisfaction of being right didn’t last long. “I KNEW you — what?” she hissed. “I told you not to go behind my back to my boss, and you took that as a sign to assault him?”

“Assault? I taught him a lesson. That’s all. If you’re not up to the task yourself, I have no qualms with delivering justice to his front door — nay — directly to his soft, punchable face.”

She hated how much she agreed that Yan was punchable. “That’s not your call,” she said with great effort.

“On the contrary.” He crossed his arms, which made him take up the bulk of her field of view. “It’s my job to protect the citizens of Sandrock, and you happen to be one of them. Your squeaky leader was abusing his power. What do you want me to do about it now? Reverse-spleen-punch him? Because I’m pretty sure that’ll kill him.”

He mimicked the movement of pulling out Yan’s hypothetical organ. Lucy covered her mouth, hiding her laugh behind a mask of frustration.

“Nevermind,” she said at last, as her rage faltered. “He deserved it. Would’ve been nice to be the one to do the punching, though.”

“Keep up with your training, and you might get there one day.”

The thought occurred to her that Pen had done a lot of things for her out of a sense of duty, but she’d led herself to believe that it was more than that. On some level, she’d thought it meant there was something special about her, or about the way that he went out of his way for her. In the end, that was her own misunderstanding.

“Ah… It’s all part of your job,” she said, more to herself than anything. “The sandstorm kit, the water thing, the Breach assistance. What else was I expecting?”

She realized now how close they were. She could see the muscles in his jaw tense as she spoke. He opened his mouth to speak, but footsteps approached from below.

Matilda was waving goodbye to Vivi before coming up the stairs. When she saw the pair of them, she gave them a tired smile. “Evenin’, you two. Lucy, I hear that you’re on medical leave for a few days? You doin’ alright?”

Lucy nodded. “I’m alright, but Fang wants to be sure my shoulder heals up fully before getting back into the swing of things. Unfortunately, that means…”

“Now, don’t you worry ‘bout the Moisture Farm. With Owen’s food drive plan, we’ll have plenty food to go around ‘til it’s fixed up. You focus on recovering, alright?”

“Yes ma’am,” Lucy said, grateful for Matilda’s understanding.

The minister bid Pen and Lucy good night, and the two bickering souls found themselves alone on the stairs again. She could feel his eyes set firmly on her, and that familiar tug in her chest.

“Right,” she mumbled, avoiding his gaze. “I’m off to the saloon. See ya later.”

Not waiting for a reply, she hopped down the steps and across the square. She could still sense him watching her as she left.

The moment Lucy walked into the Blue Moon, the Salvage Yard employees greeted her with raucous cheers.

“There goes our butt-kickin’ buildah!”

“Lucy! First round’s on us!”

She smiled bashfully as she waved at them all. “I’ll be right there.” She spotted the Civil Corps officers and made a beeline for their table.

“Wow, what did I miss?” she asked, cheeks pink.

“My bad, Lucy,” Justice said, chuckling. “I might’a took some liberties tellin’ the Moisture Farm story earlier. They did the same thing to Zeke when he walked in.”

He nodded toward the botanist, who was in a corner being accosted by an excited Cooper.

Unsuur shrugged. “I think the story is pretty accurate, sir. If I were someone who ate Geeglers, I would think that it looked like a Geegler popsicle, too. But, it doesn’t sound appetizing, since I don’t think of them as food.”

Lucy furrowed her eyebrows. “Popsicle? Oh — right… The last one I killed.” An image of the bug-eyed corpse came back to her mind, but it was far less intrusive after she’d been through the Breach.

“How’s your shoulder?” Justice asked.

She recounted her woes, leaving out the parts about Pen’s involvement. “Mi-an’s gonna have to take most of the work on the Hydrogel repairs. She has too much on her plate already, but she basically wrestled the diagrams outta my hands the moment I told her the news.” She sighed. “How about you, Unsuur? How’s your arm?”

“It’s healed,” he said, pointing to his newly patched uniform. “I’m back on patrol, which is nice, so Justice and Captain don’t have to cover for me anymore. I guess it’s the opposite of your situation. Sorry.”

Grace approached, hair slightly disheveled. “You’d think people already had no food in their homes with how busy it is tonight. What can I get ya, Lucy?”

“I’ll go with the sandfish with secret sauce,” Lucy said, thinking about what might involve the least amount of produce.

“You sure you don’t wait the fried rice?” the waitress asked, giving her a pointed look. “It’s not dire yet.”

Lucy shook her head. “Gotta switch it up sometimes!”

“Well, thanks again for bringing those relics from the Breach yesterday. I was able to finish my essay. I’ll send you a copy of it, if you want. I cited you as playing an important role in the research.”

Lucy grinned. “I’d love to read it. So, a dance-off, huh?”

“Owen’s giddy. I think he’s always secretly wanted to do something like this — not that he was banking on it for a food drive.”

“Secretly?” Justice scoffed. “He’s been talkin’ ‘real loud and proud about a dance-off for years.”

Unsuur frowned. “I don’t really get it. I’ve never danced before. Willingly.”

“We’ll have to sit out, anyway. We gotta patrol.”

“Sir, I think we could still be one hundred percent vigilant while busting moves.”

Grace raised an eyebrow. “This sounds like a fun experiment. Whaddaya say, Justice?”

The sheriff deflated. “Alright, let’s risk it, but the two of us shouldn’t be dancin’ at the same time. Take turns, yeah?”

Unsuur smiled softly. “Cool. Lucy, try looking out for bad guys while you dance, too, so we can get more data for our experiment.”

“Someone’s starting to sound like a certain Director.” Grace chuckled, clearing away the finished plates from Justice and Unsuur. “I’ll leave you to it.”

Half an hour later, the Salvage Yard crew rounded up Lucy, Justice, Unsuur, and Zeke over to the bar for a toast. The entire population of the saloon joined them.

“A toast!” Krystal called. “To, uh…”

“To starving – to – DEATH,” said Cooper, a snarky smile making his beady eyes even smaller.

“Cut it out, ya ol’ geezer!” Elsie said, elbowing her Pa.

Venti beamed. “Let’s cheers to the fact that it could always get worse!”

“Th—that’s setting the bar kinda low, don’tcha think?” Heidi said slowly. “How ‘bout workin’ to build a better Sandrock, no matter how many obstacles get in our way?”

Burgess, with a glass of water in hand, said, “So many people have already offered to donate food, so I like that one a lot. We’re really doing our best as a community! The Light—”

“How ‘bout, to holdin’ up this toast longer’n it takes to get to Atara by foot—”

“Cooper!” Mabel shot him warning glance.

“I’ve tried to do that before,” Unsuur said to no one in particular.

“To coming together as a community,” Owen called. “How’s that?”

“To community!” Lucy echoed, laughing.

Thus, they cheered concisely “to community” with a few Cooper-esque embellishments on the side. The crowd clinked their glasses with those nearest to them and downed their yakmel shooters — something that was new to Lucy, much to her regret. The shot of fermented yakmel milk was a caustic blend of salt and fire. Lucy wouldn’t have been surprised if it burned a layer off her esophageal tissue on the way down.

The next morning, Lucy was already scheming to get back to work. She decided to try and convince Mi-an to let her handle the easier tasks with the Hydrogel that weren’t as physically demanding. Who would say no to having a quiet, unassuming helper who also happened to understand the builder trade?

She got dressed, performed some light physical therapy exercises for her shoulder, and headed toward the Wandering Y. This roundabout path would take her to the Moisture Farm with hopes of avoiding Fang and X. The uphill climb would serve as a little bit of a hike, helping to burn off excess energy and maybe sneak in a good leg workout while she was at it.

Now that it was the middle of autumn, the ranch tree finally lost all its leaves. Its branches shivered in the gentle breeze. Despite the distinct earthen musk of the ranch, the air here was at least less dusty than other areas of Sandrock. She enjoyed the stroll and the sight of rolling hills and jagged canyons in the distance — so long as she wasn’t looking directly down from them. Normally, there would be a great deal of chittering and snorting from all the yakmel in the ranch, but Lucy realized that they weren’t anywhere nearby.

“Dagnabbit!”

Lucy’s ears perked up.

“Hogwash! Fiddlesticks!”

Lucy pivoted toward Cooper’s colorful curses, coming from somewhere over the hill. He sounded like he was in trouble.

“MAAAABELL!!!! DID YOU LEAVE THE GATE OPEN?”

Lucy winced. The man was loud.

“No, dear,” came Mabel’s sing-song response from the house.

“Then where in the sam hill are all the yakmel?!” Cooper cried.

Lucy found Cooper standing by a broken section of their fence. When she approached to offer her help, the next fifteen minutes passed by in a daze. The legendary Cooper took her on a meandering verbal journey through Lucy’s own qualifications as a builder, the different states of health in cacti, and slang words for Gols back in his day. Her eyes were open, but her brain was turning into the texture of Burgess’s signature mush.

“…And make sure it’s a bronze fence! I know what you’re thinkin’, whole rest of the fence is wood! Well guess what, we ain’t allowed to chop down trees no more, so better make it bronze! You... rutabaga, you.”

Horse hooves nearby. Dust clouds. Clumps of sand grass kicked up.

“Lucy?”

She blinked.

“Oh, dear, are you alright? Did Coop get to talkin’ your ear off?”

She stirred, seeing the silhouette of Mabel nearby. “Did he just call me… a rutabaga? What — happened?”

Mabel chuckled. “The yakmel got loose, so Cooper and Elsie are out wranglin’ them now. Cooper said you’re fixin’ the fence here?”

“Right!” Lucy said, taking a deep breath. “Gonna make it bronze because we can’t chop down trees. Uh, I’ll go get some materials now.”

“Don’t push yourself too hard, dear,” Mabel said, giving her a concerned look. “I hear you got hurt.”

Lucy smiled reassuringly at her. “Fang says I can perform some tasks, but I have to take long breaks between.” She wasn’t technically lying. It was Mi-an that wanted to ban her completely from the Moisture Farm.

Mabel covered her mouth and giggled. “Elsie was right about you and Mi-an. Hard workin’ to a fault. It’s the same with my Cooper. You just let me know if you need anythin’, alright? My husband might not know how to say it in fewer words, but we appreciate your help with this.”

It took a lot longer than she hoped, but Lucy worked carefully. By the time she had all the materials measured, cut, and hauled back over to the ranch, Cooper and Elsie returned with the herd of yakmel, exhausted and bickering all the way. Lucy offered to keep an eye on the herd while they headed back to the house, so they wouldn’t have to stand guard by the fence gap.

“I owe you lunch,” said Elsie. “Can’t believe my Pa’s got ya out here workin’ when you should be restin’!”

Lucy smiled. “It’s alright. I’m really not that hurt.”

“When all this is done and whatnot, I gotta get you and Mi-an to take a day off. How ‘bout tomorrow?”

“Depends on Mi-an,” Lucy said, hammering another board in. “I don’t think she’s gonna take another day off ‘til the Hydrogel is done.”

Elsie made a disapproving sound. “The workaholic wonder twins, at it again! I tell ya… If I didn’t have to go help my Ma with dinner, you’d be gettin’ an earful outta me.”

A young yakmel calf trotted up and nuzzled Lucy’s good shoulder. She reached over and gave him gentle scratches behind the ears.

“It looks like Doodles wants to keep ya company,” Elsie said.

“I’ll be alright out here,” Lucy said. “I’ll keep an eye on Doodles, too. He looks a little mischievous.”

“Nah, he’s sweet! He lost his mama to a dang rockyenaroll last week, so he just needs a lil’ extra love.”

It turned out they were both right. Doodles was very sweet, but he was also mischievous. Lucy had a hard time with the final pieces of the fence puzzle thanks to his constant head-butting, chittering, and knocking over her materials. She took it in stride, giving him as many pets as she could muster while still getting the job done. She hummed while she worked, which he seemed to enjoy.

Two hours later, she stood back and admired her work. “There ya go! What do you think, Doodles?”

Lucy wheeled around. Doodles was nowhere to be seen.

“Doodles?” she called softly, not wanting to alert the ranch household.

Nothing.

“Oh, no,” she whispered. “Cooper’s gonna kill me.”

The little calf appeared by the train tracks, preparing to cross. On the other side, a pack of sleeping rockyenarolls lay scattered around the hillside. Lucy’s mouth went dry. She hopped the fence and drew her daggers, trying to follow as quietly as she could. The last thing she wanted to do was startle Doodles and awaken the monsters.

Doodles waddled up and up, skirting past the unconscious creatures. Lucy winced with every step she took atop the loose gravel and uneven boards of the train tracks. The calf made a quick turn and climbed even higher, disappearing through a rocky maze of pillars and large outcrops.

She did her best to follow, acutely aware that she no longer had eyes on her target, glancing regularly down at the rockyenarolls. One snorted and flopped over to its other side, which caused Lucy to freeze altogether. When she got the feeling in her legs again, she continued creeping by, until she passed through a makeshift fence and an old gate on the side of the hill.

She reached a fork in the makeshift road: one path led straight past a stone archway, then curved toward an obscured destination; the other shot up steeply to the top of Grand Mesa, which provided a sweeping view of the land that would surely make her sick. She cupped a hand to her ear and listened, trying to catch the direction Doodles might’ve gone in. The wind rustled through the patches of yakthorn nearby, but she could hear neither chitter nor hoof.

Something screeched in the distance, followed by the sounds of a scuffle. It was over in an instant, but not before a single gunshot rang out. Lucy’s heart pounded violently. She bolted through the flatter path, pushing past the archway and turning sharply. The passage thinned as she advanced.

A body lay ahead, disfigured and crumpled in a heap. It was not a baby yakmel, rather something slightly more human, but it was all wrong. Its head was three times too big, and its limbs were elongated and dangerously thin. Its clothes were ripped, pustules poking out from the rags. A small tank sat atop its hunched back, shattered and leaking a caustic, green liquid.

Lucy took one more, hesitant step. Gravel loosened beneath her soles, some pieces tumbling off into — nothingness. She finally looked at her surroundings, and it dawned on her with pulsing dread: she somehow brought herself to a narrow, treacherous path alongside a rocky wall. The ground fell away just inches from her. She was one false move from tumbling to her death into a massive valley. She threw her back against the grooves of the cliff side, just in time for a massive wave of vertigo to seize her limbs.

Her daggers dropped to the ground. Time ticked by as she froze against earth. She closed her eyes, but that just made it worse, so she stared, barely blinking, at the sickly green valley below. She’d never seen this place before. The vapors rose up away and skyward, threatening to poison the bright blue heavens. Stone pillars rose up through the mist like hands of drowning gods, lost beneath deathly waves. It gave her very little comfort that she was not in the cloud itself.

Lucy stayed like this, sweaty palms struggling to keep her death grip on the rocky surface, listening to her own ragged breaths.

Until she heard movement above, and a voice soon after.

“Looks like you might be needin’ some help.”

A man’s voice. Gravelly, deep, like the tumultuous earth beneath her feet. It had a certain nonchalance to it.

“Wh—who are you?” she asked, her voice hoarse.

“I’m just passin’ by. What’s got ya stuck down there?”

She tried to take a deep breath. Her chest rose and fell, her lungs struggling to stay full. Her answers were just as sporadic. “I’m — I’m scared of heights. Yakmel calf escaped. Tried to follow. Stopped. Here.”

“Might have an idea to help ya.”

There is no helping me, she thought. I’m stuck here forever. I’m going to die here, or die falling.

In erratic jerks, her eyes dared to search for the source of the voice, but they refused to leave the putrid valley for long. In any case, he must've been almost directly above her on the mesa ledge.

Some gravel was dislodged behind her, and her heart rate increased. But it wasn’t an avalanche. The stranger was moving, but something else was, too. Soon, she heard the distinct high-pitched laughter of rockyenarolls.

A struggle ensued. Shuffling feet and claws, ripping sounds, and another two gunshots rang out. The mysterious man chuckled as if entertained by the fight, and then metal ripped against flesh. Lucy recognized the sound from her own fighting. She gulped, wishing she could tear herself away from this wall and be of some use.

The fighting stopped. For a heart-stopping moment, Lucy thought that the man had perished. It was silent for some time, before footsteps returned to the top of the mesa.

“Anywho, where were we?" he said, a little huskiness in his voice. "Right. It’s yer lucky day. I jus’ saw the calf come ‘round a lil’ while ago.”

“You did? Is it safe?” she asked quickly, trying to crane her neck before snapping back. “sh*t, I’m really stuck here.”

“Think I can guide you back, but you gotta trust me.”

“Wh—what are you gonna do?” she asked. “What do I do? How do I—”

“Steady, now,” he said. The sound settled deep inside her chest, steeling her bones. “I’ma throw a rope over to ya. Figure you can hang onto that while you walk, if it helps keep ya steady. I’ll hold onto the other end. That sound good to ya?”

“How do I know you’re not — trying to — hurt me or something?” She felt stupid even asking the question. His response made her feel twice as stupid.

He laughed, and the sound sent goosebumps across her skin. “Yer a sittin’ duck. If I wanted to kill ya, reckon I’d’ve already done it.” There was a bit of a tease in his tone.

“The creature over there…” She pointed without looking toward the mutilated corpse. “Was that you, too?”

“It tried goin’ after the calf, so I shot it ‘fore it could.”

“Ah…”

“So, reckon you’ll go with the rope idea, or not?”

She gulped. “I will. Th—thank you.”

“Just a sec.”

“Wh—where are you going?” she stammered.

“Gettin’ the rope.”

Lucy flushed in embarrassment. “Sorry, that makes sense. Yep…”

She heard him moving again. It felt like an eternity that she stood there, alone again, staring off into the distance. Any time the wind blew, she gasped. Any time she had to readjust her sweaty grip on the rock wall, her stomach plunged.

I’m definitely gonna die here, she thought.

Footsteps above. Something whipped through the air, and a thick sisal cord smacked against the cliff face near Lucy.

“Righ’ next to ya,” the stranger said. “Little to the left.”

She groped the rock wall. When she found the scratchy rope, she squeezed her fingers tight around it.

“Good, now I’ll hold onto it, and you jus’ use it as support.”

At last, her limbs came back to life, a tentative quiver in each motion. She strafed along the cliff side back the way she came, careful not to trip over one of her discarded daggers. It was too late to grab it now. She wouldn't ever come back up if she tried. The stranger guided her along from his position atop the mesa. She could not see his silhouette, nor was she capable of looking.

She halted as a stiff wind blew, threatening her with a drop. “C—can you talk me through it?” she asked, panicked. “I—I need a distraction.”

“S’pose I could,” he drawled. “I ain’t much for words, though.”

She chuckled, finding humor in this moment despite everything. “I hate small talk, too, but I just need something to get my mind off… the height.”

“Alright. The calf belong to ya?” he asked.

“No. I was helping the ranch owner fix a fence, and it got out.”

“You weren’t tryna run off with it or nothin’?”

She furrowed her eyebrows. “You think I’m some kinda — yakmel thief?”

“Well, wouldn’ be the firs’ time I heard tell of a thievin’ bandit ‘round these parts. Saw you back there with some daggers, ‘fore you dropped ‘em, so you mighta been lookin’ for a fight.”

Lucy laughed darkly. A gust of wind blew, and her heart pounded against her ribcage. “Look at me, man. I’d be the worst bandit in the history of banditry. The daggers were for the rockyenarolls back there.”

“Yer almos’ there,” he said. “You don’t sound like yer from ‘round here. You visitin' town or what?”

“I moved here from Highwind a couple months ago.”

He whistled. “Highwind, and yer scared of heights?”

“Better believe it.” She blushed. “What about you? Where are you from?”

“‘Round these parts,” he said simply. There was some tension on the rope that connected them. It felt as if he’d stopped walking, but only just for a moment.

“Sandrock?”

“Sure. I travel all over.”

Lucy’s ears perked up. He sounded like he was dodging the question, but he was her literal lifeline, so she did not push it.

“What brings you here today?” she asked, eyeing the stone archway that had led to her doom, which was now her way to salvation. “This place looks a little dangerous for a tourist, but then again, it sounds like you can hold your own just fine…”

“I was takin’ in the views and whatnot, when I saw the calf come runnin’. You weren’t too far behind.”

Lucy was close to the archway now. The rope technique was no longer going to work here, but the pathway opened up to a non-lethal width. She steadied her breath, and she finally stopped trembling.

“I think I can go the rest of the way,” she said, letting go of the rope. “Thanks again for—”

She looked up, thinking she’d finally see the face of her rescuer, but there was no one there. His end of the rope hung limp against the top of the mesa.

“You still there?” she asked slowly. “Hello? Uh… sir?” She hadn’t asked for his name.

Lucy moved further past the archway, searching the immediate area. She saw the dead bodies of two rockyenarolls that the man had fought, lining the steep upward path. Too scared to scale higher up, she stopped her search there. If the man wanted to stick around, she believed that he would’ve done so.

Still gotta find Doodles, she reminded herself.

Just then, the sound of little hooves came from above. Doodles appeared at the top of the plateau, where the man would’ve been.

“Doodles!” she cried with relief. “Come here!”

“Head’s up,” the man’s voice answered instead, and the shadow of his arm appeared against an outcrop at the top of the hill.

Lucy ducked as a projectile potato landed with a thud, rolling down to her feet. Doodles trotted after it with a happy waddle. He gobbled it up and licked her shoes in the process.

“Smart man,” she said, laughing softly.

“Catch!”

The shadow flashed by again, and another potato sailed through the air. She leaped for it, catching it just before it fell next to Doodles. The yakmel calf looked at it with big eyes, tongue lolling out, still holding flecks of the previous snack. She held it up and out of his reach, and he stared longingly at it.

“Thank you,” she called up the hill. “Hey, what’s your name?”

She waited for a few seconds, with Doodles trying to rise up on his hind legs to catch the potato. There came no answer.

He’s gone for real, she thought, frowning.

The way back to the Wandering Y was calmer, now that the nearest hyena monsters were dispatched. With Doodles secured back inside the ranch fence, Lucy could breathe easily again. She wiped the sweat from her brow as she looked back toward Grand Mesa. Back to that winding cliff face and its myriad of paths.

Who was that stranger? His accent sounded local, but nothing like any of the Sandrockers she’d met. It was a bit hardened, but not unfriendly. If he was from one of the villages in the outskirts of the city-state, he was a long way from home to just be hiking out in that dangerous landscape. It was clear enough that the man didn’t want to be seen. Was he shy? Was he there for some illicit purpose? Was he…?

“No,” she muttered to herself. “Can’t be.” The thought was far fetched. Wild. Unreasonable. Someone in Logan’s gang wouldn’t have helped her. Bandits weren’t known for saving lives or helping to wrangle yakmel.

She checked in with Cooper and notified him of the situation with the fence, but she kept the little incident with Doodles to herself. She didn’t want another Cooper-style rant today. Exhausted, she made her way home.

On the bright side, Lucy had actually successfully walked away from the cliff edge. Her heart swelled with relief. Thanks to the mysterious stranger with a husky voice, there was hope yet for her little fear of heights.

Chapter 10: Spaghetti Breakfast Day

Chapter Text

Owen rolled up his sleeves as he got ready to wipe down the bar top. When he spotted Lucy coming through the doors, he smiled in surprise.

“Mornin’ Lucy! You’re a rare sight this early in the day. Sit anywhere you like. It’s spaghetti breakfast day, if you’re interested in that sorta thing.”

“Sure. I could use the protein and carb load,” Lucy said, thinking about her workout that morning. “Aw, man, I sound like Pen.”

“You said it, not me.”

While Owen left to take care of the order, she picked a booth and pulled out a sheet of paper and a pen.

Nia,

A lot has happened since my last letter: there was a train hijacking; I helped fight off some mutant lizardmen; we had a food shortage scare because our Hydrogel was destroyed; I had a minor existential crisis; we danced away our worries as part of a food drive.

Oh — I also got zapped by an Old World robot, AAAND I almost fell off a cliff and was rescued by a stranger (let’s call him “Potato Thrower” — long story). You know the drill: mum’s the word around my Ma!

In the middle of all this, I had an epiphany. I’ve spent my entire life following what other people expected of me: family, friends, exes… Over time, I started doing the same thing to myself (and everyone else). I have a habit of assuming people have ulterior motives, or that things mean more than they really do. My gauge is messed up.

I’m piecing this together thanks to some friends I’ve made here, especially that guy who called me broody before. His name is Pen. Remember when I said my boss is a cartoon villain come to life? Pen is a cartoon superhero come to life, but with *almost* none of the redeeming qualities. Still, I consider him a friend, even though he makes me wanna rip his stupid costume off…

Lucy paused, staring at the sentence she just wrote. She imagined Nia’s eyes popping wide open at the way she phrased it. She also — very briefly — imagined actually ripping Pen’s clothes off. Her face turned as red as marinara.

The doors opened. As if summoned by very thoughts, the actual Pen walked in. Her non-writing hand flew over the paragraph about him.

Anyway, I’m gonna try something new (for me). I’m not gonna overthink things! When it comes to my social life, that is. I still need to use my brain to… study diagrams and stuff.

Your friend forever,

Lucy

She folded the paper quickly and stuffed it into her bag.

“Server woman!” Pen called.

Grace poked her head out of the kitchen with a strained smile. She took her time going to Pen’s table.

“What’ll it be, Protector?” Each syllable was tense with effort.

Lucy snickered quietly, knowing too well that Grace was doing her damnedest.

“Meat spaghetti, as usual! And do put an emphasis on the meat. I need to max out my gains after my sick workout this morning.”

I hope I didn’t sound like THAT, Lucy thought.

“Uh, sure. Anything to drink?”

“Water,” Pen said. “I’m not one to indulge in your sugary sweet beverages. Empty carbs are an enemy that need to be vanquished.”

“I’m pretty sure spaghetti is—”

“—the perfect sidekick to protein-packed meat!”

Lucy realized she’d first heard about spaghetti breakfast day from the Protector of Sandrock, while she was semi-conscious in Fang’s clinic. The memory came to her with a smidge of fondness for their strange friendship. Ever since she complained about his bombastic greetings, he’d stopped shouting “Skinny Arms” at her from across town (or anywhere else, for that matter). In fact, he seemed to have kept his distance from her in the past week, since she cornered him after the fireside.

Owen exited the kitchen with Lucy’s spaghetti order. Though she didn’t directly look at him, she could feel Pen’s eyes tracing the plate to its destination, then settling on her.

“Mind if I sit with you for a bit?” Owen asked as he served the meal. “Kinda slow day, but — hah — that’s not the reason why. I wanna ask you something.”

“Sure. What’s up?” She took a bite of the spaghetti. Her stomach rejoiced. “Mmm… This is fantastic. The sauce-to-pasta ratio is perfect. Did you make the noodles by hand?”

He beamed. “I did. Gotta tell ya, I missed your food critiques. We were both so busy these past few weeks, we haven’t really had the chance to sit down and hang out, huh?”

“That’s true, but hey, you hosted a hell of a dance-off last night. You served everyone.”

He feigned bashfulness. “I was practicing for that for a long time. You didn’t do so bad yourself!”

She chewed thoughtfully. Then, she shook her head. “You’re being generous, as always. I’m very rusty. I think it’d been… six or so years since I last even tried getting on the dancefloor.”

“Peach, that’s a long time! Don’t tell me it’s because of your ex?”

“Guilty as charged. That’s what I get for letting his preferences become my preferences. It’s all good. I’m finding ‘me’ again. Anyway, before I rain down depression in here, you said you wanted to ask me something?”

“Right! I, uh… I’m realizing that now is not the best time.” He glanced quickly over toward Pen, who was suddenly very interested in his own hands. “I wanna talk about this in private. D’you think you can come by my place later tonight?”

Lucy’s fork slipped out of her hand. Spaghetti flung off her plate with a splat and a clatter. “For Peach’s sake… Sorry…”

“Allow me.” He strode across the saloon, acquired a kitchen towel, and helped her mop up the spilled sauce. He leaned against the table, dropping his voice low. “So, think you’ll be able to swing by?”

“If my invitation hasn’t been revoked,” she said, smiling sheepishly.

“Hah, course not. Come over after closing. I’ll leave you to enjoy your meal.”

Lucy watched Owen walk away, blushing something fierce. What did he want to talk to her about? Certainly she hadn’t given him any indication that she was interested in him. Except for the whole flustered, fork-dropping moment. She’d never try to go for Owen, not while she was certain he was hung up on Amirah. Not to mention, she hadn’t had a chance to have a real heart-to-heart with—

Pen. Eyes on her, brows raised, until she caught him looking. Grace’s timely arrival spared them momentarily, as she dropped off his breakfast. As the waitress disappeared back through the kitchen, Lucy returned to her own food and stared at it, biting her lip. Her mind was threatening to do somersaults, but she’d just promised Nia in writing — nevermind that she hadn’t sent the letter — that she’d stopped overthinking things.

Go say hi, she told herself. He’s your friend, after all… Or, was. Until you yelled at him about beating up Yan for you.

Lucy cursed under her breath, picked up her plate, and walked over to Pen’s table. “You look broody,” she said, putting on her best imitation of him. With a smile, she asked, “Mind if I sit with you?”

“Skinny Arms!” Pen gestured at the seat across from him. “Who am I to deny you the pleasure of my company?” She slid into the designated seat, their legs brushing against each other, since his were slightly too long for the booth.

She got serious for a moment. “I wanted to say sorry for giving you such a hard time last week. There was so much going on, and I took it out on you.”

Pen smiled softly. “It would take a lot more than words and military grade weapons to hurt me, Skinny. No harm done.”

“You were just doing your job, right?” There was a sliver of hope in her voice — a part of her that wanted him to say his protection over her was due to something other than his sense of duty.

His eyes flickered, as if he understood what she was really asking, but he merely said, “Of course.”

That feeling of being on the cusp of uncovering something true and meaningful in Pen’s persona was, once again, snuffed out.

After a moment of silence, save the sounds forks on plates and slurping noodles, Pen spoke. “It sounds like you have yourself a hot date tonight with the tavern keep.”

She almost dropped her fork again. “What? No way. He just wanted to talk in private.”

“When a doting fan is invited to my abode, there’s only one thing going down.” At the look on her face, he leaned in and lowered his voice. “I’m talking about sex, Skinny. The heart-pounding duel of naked flesh, where — if so desired and righteously fought — both parties emerge the victor.”

Lucy stabbed her spaghetti, blushing. He painted a surprisingly poetic picture. “I’m not stupid, Pen. I know what you meant. I’m not his ‘doting fan,’ and he’s not interested in me like that.” An impish glint lit up her eyes. “Even if it were the case, why do you care? You jealous?”

“Pfft! Me? Jealous?” He stuffed a fork full of noodles in his mouth. “Prepothterous.”

“Manners, Pen!” She laughed, relishing in this rare moment of pushing his buttons.

“As your friend, Skinny, I’m not sure that he’s your type.”

“Oh? And you think you know what my type is?”

It was a genuine question, however snarky. If someone handed her a personalized checklist of her wants in a partner, she would’ve absolutely taken a peek. For social research purposes, of course.

He smiled coyly. “Strong, with a chiseled jawline — naturally formed, not defined with the aid of a beard. You’re a fledgeling fighter, nevermind how skinny your arms and legs are, so I think you like a little bit of brawn on your beau.”

“You’re describing yourself,” she said, rolling her eyes. “And you’re going after my legs, now, too?”

“Am I?” Pen’s co*cky grin was softened by the warmth in his eyes. He leaned back and took a swig of water. As he did so, his legs slid out further and brushed hers.

“Wh—what is happening?” Lucy’s face was as hot as a tea kettle, and a woefully masked giggle spilled out. She lightly kicked him back. “Get outta here.”

“Don’t worry, Skinny,” he said, chuckling. “Don’t feel ashamed. I happen to be a lot of people’s type. It’s an easy guess.”

“I didn’t even confirm or deny,” she said pointedly. “For all you know, I’m into men with beards and limp, noodle arms.”

The doors opened, and Hugo entered. He rang the bell at the counter, and Owen emerged from the kitchen to take his order. Pen sat upright again, his hulking figure masking the other people in the room. The two of them feigned normalcy like two school children who’d almost gotten caught passing notes in class.

Lucy cleared her throat, spooling noodles around her fork. “I, uh, didn’t see you at the dance-off last night. You were talking all big about — what was it? Unleashing ‘boogie justice’ upon this land without mercy? You didn’t even show up.”

“I imagine it was dull without the opportunity to witness my rhythmic display of strength, stamina, and finesse. If you wanna see my pecs dance, though…”

She covered her mouth as a glob of spaghetti threatened to spill out. “No-fank-you.”

“Manners, Skinny!”

The saloon doors opened again, this time with a boom. A disheveled Mi-an darted in and made a beeline for Lucy.

“Sorry — to interrupt. We — have that — meeting, ” she said through gasping breaths, holding a cramp in her side. “Civil Corps.”

“Oh, f*ck.” Lucy leaped from the table. “I’ll catch ya later, Pen!”

“I’m gonna eat the rest of your food, Skinny!”

She shouted “okay” over her shoulder and bolted after Mi-an.

The two builders appeared, huffing and hair a mess, at the Civil Corps. Justice, Heidi, and Unsuur were already there.

“S—sorry I’m late,” Lucy breathed.

“It’s all good. I’m glad Mi-an could find you,” said Justice. “I was just tellin’ Heidi here that walkin’ over the Shonash Bridge lately has been givin’ me the willies. The Geeglers have been taking pieces from the bridge for… Peach knows what. I don’t think it’s very stable right now.”

Lucy nodded, taking the opportunity to catch her breath while he talked.

“We better move quickly on — uh — what’s the plan?” Mi-an said.

Justice and Unsuur unrolled a map of Sandrock and its environs. Unsuur circled a large structure directly west of the Civil Corps and across the Shonash Canyon, the last building before the expanse of the Eufaula.

“This is Gecko Station,” he said, “where most of the Geeglers are coming from. The name kinda suits them.”

Justice drew a smaller circle, just behind the Civil Corps. “Heidi, is there any way we could sneak over on that old trolley system here?”

“Hm… The two cables are still there, but we have two problems. We don’t have any tram carts, and the trolly engines on the other side of the canyon are broken. We’d also have to check the integrity of the cables…”

“That was more than two things,” Unsuur said.

Heidi narrowed her gaze at him.

“Uh — nevermind that,” Justice said, chuckling. “Sounds like the first step is gettin’ ourselves some tram carts.”

Mi-an nudged Lucy. “We’ve got that handled, don’t we?”

Lucy nodded. “Hell yes. Point us to some diagrams, and consider them built! I’ve been itching to get back to some bigger projects now that I’ve been cleared by Fang.”

“We can each build one tram cart, and then we can manually pull ourselves over to the engines on the other side to fix ‘em up.”

With a plan secured, they dubbed the effort “Operation De-Geeglate.” The meeting concluded in high spirits. Mi-an ran off to the scrap yard, while Heidi accompanied Lucy toward Martle Square.

“Nice moves last night,” Heidi said. “Glad to see you got over your fear of dancin’.”

Lucy snickered. “I dunno about fear, but it felt nice to get out there. Congratulations on winning second place!”

“Oh, shucks. Next year, I’ll get Owen back.”

The mention of Owen’s name struck a chord in Lucy. She lowered her voice, though there was no one around. “Hey, my social skills have been kinda topsy-turvy lately. I could use your insight on something, if you don’t mind.”

“Your social skills seem just fine,” Heidi said, puzzled. “What’s up?”

“If someone asks you to have a private conversation at their place, d’you think they’re, uh, looking for sex?”

Heidi’s eyes grew massive. “Who asked you? I gotta know!”

“Shh!” Lucy looked around wildly. “No one. I just wanna make sure I’m not getting the wrong impression.”

“It depends on who it is,” Heidi said thoughtfully. “If it was Qi, I bet it’s just a talk. Probably something science-y and whatnot. If it’s Pen, then I’m willin’ to bet he’s tryna get in yer pants. Don’t tell her I said this, but I’m pretty sure Catori would be the same way.”

“I would never.”

For the first time since her arrival, Lucy saw life at the barber shop. A man with green hair and flowing garments was wiping down the front windows, removing months’ worth of dust.

“Pablo’s back! C’mon, let me introduce y’all!” Heidi put a hand on Lucy’s shoulder and steered her toward him. “Welcome back home, Pablooo!”

His eyes widened at Lucy. “You must be one of the new builders I’ve heard so much about from our dear architect’s letters. Looks like you two are getting along swimmingly, but, if I may say so, it also kinda looks like you’ve been swimming… in sand and dust…”

Heidi stifled a laugh. “You gotta go easy on her.”

Lucy shook her head, blushing. “He’s not wrong, though.”

“May I?” He reached forward and pulled a lock of hair into his hands, softly tutting at the speckles of debris. “Well, have no fear. That’s where I come in. In you go!”

Before she could make an excuse, Lucy was ushered into the hairdresser’s colorful domain. While Heidi and Pablo caught up on all the goings-on in Sandrock, she succumbed to the much-needed pampering. Warm water and fragrant, frothy shampoo stripped the dirt off her hair. Lucy fell into a trance, until she heard her name.

“I told Lucy ‘maybe she found something she wanted to snack on,’” Heidi was saying.

“You talking about Mason’s farewell party?” Lucy chimed in, eyes half-open. “You said ‘She found a snack she wants to sample.’”

“Hah, I approve,” said Pablo. “Our poor, lovely Amirah won’t let herself live a little.” He helped the builder into a sitting position, wrapping her hair in a towel, and walked her over to a styling station.

“I have more in common with her than I thought,” said Lucy.

Heidi giggled. “You’re a lil’ more rambunctious than you give yerself credit for, what with the fightin’ and buildin’ and whatnot.”

Pablo divided her hair into sections and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “No, Heidi. Our dear builder is talking about romance. Tell us, darling, which one of the numerous bachelors or bachelorettes in town has your hair all a-tussle?”

“Dang, Pablo, gettin’ straight to the point on day one.”

“Have you ever known me as a time-waster? I think not.”

Lucy turned crimson, thinking of Pen’s smirk. “N—no one.”

“Look at those cheeks flush! Our little Lucy has a crush,” Pablo said keenly. “Alright, then it’s settled. We’re giving you a sensational ‘do for your sensual boo.”

They let up on the subject of Lucy’s would-be lover, which she was grateful for. If push came to shove, she’d crack like an old plank of wood left out in the sun. She’d tell them anything they wanted to know, just to have someone with whom she could talk. She’d probably even mention the mild, yet visceral crush she had on Owen that she had no intention of pursuing. She’d spill all of the metaphorical beans on the infuriating enjoyment she got from Pen’s smile and sense of humor.

After the Blue Moon closed for the night, Lucy made her way to Main Street. Her hair was freshly dusted with sand, though it was perfumed and styled in elegant waves. Pablo was truly an artist. Lucy’s overactive imagination worried her: this new look was possibly going to give Owen the wrong impression. But she couldn’t go back in time and undo the ‘do.

She approached the saloon just as Owen was exiting. The lights were still on inside, casting a soft, yellowish glow over them as they greeted each other. Their hellos were strained and quiet, and Owen gestured for her to follow him next door.

Lucy was greeted by warm light and the aromas of spice and leather. The house was spacious and richly furnished with dark-stained wood accents. Plush couches and a coffee table lined one half of the front room, a large landscape serving as the backdrop to this entertaining space. At the back, a finely crafted staircase led to the upper stories.

“Make yourself at home,” Owen said, dropping his keys on the side table by the door.

Lucy’s social anxiety reared its ugly head. It was past ten at night. If she was home, she’d be in her bed, sleeping. She opted to sit on the large, comfy armchair nearest to the door, squishing herself against one side of it like she was afraid of taking up too much space.

“Can I get you anything?” Owen asked. “Water? Tea? I sound like I’m working, don’t I?”

Lucy chuckled. “Can’t help it. You’re a full-time host. But, I’m good, thanks. Um… What did you want to talk about? It sounded pretty serious this morning.”

He took the seat on the couch and sighed. “Well, I didn’t want anyone at the saloon to pick up on this. See, there’s someone very special in my life.”

“Oh? Who is it?”

He ran a hand through his hair. “Ah, Lucy, I’m already feeling bashful as it is. Do you mind if I keep it a secret from you for now?”

“Sure, of course,” she said, sitting up a little straighter. For a wild moment, sweaty-palmed moment, she started to fear that he was going to confess to her.

“Anyway, I really need to impress this someone. Here’s where you come in: I happen to have it on good authority that my special someone’s favorite thing in the world is a nice, high quality ceramic bottle. Unpainted. So... I’d like to commission one from you, if it’s not too much trouble!”

Lucy exhaled, a little too loudly and for a little too long. “It’s no trouble at all!”

I frickin’ knew it, she thought. It’s Amirah.

All the nervous energy was now releasing in waves, as if she’d hopped off the crane lift after screaming for an hour.

“Are you okay?” Owen asked, perplexed.

She relaxed into the cushions, now, pivoting and crossing one leg over the other as she leaned over the armrest. “Sorry, let me explain. Try not to judge me, alright?”

“Never.”

She told him everything. How, when they first met, she had a crush on him, but she held herself back for two reasons: she didn’t want to get in the way of whatever might’ve been going on with him and Amirah, and she didn’t want to throw herself into a commitment so soon after gaining her independence.

“There you have it,” she said at last. “In the past, I felt obligated to return someone’s affections just to avoid hurting their feelings, which landed me in very unhappy relationships. I am glad that isn’t the case here, because it would’ve been really hard to resist. You’re very charming.”

Owen scratched his head, a boyish smile spreading on his face. “Lucy, I gotta tell ya, your bluntness is gonna be legendary one of these days. You really had a crush on me?”

“I’d practically drool any time you said more than two words to me!” She threw her hands up in the air, laughing. “C’mon, it wasn’t obvious?”

“Hah, I guess I never noticed! You’re always there when you’re hungry, so who’s to say you weren’t drooling from that?” He got serious again. “I hate to know that you were going through all these thoughts while I had no clue.”

“You’re just not into me that way,” she said. “That’s okay. You have someone else on your mind. This was never gonna happen.”

I’ve also got someone else on my mind, she admitted to herself.

“I wouldn’t say never. If circ*mstances were different, who could’ve known? I think you’re funny, and I love talking with you. Not to mention, you’re a beautiful woman. But, I…”

Lucy blinked rapidly. While she was taken aback — and flattered — by his response, she couldn’t shake the feeling that it was all too familiar. It sounded like something she would’ve said if he confessed feelings for her this night.

She leaned forward a little. “Owen, please don’t feel bad. I’m gonna help you with this special commission. There are no hard feelings whatsoever.”

“Really?” He gave her a quizzical look. “How are you so laid-back about it? Not to be a brag, but I’ve turned down my fair share of women, and I feel like it’s never gone well.”

“You didn’t turn me down,” she pointed out. “Also, I’m actually grateful for my last breakup for this reason. We came to the conclusion that we wanted the other person to be happy and be fulfilled, no matter what that meant for ourselves. I realized I can extend that to anyone that I might catch feelings for. I can be attracted to you and still wish you happiness, wherever that leads you. Besides… I have some things I gotta figure out on my end…”

By “things,” she meant Pen, but she was nowhere near ready to say it aloud.

Owen considered her words for a moment, running a finger along one of the decorative pillows on his couch. “Lucy, aren’t you ever afraid that you’re running too far in the opposite direction? You’re so determined to not fall into the same pattern, but what if your avoidance causes other issues?”

Lucy tilted her head in a silent question.

“You’re scared of hurting someone, so you end up hurting yourself instead. That’s how you started. Now, you’re scared of hurting yourself, so you turn away at any chance at exploring. Not necessarily to fall in love, but all the wonderful feelings that lead up to it. Romance.”

“I hadn’t thought of it that way… You’d think I’d realize that it isn’t black and white.”

“It’s not at all.” He sighed, his eyes drifting off to some faraway place, perhaps in the landscape depicted behind his tall frame. “I’ve had to convince myself of this, and that’s why I waited so long before making this gesture for my special someone. It’s okay to test the waters, one step at a time. If you’re not ready to swim, no one’s pulling you into the deep end. It might hurt, somewhere down the road, but it could also be a beautiful thing. Isn’t that work the risk?”

Lucy smiled. “You’re as poetic as your special someone.”

“Wh—what do you mean?” His eyes grew wide.

“It’s Amirah,” she said, exasperated. “If you tell me it’s not Amirah, I’m going to call bullsh*t right now.”

He looked at his hands and laughed. “I’m that obvious, huh?”

Lucy shot him a reassuring smile. “You gotta let me know how it works out. I’ll get you that ceramic bottle. I know she’ll love it. But, you have to actually ask her out on a date, yeah? If you two keep looking at each other the way you do, you’re gonna burn a hole right through Sandrock.”

“I promise. But, that ceramic bottle better be refined. And, please don’t tell—”

“—I won’t.”

They talked for over an hour about relationships and dating. Owen was a self-admitted hopeless romantic, and he was happy to finally gush about Amirah to another person. Lucy didn’t mention Pen by name, but she asked for Owen’s insight on vaguely tangential scenarios that might have applied to her case. She felt like a teenager, poking around for clues into how she could tell if someone liked her.

It was almost midnight when she left. Something he said early in the conversation stuck with her, lifting a weight off her chest.

It’s okay to test the waters, she repeated to herself. Maybe I can make a gesture, too.

As she passed by the oasis, she smiled softly, wondering how she was going to approach her budding feelings for Pen. She tried not to sit on the fear that he might not see her the same way. Tonight was about being hopeful. She could have one of her emotional seizures in the morning.

The yakthorn bristled gently in the evening breeze, and Lucy pulled her jacket closer to her body. Autumn was waning with promises of cold winter days.

A figure approached from the direction of the Wandering Y. A tall, muscular frame with a flowing cape. They crossed paths by the train tracks.

“Lucy.” She felt that rush from Pen calling her name. “Funny running into you here, by your home, in this small town. You look like you had a good evening.”

“I did. We had a good talk.”

Pen was within arm’s reach now. He spotted her new hairstyle and her seemingly satisfied smile, which was now fading at his impassive expression.

“Well, far be it for me to interrupt your journey home,” he said, turning to continue on his way.

Her brows knitted together. “Wait. I wanted to let you know that your little theory was wrong. Nothing happened between me and Owen.”

He gave her another appraising look. “I’ve seen many a damsel leave my home after a long night of satisfaction, and you don’t look too far off the mark.”

She scowled. “Gross, Pen. Are you implying that this is a walk of shame? First of all, there's no shame in getting laid. Second of all, we just talked!”

“Not my business either way," he said nonchalantly. "If we’re done here, Skinny, there are plenty of nocturnal ne’er-do-wells that need punching.”

Before she could utter another word, he’d taken long, quick strides far away from her. Lucy’s heart fell two stories, deep into the pit of her stomach.

“What the hell was that all about?” she whispered.

In a daze, she went home, playing the conversation over again in her mind. Surely he wasn’t so dense as to really believe that she and Owen…? No. Absolutely not. She washed off the salon styled waves and dried her hair, a cord of disappointment blending into her muddled thoughts. As she crawled into bed and tangled herself in cold sheets, she decided that it was a simple misunderstanding on Pen’s part. She’d sort it out the next time she saw him.

Chapter 11: A Gaggle of Geeglers

Chapter Text

Lucy scoured Sandrock, dropped by the church on a Sunday, and even got close to the rockyenarolls on the outskirts of town. The only place she hadn’t looked was the church dormitory, and that was because she didn’t even know if she was allowed in there.

After a week of fruitless searching, she wrote Pen a short letter.

Pen,

I need to talk to you. Can you come by sometime?

Lucy

She threw herself into work. Between Operation De-Geeglate, daily commissions, and volunteering as Fang’s medical test subject, Cooper’s ranch hand, and Owen’s sandfish supplier, the days passed quickly. Still, there was no word from Pen.

She also managed to create a high quality ceramic vase for Owen’s “special someone.” When she delivered it, his eyes glistened with boyish glee.

“You’ve really outdone yourself, Lucy!”

“I’m glad it’s up to your standards.” She threw him a wry smile. “So, is the ‘giftening’ gonna happen today?”

He set the bottle down and rubbed the back of his neck. “Ah… Well, whew! Now’s the moment of truth, huh? I gotta work up the nerve, first. Maybe I can do it tonight, if she comes by the saloon, but not when everyone’s around…”

She could see the internal panic twitching away beneath his beard.

“You’ll be fine,” Lucy said reassuringly. “She’s gonna love it.”

“She’s gonna love what?” Grace poked her head out of the kitchen. “Thought I heard your voice, Lucy!”

Lucy and Owen threw each other wide-eyed glances. Owen blocked the view of the vase with his body.

“So, who’s ‘she,’ and what’s she gonna love?” Grace asked, smiling serenely.

“Sh—she’s you,” Lucy said in a high pitched voice. “And, y—you’re gonna love…” She looked down at the cash register, then to the menu on a stand next to it. “The new menu item…that Owen’s planning! Tell her, Owen.”

The saloon owner’s face twisted in horror before he fixed it and wheeled around to face Grace. His smile was two degrees from psychotic. “Haha! Well, I, uh… I’ve been experimenting with some dishes, lately, but I want it to be a surprise! I’m not totally sold on it yet. More to come!”

Grace pursed her lips. “O…kay. I already knew Owen’s a sh*tty liar, but you’re right up there, too, Lucy. But, I won’t be too nosy. You two can keep your little secrets.”

As the kitchen door swung shut behind her, Lucy turned to Owen. “I am SO sorry,” she whispered. “I panicked.”

He shook his head, cracking a less terrifying smile. “I couldn’t think of one better. Anyway… Better go hide this before I get interrogated again.”

The day came for Operation De-Geeglate to go into effect. Lucy brought the last of the materials needed for the tram cart and engine repairs, and she met up with Mi-an at the designated spot behind the Civil Corps. Her heart rate was elevated, working on the raised platform that was inches away from a deathly drop.

“You’re doing a lot better with heights,” Mi-an said. “And this is way higher than the crane lift!”

Lucy let out a nervous squeak. “Better, not cured. It’s gotten better after an incident a couple weeks ago.”

She told Mi-an about the cliff side rescue by the mysterious stranger that she dubbed the Potato Thrower. She begged her not to mention the details to anyone else, as it could incriminate her mishandling of Doodles the baby yakmel. Just as talking helped her back then, telling Mi-an the story allowed her to focus on her words and her work, not the perilous doom that awaited at the bottom of the Shonash Canyon.

Mi-an frowned thoughtfully as she screwed a bolt down. “You remember the unsigned letter that I got? I wonder if your Potato Thrower could be the same person…”

“Can you really expect to hide your identity for that long in such a small place?”

“There’s gotta be a reason they don’t want to be found out. I do love a good mystery!”

Lucy thought again of Logan’s bandit gang. Those were the only ones who really had something to lose by showing an ounce of mercy or friendliness. How would they get a letter to Mi-an or inch so close to town without getting detected?

With the city-side work complete, they fetched Justice and Unsuur for the next phase of the operation.

“That’s some fine work you’ve done up there, partner,” said Justice, beaming. “Glad to have you guys on board.”

Captain trailed up the stairwell and meowed appreciatively.

“Next step is riding you builders over to fix the engines,” said Justice. “Things might go south over there, over in the, er, west, what with the Geeglers and all. You armed and ready to go?”

Lucy gestured toward her new set of daggers. “Ready!”

Mi-an also unveiled her own blades. “See you cowpokes on the other side!”

They took off in pairs, Unsuur with Mian, and Justice with Lucy.

Just focus on the horizon, she told herself. Don’t look down.

Justice turned the manual crank, propelling them forward. As the cabin departed from the platform, Lucy wiped her moist palms on the bottom of her shirt.

“So, this is working great,” she said, her voice cracking.

Justice nodded. “You alright there? You look kinda pale.”

She swallowed a little bubble of nausea trickling up. “Yep. I’m getting over a fear of heights… A really bad fear of heights…”

“Why didn’t you say so?!”

“I’m sayin’ it—” Something sounded like it was being shredded overhead. Lucy froze. “Whatthef*ckisthat?”

“Uh…”

Her stomach jumped to her throat. A terrible metallic sound rang through the air, as the cables above snapped under their weight. The tram cart jolted violently, almost hovering in midair before gravity took hold.

Lucy’s mouth was frozen in a silent scream, unable to voice the sheer horror of what was happening. Justice, on the other hand, cried all the way. The last thing she recalled before it all going dark was the two of them being thrown violently against the side of the cabin as it tumbled out of the sky.

Lucy came to in a blaze of heat and pain. Her head felt like it’d been rattled in a cage for several minutes. The smell of charred wood and hot metal stung her nostrils. Her ears rang, occasionally mingled with hissing.

Hissing…

She opened her bleary eyes. Dim lighting and metal-looking walls told her that they were indoors somewhere.

“Captain?” Justice’s confused voice came from nearby.

She slowly got to her feet and checked herself for injuries as her vision came into focus. The sweltering temperature of the room pushed against her sweaty back. The hissing grew, and now there was a chorus of it. Justice shifted in his stance.

Their current situation hit her like a brick to the face. An inferno raged behind them. Three Geeglers brandished weapons in front of them.

“Stay back!” the sheriff said, putting his hands up. “I don’t wanna hurt y’all! We come in peace!”

Lucy inched forward, following Justice’s lead and desperate to get out of range of the flames. One of the Geeglers aimed his crossbow and loosed a bolt toward them. It whizzed past their ears as they leaned out of its trajectory.

“Well,” Justice said, slowly drawing his pistol, “it looks like diplomacy has failed, partner. Roll out!”

From that moment, Operation De-Geeglate turned into quite a violent affair. They dispatched the first group of lizardfolk easily, but they realized quickly that they crash landed somewhere inside of Gecko Station. The only game plan available to them was to find a way out.

“I didn’t expect this,” Justice said at one point, as they turned another corner in the maze of Old World architecture. “I thought I’d at least have Pen and a posse with me.”

Lucy’s neck tensed at the mention of Pen’s name. With a sarcastic laugh, she said, “Instead, you got stuck with the rookie.”

“You’re doing some pretty fine work, actually.”

They turned another corner and startled four Geeglers prancing with their wide-brimmed hats and weapons. After the battle, Lucy let out a long sigh, withdrawing her daggers from one of their corpses. The lifeless eyes were still open, large and bulbous. She shuddered.

“How long did it take you to get used to killing creatures like this?” she asked.

Justice frowned. “Things got easier when I understood the reality of the situation. The job ain’t about gunslingin’ and heroics, but when push comes to shove, and diplomacy fails, you gotta be ready to make tough calls. It can become life or death, real quick. It ain’t pretty, but it’s necessary for us to survive out here. Can’t say I ever feel good about the violence, but it makes me feel good knowin’ that I’m out here protectin’ Sandrock. I just hold onto things like that.”

Lucy nodded appreciatively. “That’s a great perspective, Sheriff. This is only the third time I’ve fought against these guys. It’s a weird feeling.”

“As a civilian, you oughta not even be out here like this. But… you do have some fightin’ chops, so just keep in mind what I said.”

They ventured down a long hallway. Lucy had to pull out her pickhammer to clear some piled up debris in a doorway. She found scraps of old company logs about rules and regulations, stamped by a Human Resources Department.

“Where did they even come from?” she asked, eyeing “Human Resources” with suspicion.

“Rumor is they come from the Peripheries. Who knows? Them Geeglers just showed up one day a couple years back. Now, you see and hear ‘bout a few mutated beings here and there, but I have never seen ‘em on such a large scale.”

Justice pulled out his second pistol and handed it to her. “Know how to shoot a gun?”

Lucy nodded. “You think this is necessary?”

“Swinging them daggers is gonna tucker you out, I reckon.”

She chuckled. “You’re probably right. I’m sore enough from plummeting — how many feet was that? I’m just glad I didn’t sh*t my pants.”

“Dang, Lucy. Hah. I’m also glad. Woulda made for a tough time in here.”

The gun was given at the perfect moment. Within the half hour, they shot their way through a locked door and found themselves in battle with a massive Geegler “manager.” The only reason Lucy knew it was a manager was because it had a nametag with the title on it.

“This is the one from the oasis!” Lucy cried.

Justice took a swig of medicine to heal up various cuts and scrapes he’d received in the fight. “This must be where their headquarters are. We may be in the belly of the beast, now, so keep your eyes sharp.”

“They’re like an evil corporation,” she said, pointing at nametag. “What a weird structure for mutant lizard-people.”

Justice handed her a hemostat for a shallow gash in her leg. She dripped the healing liquid over the cut, grimacing as the wound smoked. She watched the different layers of the tissue web back together, like the closing of a gruesome zipper.

He peered at the manager’s title. “Huh. They’ve been around so long, I kinda forgot how strange that is.”

“They didn’t seem to be such a nuisance when I first got here.”

“We actually had some peace for a while, if you can believe it, but it’s been gettin’ worse ever since…”

She tested her leg, standing up slowly. “Since when?”

Justice shook his head. “It ain’t exactly a story for when we’re deep in enemy territory like this.”

“Another time, then,” she said, nodding. “I’m good to go.”

They emerged onto a catwalk that wrapped around a massive room. In the pit below, a massive crowd of Geeglers stood at attention. The biggest lizardman Lucy had yet seen was standing on a platform by a metallic structure with wheels. He seemed to be in the middle of a speech, enthralling them with passages from their “holy book.”

Lucy and Justice crouched behind a large pillar above the crowd.

Justice wiped sweat from his forehead. “D—dang! That’s a whole gaggle of Geeglers… Looks like they’re all listening to that big fella talk about lizard stuff or somethin’. But… I remember this place. I think we gotta find some keycards so we can get through the door on the opposite side.”

They snuck around the catwalk, taking out unsuspecting enemies on the top level along their way. Lucy’s heart was pounding, but she found Justice’s guidance to be helpful. This was a life or death situation. Regardless of what she thought of the Geegler potential for reconciliation, they were not giving either of them the same benefit of the doubt.

Their gunshots were well disguised in the racket below. The metal machine with wheels was clanking, whirring, and making all sorts of combustion sounds on its own. Over the din of machinery, the purple leader continued on.

“…My fellow Geeglers. Too long have we slithered underfoot; forgotten, betrayed... abandoned! It is time to take action! Let me remind you of a phrase from our Holy Book…”

“Think I’ma run out of bullets,” Lucy whispered when they hit the halfway point on the catwalk.

“Here, I got some more. Worst case, at least you got your daggers, yeah?”

At long last, they made it down to the bottom level, still undetected thus far. Lucy’s hair was a mess, sweat trickling down her forehead, but she kept her eyes peel for any sign of wayward eyes in their direction. They stepped as lightly as possible and found shelter behind a large metal crate.

Justice furrowed his eyebrows and spoke in a low voice. “Dang, I hate to say this partner, but... I think our only way out of this thing is on the other side of this room...”

Lucy clocked the machine, realizing now that it appeared to be some sort of locomotive. It was clunky, heavy, and hodgepodge.

“It is not enough to simply reach their level,” the giant Geegler was saying. “We must destroy them or take them over, one city at a time, until we, the Geeglers, are sitting atop the world! Today will mark our first step in that direction. We’re going to take over Sandrock and—”

Justice screwed up his face in confusion. “What the heck is that guy talkin’ about? Take over Sandrock?” As he spoke, he turned his foot and accidentally kicked a rogue can of tempering liquid.

Time stood still, save the can rolling off into the crowd. Lucy watched in horror as the purple leader noticed the movement and pointed an enormous digit at the two of them.

“HEY! Who are those two back there?!”

Hundreds of lizard eyes snapped to the two humans.

Lucy’s mouth fell open. Without really thinking, she spoke feebly to them. “Uh… Ssss ss ssss sss?”

“What did you say about my mother?!” the giant Geegler shouted. “Geeglers! Attack!”

A mass of long arms, springy legs, and whipping tails charged toward them. Those without weapons picked up random objects on the ground, ready to throw them at the interlopers. Lucy braced herself for the onslaught. This was it. This was how she was going to die. But she’d rather go down swinging.

Before the crowd reached them, Captain ran onto the scene.

“Captain? Save yourself!” said Justice in a low voice. “We’re done for!”

Captain meowed loudly, hopping onto a nearby terminal. He licked his paw thoughtfully. As the first arrows started flying, Justice and Lucy ducked. Captain laid down on top of the terminal’s big button. The digital display flickered to life, turning green as it showed diagrams of bladed objects.

Confusion was followed by chaos, then a mingled sense of horror and relief. For Lucy, anyway. For the Geeglers, it was death.

Loud machinery clicked into motion, grinding and whirring with menace. The Geeglers stopped dead in their tracks, as several enormous fans began to spin, picking up speed at a dangerous rate. The lizardfolk lost their grip on the ground, being pushed against their will against the far end of the room.

That was where another set of fans awaited. With the sole exception of the massive purple one, all the Geeglers in the room were sent like screaming fruit through a blender. Bodies collided with one another in feeble attempts to get out of the way. The hissing here was frantic, desperate, but ultimately silenced. They were all helplessly sucked into the wind blades, and their bodies were ejected somewhere on the other side — blood, guts, and all. Remnants of their corpses were splattered on nearby walls, but much of it had been ejected into some unknown abyss. The winds died down as the last bodies piled in, causing a blockage in the system.

Lucy stared, mouth agape. The massacre was so simple, it was comical. She might have even laughed, had the purple Geegler not pulled out a weapon that was bigger than both her and Justice combined.

His voice shook the crate that no longer shielded them. “I’ll destroy you myself. EN GARDE!”

Through gunfire and literal fire, they fought the Geegler president. He wielded a makeshift sword made out of a metal sheet, several mechanical bits, and a flamethrower attached to it. There was no hiding from him. Lucy and Justice dodged, ducked, and rolled as much as they could to avoid his dangerous charge. Lucy relied on her pistol until the magazine was empty, and there was nothing else to do but to draw her daggers and go for the beast’s legs and lower belly. They were the only parts she could reach.

After several minutes of fighting, Lucy and Justice suffered both burns, bludgeoning damage, and cuts across their bodies. They breathed hard, eyes fighting to stay focused, as they readied themselves for another round.

Instead of charging again, the giant Geegler stepped back onto his platform by the grumbling locomotive. “You fight well, humans! But you are too late. Our plan is already complete. Behold!” He jumped up high and landed on top of the train, which creaked beneath his weight. “And now, to take over Sandrock, and then the world!”

Lucy didn’t stop to think. She dashed forward as the train began to move, sprinting up the makeshift on-ramp and — with agility she didn’t even think she had — managed to leap onto the top of the train. With a painful thud, she landed against the metal and rolled. She barely managed to get a grip against the rough surface of the armored vehicle before she fell off.

Her daggers fell out of their sheaths and clattered somewhere on the ground. Another pair lost to urgency.

The train picked up speed, barreling down the track. They passed through a roughly hewn cave system built out of Gecko Station. Lucy charged at the Geegler, weaponless. She struck the mutant with all her might, but it was useless. Then, the beast sucked in his belly and blew it back out, launching her away from him.

The force was enough to knock her down, forcing her to roll to the back of the train. They broke through a barrier at the end of the tunnel and out into sun-drenched Eufaula. Lucy grunted with effort, struggling to keep herself on the train. She dangled off the back, and she felt her fingers slipping. She was so high up, moving so fast…

“Take my hand!”

Somehow, Justice managed to catch up to them on Truth. Lucy had one chance. She kicked off hard from the train and, by some miracle, managed to grab Justice’s outstretched hand. She swung over the back of his seat, her ribs smacking against the saddle, her arms and feet dangling off opposite sides off the horse.

Justice slowed the horse down as they approached the canyon. They watched as the train continued down its path. Shonash Bridge was barely hanging on, just as Justice and Heidi had discussed. Massive sections creaked and snapped beneath the unbearable weight of the armored locomotive.

“SANDROCK! PREPARE TO MEET YOUR NEW MASTER!” the Geegler leader shouted, his voice echoing in the depths of canyon.

It happened so fast. The metal holding up the bridge began to groan and bend. Then, the entire midsection collapsed, taking the train and the massive Geegler with it. His shouting could be heard for some time, until it faded with the wind. The cacophony of metal crashing against earth boomed, reverberating through the treeless landscape.

It was silent now, if only for a moment. Lucy heard Justice chuckling to himself. She couldn’t help but laugh too, as much as it hurt to do so. He helped her down off the horse. Her knees buckled as she dropped to the ground, unable to keep herself standing.

Another horse galloped toward them. It was Unsuur and Mi-an.

“What the heck, guys?! I was worried sick!” Mi-an cried. “I was so anxious while you guys were in there that I fixed the trolley engines! Gah! You’re lucky to be alive!”

“Luck... ain’t got nothin’ to do with it...” Justice was seated on the sand. He had his hands on the tops of his thighs, a stunned look on his face as he caught his breath.

Lucy knew that he was thinking of Captain. She was, too. He saved their lives back there. Where was that amazing little rascal?

“Look,” said Unsuur. “The rest of the Geeglers are runnin’ for the hills. We won, Sheriff.”

Lucy fell back against the sand, groaning. There wasn’t a spot on her body that didn’t ache, from the top of her skull to the tips of her toes. Her throat was parched — partly from screaming, but mostly from being nearly torched to death by a purple lizard wielding a giant flamethrower sword. She wanted to laugh again, but there was hardly any power left in her lungs. She considered closing her eyes and falling asleep right there, at the very real risk of being buried in the sand.

Mi-an ran over to her and put a water bottle in her hand. “Here, drink up.”

She helped Lucy with propping herself on her elbow. The liquid was cool and tasted like all the life that she had yet to experience.

Unsuur passed additional hemostats to both Lucy and Justice, and soon, they were patched up enough to walk again. The medicine was only good for their cuts and scrapes, but not their hefty collection of first degree burns.

“I can’t believe I survived that,” Lucy said, running her fingers through her hair, feeling the sand, sweat, and blood mingled in the strands. “Justice, you saved my life, man.”

“Hey, couldn’t have gotten outta there without you, partner. Or Captain.”

Unsuur tilted his head. “Captain was there?”

Lucy and the sheriff exchanged glances.

“It’s a heck of a story,” Justice said. “Can’t wait to tell ya.”

Lucy sat on the floor of the tram, winded after climbing an insane amount of steps to reach the platform. Justice kept a careful eye on her as he set the carriage in motion.

“I’ll be alright,” she said, pressing the cool water bottle against her reddened forearm. “I don’t think I have enough energy to be afraid.”

“Hah, well, we’ll be back in town real soon, partner.”

She spoke the truth. All she could think about was the battles that lay behind them and the multiple incidents in which she’d nearly lost her life. This tram ride back to Sandrock was nothing.

Despite the desire to go right home and sleep, she accompanied Justice, Mi-an, and Unsuur to City Hall to debrief Matilda. When they finished explaining the situation, the minister was silent for a moment, taking it all in.

“So that’s what happened,” she said finally. “My goodness, sounds like you folks went through heck and back. I’m glad y’all are safe and sound.”

We’re safe, Lucy thought. Might not be so sound.

“Heidi’s out assessing the situation right now,” Matilda continued. “I’ll be calling a special town meeting to talk about it once we’re sure of what to do next. You’ve done the town proud, scaring away those Geeglers. Get some rest now, y’hear?”

Unsuur and Mi-an accompanied Lucy and Justice to Fang’s clinic. Along the way, Mi-an leaned in close to Lucy while the Civil Corps officers discussed patrol coverage.

“When you applied for this job, did you ever imagine you’d be going toe to toe with a giant Geegler on the top of a moving train?” she asked with bright, bewildered eyes.

Lucy shook her head. “I wanted adventure, but this is something else entirely.”

“Drink…”

Fang handed one bottle each to Lucy and Justice as they sat upright in their respective clinical beds. Bandages lined their arms. A large strip of gauze wrapped around Lucy’s thigh. A room divider blocked them from each other for privacy reasons.

“What’s this, Doc?” Justice asked.

Lucy swirled the bottle. The label on the outside had Fang’s handwriting on it, reading “Bassia Potion: For Burns.” She gave it a sniff, regretting it immediately. The pungent smell went up to her eyes.

That burns, alright, she thought, holding back a cough.

“This’ll fix ya up real good!” X said, perched atop the divider as he side-eyed the two of them. “Healthy! Good birdie! Mmmm, yummy!”

Fang turned back to his workstation and left them to it.

Lucy looked at the milky fluid inside the ceramic bottle. “Alright,” she said, shrugging. “Can’t be worse than that time I turned blue from the clinical trials.”

Down the hatch it went. The liquid was creamy, like it’d been blended with yakmel milk. The burning sensation kicked into high gear in her mouth, and it felt like someone lit a match on her tongue. She whimpered, forcing herself to keep her mouth shut as the fluid coated her esophagus and crept down to her belly. A punch of bitterness kicked the back of her throat, and she made a gagging sound.

“That — that was rough,” she said. “I’m not gonna lie, Doctor.”

“Mm. Noted…” He took the empty bottle from her. She could tell that Justice drank his, too, as he made similar noises of displeasure.

“Keep it up!” X cawed. “Strong, healthy, alive!”

“You want us to wait?” Lucy asked. The bird whistled a pleasant little tune of confirmation. “Okay.”

Her skin began to itch for several minutes. She clawed the hospital sheets with her fingers, not daring to scratch the healing wounds. The process took the longest on her thigh, where she’d been hurt the worst. When it was all over, the burn marks vanished. The only thing she had new was the memory of the fight. The blood, the fire, the agony — burned into her mind.

“That stuff’s amazing, Doc!” cried Justice. “I feel brand new!”

“That’s the good stuff!” X cried, flapping excitedly.

“Mm…” said Fang.

“You’re making such impressive strides in medicine,” Lucy said to the doctor, beaming.

He responded with a curt nod. She’d learned by now not to take offense to his brevity. The fact that he acknowledged her existence at all was enough.

Fang kept them there for four hours for observation before releasing them back to the world. Lucy wouldn’t have been surprised if they’d been stuck there for a week at least, so she was thrilled with the same-day release. Exhaustion nestled over her shoulders, willing her to fall into a temporary slumber.

That evening, Lucy parted ways with Justice in front of the clinic. He went to find Unsuur, while she slowly made her way home. All the elixirs and medical advancements in the world couldn’t remedy this strange feeling that clouded her mind. She was at risk of losing something after the Moisture Farm, and again at the Breach, but it was really gone from her now. She didn’t quite know what was missing, but she felt it. It was different this time. Now that the moments had passed, the reality sunk in: she was close to losing her life today. Yet, they won. They got rid of the Geeglers, and they came back relatively unscathed.

So, why didn’t she feel… happy? Satisfied? Any of those positive feelings?

Lucy stretched her arms as she walked. The path from the clinic took her past Catori’s game center and museum. The lights were still on, so the night hadn’t completely passed her by.

It felt like she’d been away for a year. The world was so loud, full of fire and danger and the blood of things that wanted their blood… but it was quiet here. The moon shone, as gentle as ever, over Sandrock. A safe haven from the threats of the real world, even though the world was doing everything in its power to cave it in.

She zig-zagged a few times, taking a moment to really appreciate the quaintness of this place she’d come to call home. The stars shone like glistening gemstones on a velvety blue blanket. The autumn evening was cool and pleasant against her skin. If she’d lost something at the station, then she gained something in these streets. Something unspeakable and precious in the quiet alleyways and sand-ridden pavement.

Lucy entered Martle Square. The lights were on at City Hall, Arvio’s home, and even Construction Junction. Everyone was still awake. Did they know? Did word spread already across the town, that this all could have been wiped out today if it hadn’t been for the little accident with the tram?

As she approached the Blue Moon, she could hear the music and hum of chatter flowing out from it. She didn’t feel hungry, and she didn’t know if she wanted to join in that promise of revelry. She still had yet to wash the blood out of her hair.

In the dim light, Lucy was admiring the display items outside Vivi’s shop, when the saloon’s dining room door opened. Light spilled onto the upper porch, and Amirah’s silhouette materialized. Seconds later, Owen trotted out, calling after her.

Amirah’s uncertain, quiet voice was barely audible. “Oh. Is something the matter?”

“No, I wanted to give you something…” He reached inside by the door, where he’d apparently hidden the bottle. When he produced it, Amirah put her hands to her chest.

“Owen... this gift... Is it for me? Why ever did you go to all the trouble of obtaining such a thing?”

“Ah, well... I just heard you were a fan of these things and, uh, I guess I just wanted to show that I’ve really enjoyed having you around Sandrock...”

Lucy could hear the nervousness in his voice. She wished she could disappear. If she made any sudden movements now, they would certainly notice her presence, and that could ruin the whole thing for Owen.

“I see,” said Amirah. “It’s a very nice gift. Thank you, Owen. I will place it in my studio.”

“Don’t mention it! Er… Hey…” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I was thinkin’… Maybe we could, ah, hang out sometime?”

Lucy’s chest tightened. The tenderness in his voice was so saccharine, so innocent in this day of violence.

“Sure,” Amirah said. “I’ll stop into the saloon regularly with my friends, as I always do.”

Owen chuckled. “I mean — just you and me.”

“Like a date?”

“Like a date, sure, yeah…”

“Hm…” Amirah tilted her head to the side, hands slowly rotating the ceramic bottle. “We’ll see.”

“Alright, don’t let me keep you. Have a good night, Amirah.”

“Good night, Owen.”

Amirah pivoted and headed off. In the moonlight, Lucy could see Owen steadying his breaths. Then, he turned slowly, stopping when he saw her standing across the street.

“Lucy!” he said in a hushed voice.

She slinked over like a guilty cat. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop,” she said quickly. “I was passing by and didn’t wanna spook—”

“—No, it’s fine! Did you see that?”

“I did,” she said quietly.

“Ah, nuts, I don’t care who knows. ‘We’ll see!’ Woohoo!”

Lucy furrowed her brows. “Uh… Yep.” She wasn’t sure if that meant the same thing to her as it did to him. She couldn’t bring herself to wipe that boyish grin off his face. It was pure happiness, and therefore, she deemed it untouchable.

“I’m off to dust off the ol’ suit and tie. Thanks again, Lucy!” He pulled her into a hug. He smelled like seasoning herbs and cooking oils, where she was certain she smelled like iron and ash.

“Mo-prollem,” she said into Owen’s chest. He squeezed slightly, and she felt it radiate into her bones. “Hnngh.”

He released her from his grasp. “Sorry. You alright? Oh, dang, I forgot… I’m sorry, Lucy. I heard about the whole Geegler thing… You’re hurt, aren’t you? I didn’t mean to…”

She took some steadying breaths. “It’s alright. Fang patched me up. I’m just sore.”

“I can’t believe they were building some kind of armored battle train. That’s way smarter than your run-of-the-mill sand mutant.”

Lucy nodded. The evening air felt crisp against her weary body. That hug brought back a visceral memory of Pen’s embrace back in the Breach.

Pen… Maybe he’d understand how she was feeling at this moment. This haze of detachment mingled with dull gratitude. This insufferable overthinking that she was prone to.

“Owen, have you seen Pen around lately?”

“He wasn’t with you guys at Gecko Station? Sounds like it’d be his kinda thing.” When she shook her head, he said, “He hasn’t come in since — well, since you came in that one morning. What was that, two weeks ago?”

“Right.” She half-turned toward home, unsure how to explain why she was seeking out Pen.

“Lucy,” Owen dropped his voice. “Are you two—”

“No,” she said quickly. “Absolutely not.” Nervous laughter leaked out of her lips. “I mean, can you actually imagine that?”

Owen chuckled. “Haha, nah, I guess I can’t. Sorry, couldn’t help but think of it, ‘cause of our conversation. No offense to Pen, but I get the feeling that you could do better.”

“Aw, Owen, that’s really sweet of you to say.” Lucy blushed. “It’s nothing… like that. I just haven’t seen him in a while.”

His gaze was a magnifying glass, and she was an ant on a summer’s day. Thankfully, Owen’s manners outweighed his curiosity.

“You want me to walk you home? You look exhausted.”

“Nah, I already made it all this way from Fang’s. I’ll be fine. It’s a nice night for a walk, anyhow.”

“Be safe, Lucy. And thanks again, for everything.”

She continued her stroll home. The carnage, chaos, luck, and beauty she experienced this day was too much for her, but she still tried to sift through it. She had no choice. Flashes of battle, followed by the feeling of the warm autumn sun sizzling against her burns, and the laughter… The laughter of Justice and herself as they made it out alive. The laughter of the Blue Moon Saloon, like a warm meal paired with a glass of yakmel milk.

What madness was this that allowed her to feel all these things at once? Exhaustion from battle. Fear of what else lurked in the shadowless dunes. Affection for a place she now called home. Disgust with the blood on her hands. And loneliness… the longing for a familiar smile that she’d come to miss.

The stillness of the desert hid many secrets and wretched things beneath its serene facade. The shifting sands whispered promises of truth. Lucy thought back to her first sunset here. It was beautiful — a pastel piece of artwork, offering dreams with sky-high limits. This evening was a bottle of dark ink that she swirled, searching for meaning and reason in the wordless void. There were answers somewhere in there, waiting for a pen to drag them out.

Chapter 12: Pendulum

Chapter Text

Lucy took a sip of her tea, letting it wash away the chill on her skin. Outside, her workshop was covered in a thin layer of overnight frost. She hugged her jacket closer. The morning train was a sparse event these days, now that the Shonash Bridge lay in ruins at the bottom of the canyon. The flourishing winter only made it that much more quiet around Sandrock.

She’d spent the night in toss-and-turn waves of images she wished she could forget. As she contemplated the mail on her table, the silence pressed in against her. She needed to talk to someone.

Justice gave her some perspective when they were down in the belly of the beast, but she didn’t want to give the sheriff the idea that she wasn’t up for another fight. As much as it terrified her, she wanted to be strong enough to protect this town and its people. Owen would surely have something comforting to say, but she couldn’t bear to interrupt his high from asking Amirah for a possible date. Grace had mentioned that she could be a pillar of support, but Lucy didn’t think she’d quite understand from a firsthand perspective.

Lucy sighed. She hated feeling like a burden. The thought occurred to her that Pen never made her feel like one. He was enthusiastically there for her. At least, until that mind boggling run-in a couple weeks ago. Sandrock felt emptier without him sauntering around. With a tug in her chest, she realized she missed that co*cky grin.

She sifted through the mail and pulled out the envelope with Matilda’s handwriting on it.

Dear Lucy,

We’re having an impromptu Fireside at 6:00pm tonight to talk about what all’s happened with you, the Civil Corps, and what to do next. There’ll be some very important information for Builders, so please try to stop in.

May the Light always find you

Matilda

She nodded silently at the letter. If she didn’t find Pen in town, he’d surely show up for the fireside meeting. He never missed those.

Despite the aching muscles, Lucy was relieved that Fang didn’t ban her from work this time. She needed the distraction. She put herself through an early morning workout, throwing caution to the wind with how sore she was. She spent over an hour at the scrap yard, stopping only when her body threatened to revolt. She took a break by going to pick up a commission.

“Howdy, newbie!” Yan called when Lucy walked into the guild.

“Mornin’,” she said cheerfully as she pictured Pen punching him in the spleen. It was an image that got her through every interaction with her boss.

She scanned the commission board. Pen’s face used to be there, smiling at her, demanding weapons or protein, or both. Today, it was absent, just as it had been for the two weeks prior. She sighed and grabbed a commission and a request for two things that didn’t require her to run any major machines. The sound of her recycler had set her teeth on edge that morning.

By the afternoon, she had put together an arm stretcher for the saloon owner and some meat stuffed mushrooms for the ceramic artist. As she made her way up Main Street to deliver the fresh food first, she saw Mi-an coming from a distance. As they readied to cross paths, Mi-an hadn’t seemed to notice Lucy’s presence yet. The latter realized quickly that something was wrong.

Mi-an stumbled. Lucy lunged forward to catch her, the bag of food swinging dangerously on her arm.

“Hey, you alright?” Lucy asked, helping Mi-an back to a standing position.

“Ow… My back, my waist, my… tibia! My whole body aches…”

Lucy sighed. “You really oughta take time off, Mi-an…”

“Yeah, it might be time to cut back on the late night commissions.” Mi-an’s eyes popped open. “Oh no! I passed out on the side of the road last night. I’ll bet everyone saw me sleeping on the job! This is so embarrassing…”

“Uh, embarrassing, or severely concerning?” Lucy asked, raising an eyebrow. “C’mon. Let’s get you to Fang.”

“You’re probably right. Don’t worry! I can go by myself. This leg still works, kinda. I can make it… to the clinic… Wait.” Mi-an grabbed Lucy’s arm and steadied herself. “No time for health concerns. I’ve got this commission from Heidi that needs to be done ASAP. I’ll s—see you!”

“Wait — let me do it,” Lucy said. “I just gotta turn in mine, and then I’m free to take care of it.”

Mi-an’s eyes welled up. “Really? You’d do that for me?”

“What are friends for?! You covered me for the Hydrogel. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’m the reason you’re like this right now! You haven’t taken a break since.” She sighed, guilt banging against her chest for letting Mi-an put herself through all this extra work on her account. Another drop in the bucket for feeling like a burden.

“Well, alright…” Mi-an pulled out the commission sheet and handed it to her. “You’re the best, Lucy. Now I have no excuse not to go see Dr. Fa—AH! I bit my tongue… Okay. Thee yah!”

Lucy watched her go, deeply concerned that she was going to end up face down on the ground somewhere. To her friend’s credit, she did seem to be a great deal more awake as she hobbled uphill.

When she entered Ceramic Gate, the smell of earthen clay filled her nostrils. She found the artist at her desk, sketching a design. The bottle that Owen gave her the night before was placed on her table in the far corner. Lucy eyed it as she entered, wondering if Amirah put it there as a place of honor atop her desk, or if she just shoved it into the first corner she found empty.

“Delivery,” Lucy said cheerfully.

“Ah! Thank you so much,” Amirah said, smiling serenely. “I’ve been behind on my orders and didn’t have time to replace everything my brother ate. It smells wonderful.”

“You’re very welcome!” As she turned to go, she thought she heard Amirah make a small sound. “Sorry, what was that?” Lucy asked, one hand on the door.

“Ah — I was going to ask…” Amirah set her pencil down. “Did you make this?” She pointed to the unpainted bottle.

Lucy raised her eyebrows. “Ah, probably. It looks like something I put together for a commission recently.”

Amirah looked at her with a wry smile. “You’re not a very good liar, Lucy,” she said, a slight tease in her voice. “It’s not just ‘put together.’ The craftsmanship is remarkable. I have seen your work, and I could tell it was your signature quality.”

“Aw, thank you, Amirah, that’s very kind of you to say.” Lucy blushed.

“So you know, then, that Owen commissioned it to give to me?” A small smile crossed Amirah’s lips as Lucy nodded. “I’m not quite sure what to make of the gesture.” She seemed to be saying it more to herself.

Lucy couldn’t find her voice. Her mind was whirring like a table saw. She didn’t want to betray Owen’s trust by divulging information about his feelings for Amirah, and she didn’t want to lose Amirah’s trust by appearing to withhold information from her. Her hands got clammy at the thought of causing some inadvertent friction between the two.

“Well, I just wanted to let you know that I love the work you do,” Amirah said at last, breaking the silence. “I hope you are being kind to yourself… not just in light of recent events, but always.”

She had an uncanny, piercing gaze that reminded Lucy of Owen’s. It’s like they saw right through her. Or, she was truly a terrible liar, and she truly looked how she felt. She left Ceramic Gate at a pace that was just short of a run, as if trying to escape the truth of her mental state. The winter air bit the tip of her nose and her cheeks. Her face was flushed by the time she got through the saloon doors.

“Lucy! Good to see ya!” Owen waved at her from the dining room, where he was sweeping.

Lucy smiled shakily and withdrew the arm stretcher from her back. “Delivery for you.”

“Wow, look at that! That’ll do nicely.” He pulled the bar overhead and performed a few tugs. His muscles flexed and relaxed in the motions.

“So,” Lucy said, blinking rapidly, “did you set a date yet?”

“Ah, I was thinkin’ of trying to do that after the fireside tonight. You think that’s too soon? Too slow?”

She chuckled. “How long have you been putting this off already?”

He sighed. “Since before you showed up, that’s for sure.”

“Just go for it,” she said, shrugging. “If I learned anything from my near-death experience yesterday, it’s that life is too short to sit around on your feelings for someone.”

“Thanks, Lucy,” he said, putting a hand to his chest. “I hope you’re going after what you want, too, y’know. Whatever or whoever that is.”

She ran her fingers through her hair. “Right.”

By the time Lucy delivered a bookcase for Heidi, people started to gather for the emergency fireside meeting. Heidi accompanied her back out of Construction Junction, hinting under her breath that a big project was about to be revealed.

The crowd buzzed with guesses about the kinds of doom that lay ahead of them tonight. The Church of Light stood together in all their yellowy glory: Miguel, Burgess, Dan-bi, and, of course, Matilda. Noticeably missing was the one person Lucy wanted to see: Pen.

Matilda took to the podium and kicked off the meeting with a confirmation that the Civil Corps and the builders dispersed of the Geeglers in a “surprise operation,” which Lucy found to be disingenuous wording. It was a complete freak accident and a fight for survival, but she understood the need to rebrand it as something prettier.

The minister also confirmed the destruction of the bridge and underlined how brave all parties were, and how their actions led to the safety of Sandrock amidst the threat of invasion. Lucy felt like she was listening to an speech honoring some brave, gunslinging hero. Not her.

Everyone looked from Unsuur, to Justice, to Mi-an, to Lucy, whose cheeks were red hot. Elsie let out a whistle, and Heidi patted her on the back (which made Lucy stumble half a step forward).

By the end of the meeting, it was clear that fixing the bridge was going to be a major undertaking for all of Sandrock. Heidi and her team were at the helm. Funds needed to be raised, and materials needed to be gathered. A fiery determination hummed into life among the attendees. Heidi went straight back to Construction Junction. Rocky and Hugo offered to donate raw materials, while Owen and Arvio offered to donate money.

As the crowd dispersed, a large portion of it headed toward the Blue Moon Saloon. If ever there was a time to drown away their sorrows, it was now. Owen promised the first round on the house. However, Lucy found herself distinctly not in the mood for any of it. There was nothing that happened at Gecko Station that she wanted to relive, and there was entirely too much work to do to rebuild the bridge.

“Lucy…” Matilda’s gentle voice broke through the swarming darkness. “Mind if I speak with you in City Hall? It’ll be quick.” She smiled kindly and gestured for Lucy to follow.

Inside, Matilda leaned against the mayor’s desk, clasping her hands together and peering at Lucy with a keen eye.

“You look exhausted,” the woman said quietly. “Is there anythin’ we can do for you after all you’ve been through?”

Lucy swallowed hard. A burning frustration ignited in the pit of her stomach. To feel like a burden was one thing, but to be singled out like this? She shook her head. “I’m fine,” she said, the ghost of the truth flying out from her lips.

“I don’t think — no, I know yer not alright,” Matilda said. Her voice was still gentle, but it had the edge of a concerned grandmother now. “It wasn’t right that you took that fall. And, what’s more, Mi-an told me you’re afraid of heights.” She tutted softly.

The flames in her stomach leaped up to burn her throat. Mi-an must have meant well, but Lucy did not appreciate it now.

“Alright, well I can only say I tried,” Matilda sighed. “You’re not the only one affected, Lucy. We’re gonna get through this together. The Light will see us through this darkness.”

Lucy nodded. She wasn’t one for scripture, but she did feel a begrudging sense of appreciation for the minister’s attempt to console her. “Thank you, Minister,” she said.

The next morning, it started to snow. Lucy was able to sleep through most of the night. Feeling more refreshed, she sang to herself while making breakfast, soaking in the beautiful scenes of Sandrock from her kitchen and dining windows.

Halfway through her breakfast, someone knocked on her door. She opened it to see Heidi yawning widely.

“Oh — ‘scuse me,” the architect said, giggling. “Mornin’ Lucy. Hope you had a better night than I did. Haha… I’m about to crash. I pulled an all-nighter working on ideas for the new bridge. But it was worth it! I’ve got the designs right here to…” She yawned again. “… prove it!”

She furnished a folder, handing it to Lucy. A large crossbeam construction was displayed, drawn by Heidi’s expert hand. It would serve as the upper, load bearing frame for the bridge.

“Is Mi-an making one, or should I handle both?”

“My team will work with Mi-an to build the base of the bridge. The trusses are all on you. This is going to be a huge undertaking, so once Mi-an is feeling well again, it’ll be all hands on deck. Since we need the frame finished first, you’ll be buyin’ her even more time to recover.”

Lucy nodded. “You got it.”

Over Heidi’s shoulder, she could see a few figures approaching her fence. Rocky, Justice, and Hugo were all dropping things off in the delivery box out front. They waved and shouted their greetings to her before heading back to their work.

“All hands on deck,” Heidi repeated, beaming at her. “You’re witnessin’ some real Sandrocker spirit right now.”

Lucy swelled with affection for the town. “You’d never see something like that in Highwind. It’s everyone for themselves, more or less. There are kind people, but this is a whole… community.”

“Just like your toast a couple weeks ago.” She yawned. “Well… speaking of toast, that’s exactly what I am. I gotta get some shut-eye. Good night, Lucy! We can do this!”

Lucy inhaled the rest of her breakfast, her heart bolstered by the sense that she did, in fact, belong here. She pulled on her coat and went out to check the delivery box. She was met with the sight of raw iron, steel bars, and ammo cans. Justice attached a note to one of the cans that read, “Just in case your arms get tired from swingin’ those daggers. -Justice.”

Lucy chuckled. Little drops of snow fell silently over the wooden box as she closed the lid back up. She’d pull out the materials when she got started later in the day. For now, it was time to check the mail.

The familiar floral stationery and looping handwriting of Nia greeted her from the inside of the cold metal container, like a fragile flower emerging from the depths of winter.

Lucy,

Sorry it took so long to respond. I’ve been SOOO busy on this project!! It sounds like you are becoming a Sandrocker through trial by fire. Be careful out there. You still owe me a yakmel milk if I can come out and visit one day.

If you haven’t figured it out already (because you’re so stubborn), it sounds like you have a crush on this Pen guy. You might as well have drawn a bunch of little hearts around his name. If the feeling’s mutual, just go ahead and rip his costume off!!!

Your friend forever,

Nia

Lucy stared at the reply, a small smile on her lips. The pinkness on the tip of her nose and her cheeks were now doubled — one shade for the cold, and one for the graphic encouragement that Nia had given her. It felt like this letter had come from another universe, a hundred bloodied corpses ago. She didn’t even tell Nia about Operation De-Geeglate yet, but she was sure she’d find out soon enough. The Ataran government was aware of the situation, which meant that Sandrock’s little lizard problem would soon make it to newspaper outlets.

She scanned the truss diagram again and sighed, thinking about that armored train shattering the bridge. What would’ve happened if an Ataran train crossed instead? She shivered at the thought.

She started up her machines with ginger, but well-practiced hands. She slowly eased herself back into the sounds, setting up her furnace to work through copper and bronze bars. She’d have to come back later and get started on the steel.

With a tug of paranoia, she double checked her water tank. The level was at about fifty percent, which would suffice for the work she needed in the interim. When she opened her water shed and saw the stacks of blue tubs, she was greeted with a fading memory of Pen’s hands on her waist while they shared a ride on a yakmel, months ago.

The fire powered generator made a crunching hiccup sound as it tore through a particularly tough pile of dregs. The sound catapulted her back to Gecko Station, as the fans kicked up and ripped through the Geeglers. It was a fraction of a second, but it was more than enough. A rotten sensation crawled up her throat, like a snake in her intestines desperate to get out. She bent over double, waiting for it. But “it” never came. She coughed, sputtered, and heaved, but she could not vomit. Tears stung her eyes as she sobbed from the horrible sensation.

After she recovered somewhat, Lucy slammed the storage door shut, her hands trembling. The frosty air seemed to reach even through her thick coat. She really needed to talk to someone, and that someone was Pen.

With her mind made up, she holstered the pistol that Justice gave her. There shouldn’t have been danger where she was headed, but she wanted to be ready for anything. What if there was a very real, very dangerous reason that Pen hadn’t been around? She regretted not asking Matilda when she had a chance the night before. Damn her pride.

Damn your overthinking, too, she told herself.

On her way up Main Street, Lucy spotted Burgess walking along the boardwalk of the oasis, no doubt checking on the water levels and keeping watch for pollution. Miguel was chatting with Jasmine about some school work on the patio of the Blue Moon. He nodded curtly to Lucy as she passed, and Jasmine waved cheerfully, dressed in a pink sweater with a picture of a yakmel on it.

Lucy never realized just how cold the desert could be. The sun took a lazy path up in the sky, its heat barely touching the ground. The sparse trees, nothing but claw-like branches now, shuddered in the wind. Her thighs ached as she reached the church grounds. She wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d be sore for the next year to come.

She paused outside the door to the church dormitory. The blue and white building had collars of soft snow along its edges. She’d never been inside before. Matilda had her own house, just a few steps away. Burgess and Miguel were down the hill. It would just be Pen here, if he was indeed home. But… what if she was wrong? What if he skipped town entirely?

Before she lost her nerve, she opened the door and passed inside. A citrusy aroma hung in the entrance hall. Flower pots lined the window sills.

It was serene, the image of a Light-dedicated space, until the walls shook. A large object collided with something else in the building, somewhere upstairs. Lucy tensed up, placing a hand on her pistol.

Maybe it was a good idea after all, she thought.

She heard a muffled voice, crying something unintelligible. Eyes peeled, she drew her gun and proceeded slowly up the steps. The wood creaked gently, causing her stomach to twist and turn.

“How could you betray me like this?!” It was Pen’s voice. Lucy’s heart shuddered. “To think… I loved you once!” Pen’s anguish, though muffled, was apparent. Was it a lover’s quarrel…?

Another slam. Lucy peered over the top of the steps as the first door atop the landing rattled violently. She sidled up to it and listened, hardly daring to breathe.

“Hrraaaaagh!”

Crash.

Glass shattered inside the room.

Lucy stopped thinking altogether, as a wild fear took over. It could be a fight. Pen could be in danger. Without even thinking to call to him, she backed up a few paces and rammed her shoulder against the door. It bent, but did not break. Again, she backed up and threw herself against the wood, while the sounds of an ongoing struggle spurred her on.

On the third try, her aching shoulder never found purchase. The door swung wide open, and she tumbled inside. Her gun flew out of her hand and landed with a metallic clatter against the ground.

Before she fell, something warm and firm caught her — something with arms and a bare, damp torso.

“What the f*ck?!” She pulled away.

Grasping for the doorframe to keep her balance, her heart was about to punch a hole through her shirt. In a blur, she clocked a trashed room, broken shards of mirror glass littering the floor like stars in an upside down sky.

Clothes spilled out of a trunk that popped open after being thrown against the wall, right next to the door. Its latch snapped clean off.

Most mind boggling of all was the Protector of Sandrock, standing smack dab in the middle of the room, wearing nothing but a pair of boxer briefs that left little to the imagination. His bare chest and all eight meticulously formed abs glistened with sweat. Each of his thighs was bigger than both of hers put together. It was, in every way, the opposite of their run-in during her first sandstorm in Sandrock. She was the one barging, and he had zero shame about how exposed he was.

“Oho! Well, if it isn’t my good-ish friend, Skinny Arms!” He put his hands on his hips, as if to invite her to gawk at his package. “Skulking outside my chamber door, on the off chance you might bask in my stout-hearted, rock-ribbed emanations, no doubt! Well, today is your lucky day!”

Lucy’s cheeks burned fiercely. Everywhere she looked, he — and his bulge — plagued her peripheral vision.

“I… heard some noises,” she said thickly.

“Some? Hah… That was simply an unfortunate altercation. I seem to have been let down somewhat...” He crossed his arms, veins bulging. “Ah, Skinny! I can’t hide it any longer. As the Sandrocker I respect most and whose demeanor is also the most Pen-like in disposition, perhaps it would ease my heart to confess to you...”

Lucy screwed up her face in confusion. The most Pen-like?!

“You see, I was action rolling over to my mirror after finishing my new ten thousand squat routine to check my post-workout pump when I discovered to a mix glee and horror...” He gestured up and down at himself. “My muscles are now too burgeoning to be contained by the surface area of my mirror!”

She stared at him. Indeed, his muscles even had muscles. But her eyes were drawn elsewhere, to places a little more curious than that. Scars lined his body in various places, just cutting into the otherwise smooth surface of his tanned skin.

“And in my moment of despair and anger… I killed…” He pointed to the shattered glass. “It. My mirror. I broke my mirror, Skinny! I smashed it to a thousand pieces!”

He sighed. Then, he flexed, turning to the side to show his glutes and quads. The boxer briefs clung on for dear life against his form.

“You must understand. These muscles, this perfectly crafted form — they do not come cheap or easy. No! They need constant care and attention. People have labelled my physique ‘quantum musculature,’ as only through observation does it take a defined shape.”

Lucy, for all the credit she could give herself for not staring at his physique until now, was only human. She looked at it. Really looked at it. In the mass of confusion, a different sensation plagued her. A primal one, running from her lower belly down to a long-abandoned place between her legs.

Peach, she thought bitterly. I need to get it together.

She tore her gaze away from his package, finding safety in studying the haphazard workout equipment in the corner. A punching bag, some barbells, some boxing gloves…

“But I digress. The undeniable truth is... my gains have been exceptional lately. Look at my pecs. No, no. I mean really look at them. Outstanding. I mean it’s amazing they fit anywhere...”

He turned to face her fully again. His pecs were bigger than her head. If anyone needed a model reference for human anatomy in all its muscled glory, Pen would be it.

“Y’know, this is all very well and fair,” he said, smirking. “I walked in on you in a state of undress, and now here we are. Tit for tat!”

Lucy’s brain stuttered slowly back to life as her eyes betrayed her, stealing glimpses of his body that would be burned into her mind for days to come.

“I didn’t need to see your ‘tat,’” she said with some effort. “Do you mind… putting on some clothes?” She grabbed a handful of garments from the nearby trunk and tossed them in his direction.

Pen looked aghast. “No one has ever asked me to put the goods away once they’ve taken a peek. You feeling alright, Skinny?”

Not at all, she thought.

“It’s distracting,” she said, trying to sound annoyed. Her face was as red as marinara. Why was she even here again? To talk to him? To… stare at him? No. He quietly pulled on track pants and a track jacket. As the final zipper sounded, Lucy could finally breathe. “Thank you.”

“You must understand, Skinny, I’m not like you.” He crossed his arms. “I can’t simply have a full and complete view of my body without the aid of a mirror. I cannot truly know whether or not I’ve maintained my expected level of perfection. I need vision! I need a true view of my developments!”

“What’re you talking about? I don’t have the ability to view my own body either.”

“I meant you can view my body!” He ran his hands over the outside of the tracksuit, defining the curves of his muscles even through the cloth.

“What do you want me to do? Caress you?!” She regretted the words as soon as they flew out of her mouth. “I didn’t mean — because you’re—”

“Haha! Hey, buy me dinner first, will ya? Bold move, though, Skinny. Dig that mindset. But hark, let us save our caressing for a date sometime after I have solved this conundrum of mine...”

A date? she thought, a feral pounding in her chest. Did he just suggest that we go on a date?!

“Um… right.” She swallowed hard. This was not at all how she hoped this conversation would go. Pivoting hard, she asked, “How ‘bout I just build you a bigger mirror?”

“Why... that would be precisely what I need! Ah, Skinny, you read me like an open book! Ew. Well, like something cooler than a fluttery old book... But yes, you’re exactly right!”

Lucy sighed. Now that they were done talking about his body, she felt some sense of relief. Her memory drifted back to her like flotsam. “Okay, I can do that. But, Pen, I came here to—”

“But why stop there?” He rubbed his chin. “Not just larger. Better, faster, stronger... The most advanced mirror known to man! Yes... Hm, but a pinnacle of scientific achievement such as this...”

“Hang on. I wanna talk—”

Something caught her eye. When she threw his clothes at him, she dislodged a sheet of paper from the trunk. It stared up at her from the floor by her feet. Her own handwriting.

Pen,

I need to talk to you. Can you come by sometime?

Lucy

Pen was still talking at her while she stooped over and picked up the unanswered letter. “You’d only be able to build something so advanced with the assistance of... The research guy! Oh, yeah... It’s all coming together...”

All her senses set on fire. “This f*ckin’ guy,” Lucy growled under her breath.

“Alright, Skinny! Here’s the plan!” He gestured wildly. “You run over to the research guy’s house and order up an extra jumbo, high-tech mirror, meanwhile, I’ll sit around and wait for you to build it! Can you handle this for your Protector!?”

Lucy bent down again, snatching up her pistol this time. She shoved it back in its holster and scowled at Pen.

“MY Protector?! Really?! That’s what you are, now?”

Pen’s excitement flickered out, doused by the chill of her words. “What do you mean, Skinny? I’ve always been your—”

“Two weeks. I wrote to you. I looked for you all over town. For — two — f*cking — weeks.” She jabbed an accusatory finger at the letter. “No answer. Not even the courtesy of letting a friend know you’re okay. Nevermind being a protector. I didn’t need you to protect me, even when we were two against a hundred at Gecko Station. Even when I hopped on the armored train like an idiot, and I almost—

“I almost died.” Tears welled up, reliving those moments in fleeting, yet vivid images. Her voice quivered. “Thank the Light — no, the Light had nothing to do with it. Thank Justice for being there, for saving me. But you?” She wiped falling tears, hating that she cried from anger, hating that he had to see her this way. “I’ve been struggling since I got back, Pen, and somehow I kept thinking about you. Wanting to know if you were safe. Wanting to hear your voice. Only — here you are.” She gestured at the debris. “Obsessing over yourself and your f*cking mirror. To think, I missed you. I’ve been hoping for the longest time that everything you’ve done for me was out of more than just duty — that you cared… that there was something…”

The depth in his sapphire eyes swallowed the smallest glimmers of emotion before it could break through the surface. Pain? Sadness? Concern? They were gone before they saw daylight. He watched her speak as if he was seeing her for the first time.

“Lucy...” Her name again, uttered like it was a fragile thing, slipping out of his fingers and toward the unforgiving ground. She could see the struggle on his lips and in the way his jaw twitched. But all he said was, “I’ve been… busy.”

Lucy gave a short, mirthless laugh. “What did I expect?” She detached herself from the threshold. Blinking away tears, she flashed him a strained, professional smile. “I’ll let you know when the mirror is done. Not sure if I can make it big enough for your ego, but we’ll see.” Recalling a faraway memory, she added, “I’ll leave you to whatever dance you were doing upon my arrival.”

Without another glance at him, she shut his room door. As she walked away, the only sounds were her footsteps, hollow against the wood, until she reached the exit to the building. Another crash sounded from within. The walls trembled alongside her heart. She wrenched open the door and let it swing shut behind her.

Chapter 13: Truss Issues

Chapter Text

It took three days for Burgess to convince Lucy to return to the dormitory. True to her word as a builder, she’d consulted with Qi and developed a high tech mirror with artificial lights so Pen could ogle himself to his heart’s content. She completed the delivery and installation while he was attending church, and she stuck the bill to his door, all so she wouldn’t have to speak with him or see him.

Every day since, Burgess came to her workshop in increasing waves of anxiety over Pen’s alleged “situation.”

On the first day, Lucy shrugged it off.

“What’s up, Burgess?” she called, tossing him a friendly smile when she noticed him lurking by her fence. She was at her furnace, goggles on, smelting some steel bars. When the flames licked high, she shuddered, but the ferocity of her flashbacks were becoming less debilitating. Or, she was losing her mind and accepting it. What was the difference?

“Heya Lucy! I didn’t see you at the sermon yesterday.”

“Sorry. Church isn’t really my thing.” She raised her voice to be heard through the muffling of her face mask. The idea that Burgess would be concerned with her absence now, after several months of her residency here, was too convenient.

“Right, right. Well, uh… I was wondering if you’ve seen Pen lately.”

The mention of his name was enough to shatter the illusion of small talk. She held off her response until she was safely away from molten metal.

“No, I haven’t,” she said, pulling her mask off. She walked up to her fence and gave him a quizzical look, soot lining the edges of her face. “Don’t you guys live in the same building?”

“Y—yeah! We totally do!” He wrung his hands together.

“What do you really want, Burgess?”

The safety inspector turned pink. “I, uh, I’ve seen him — in his room — and he won’t come out. I was wondering if you could talk to him? He seems like he’s having a hard time.”

“I’m sure he’ll be fine. He’s the Protector of Sandrock, the strongest man in the world.” Lucy bore no ill will toward Burgess, but the suspicion of Pen using him to get some sympathy out of her was a test for her patience.

He didn’t quite catch her sarcasm. “You’re right, Lucy! What was I thinking? Pen can get through anything! Well, sorry to bother you. I’ll be on my way.”

On the second day, the trusses were giving her trouble, so she took a break to work on a special order for a deputy hat. Justice wanted it for a special ceremony to which she was invited. He didn’t say who exactly it’d be for, and the measurements threw her off for guessing. It was too small for Unsuur’s head.

She was in the middle of programming the sewing machine when Burgess materialized once more by her fence, watering can in hand. She distinctly heard no water sloshing in it.

“Good morning, Lucy!” Burgess called, a strain evident in his cheer. “Fancy running into you, where you live and work! Hehe… How’re things going with the, uh, bridge?”

Lucy nodded toward partial frames on the assembly station. “On schedule, but I’m putting together some more components before I get back to it.” She pointed at the sewing machine. “I’m also multitasking with another commission. How are things on your end?”

“Not so great!” he said with a nervous laugh. “See, I checked in on Pen again this morning, and I think he might need your help, for real, Lucy!”

“Why? Did he ask for me?” She lined up the materials for the hat on the sewing table. At his silence, she said, “I didn’t think so.”

Burgess sighed. “Did you two have a falling out? I don’t want to have to choose between my best friends…”

“Quite the opposite. We came to an understanding. Wait, what?” She looked up, brows raised. “We’re your best friends?”

“Two of three. The third one is the Water Tower!”

“Oh, Burgess…”

“Pen talks about you all the time, when he’s not talking about himself or his job. So, I think you’re in his top three favorite topics.”

Lucy deflected his statement with a short laugh. “Sorry. Having a hard time believing that.” She climbed a step stool and checked her furnace storage. “If it’s between the two of us, I think he’d listen to you better than he would listen to me. What’ve you done to help him with his — uh — problem so far?”

“Well, I’ve asked you for help.”

“And…?” She glanced at him, exasperated. “That’s it, Burgess?”

He scratched his head. “Yeah? Is that not… Did I do it wrong?”

Lucy took a deep breath, trying to stop herself from asking for details about Pen’s predicament. She was certain that he was just beating up mirror that she’d spent time and materials on. She pictured him, sweaty, in boxer briefs once again, while her hard work lay shattered on the floor.

No, she thought. Don’t picture the boxer briefs.

“Did you even talk to him about his problem?” she asked, shaking off the image.

“Right… That might be a good place to start…” He cringed. “Sorry Lucy! I’m new to this! I normally run to Pen to solve my problems, and now he’s not — gah! I gotta go talk to him. I’m such a bad friend!”

He ran off before Lucy could console him. She stared after him, bemused.

“The hell did I get myself into?” she muttered.

On the third day, Lucy saw Burgess approaching from a distance. Her patience was wafer thin, but he was rosy-cheeked, and his lips were quivering before she even had a chance to tell him to f*ck off — respectfully.

“Oh, the humanity!” Burgess cried, trotting up to her fence. “The bombacity! I followed your advice, Lucy. Oh, I told him not to do it... I told him that the abyss would stare right back... He’s... he’s…”

“What are you talking about, Burgess?” She was intrigued now, and she couldn’t lie.

“It’s Pen! He’s trapped! Just come quickly. Trouble down by the Lightshack – I mean the dormitory! He’s stuck in the dormitory!”

“He’s stuck?” she repeated, furrowing her brows. “What do you—”

“Please, Lucy! Theres no time to explain!” He was just about wailing now.

Finally, she conceded. If it made him this sick with worry, she had to check in on Pen, if only for Burgess’s sake — and her peace of mind. She grabbed her tools and her pistol, and she followed Burgess’s lead to town.

“What’s he trapped in?” she asked on the way.

The air was chilly and the snow crunched beneath their feet as they hurried uphill through Main Street. It was too early in the morning for many people to be out and about, though Lucy spotted Captain asleep by Vivi’s cash register.

“I’ll explain when we get there,” Burgess said breathlessly. “It’s kinda something you have to see to believe…”

“He didn’t put you up to this, did he?” She cleared her throat. “This isn’t a ploy to get him to make him another mirror, or something?”

“What? Why would he do something like that?”

“I don’t know why Pen does anything he does,” she said quietly.

When Burgess opened the door to Pen’s room, Lucy thought she’d been taken for a fool.

Pen stood tall, facing the new mirror, slightly turned away from them. As she had suspected, he was in nothing but boxer briefs.

Qi had her install several spotlights at specific positions and angles. She saw now that they were perfectly designed for Pen’s height and stature. The lights hit his muscles in ways that made her blush, as furious as she was. He looked like an Old World painting of a god.

But Lucy realized right away that something was off. His hair was unstyled, framing his face in a wild, layered mane. He did not appear to notice them there, foregoing his usual bombastic greetings.

“Pen!” Burgess called, crossing the room. “Do. You. Hear. Me?”

“Release… me…” Pen breathed. Every muscle in his body was tense, which only added to the depth hinted by the lights.

“Can. You. Hear. My. Voice?”

“Told you… twenty times… I can… hear you…”

Lucy walked up, face screwed up in bewilderment. She’d noticed some of his scars the last time she saw him, but they were deeper, now. What’s more, she saw his back for the first time. Long grooves marred the perfection of his sculpted delts and lats.

His neck twitched when Lucy appeared behind him in the mirror. “Now… release… me… Skinny…”

“I’m not sure we’re getting through to him,” Burgess said, putting his head in his hands.

“What happened, exactly?” Lucy asked. She stared at his hair. Some strands, despite the golden light of the mirror, were unmistakeably silver.

“Stuck… so… captivating…” Pen said hoarsely. “Could… grate cheese… on those… abs…”

She broke into laughter, though she cut it off quickly at a pained glance from Burgess.

The safety inspector’s eyes welled up with tears. “He… he told me not to get anyone’s help, but… he’s been like this for days!”

Lucy’s mouth fell open. “Days? Standing, like this?! That’s not possib—”

Burgess turned to Pen. Practically shouting now, he said, “We’ll. Save. You!”

“Destroy… the mirror… too… powerful…”

“You built this thing, right?” Burgess asked Lucy. “Quickly! You have to… turn it off or something! He hasn’t eaten in days! Even my secret recipe Mush with eleven invisible herbs and spices couldn’t snap him out of it!”

“No!” Pen cried. His veins popped out from his neck and his forehead. He was fighting to look at her, but his eyes wouldn’t draw away from the glossy vision of his own perfection. “Not… turn it off… Skinny! Destroy it!”

That was an easy thing to do.

“Well, at least I got paid.” With a smirk on her face, she pulled out her pickhammer and went to town. She thought about how angry she’d been at Pen just days ago, and she put that feeling into each swing. In seconds, her work was dismantled, in pieces at their feet.

“Careful where you step,” Lucy said. “Whoa, Pen—”

He crumpled, too quickly for Burgess and Lucy to catch him in time. His knees made contact with some of the glass, and he grunted in pain. His voice was a shadow of what it once was.

“C’mon, help me get him to his bed,” Lucy said, grabbing Pen’s arm and pulling it around her neck.

It seemed that Pen’s training was paying off after all. With Burgess’s surprising strength and Lucy’s own, they managed to carry him gently to his bed, avoiding as much glass as they could along the way.

Burgess ran to the storage room in the dormitory to retrieve their medical kit, but Lucy was quicker. She grabbed a hemostat from her waist bag. Seeing Pen like this sent her into a frenzy of concern. Her hands shook as she extracted the slivers of shrapnel, and he wheezed at each tug. When all the glass was gone, she dropped the medicine into the wounds.

Pen groaned as the cool liquid splashed against him. “S—Skinny…”

“I’m — I’m here,” she said, her voice shaking. “I’m right here.” She placed a hand on his arm in what she hoped was a soothing gesture, afraid that the slightest touch might hurt him. Her fingers traced his veins and his scars, as if the textures could soothe her worries.

“I n—need… protein.” He started to cough, and she patted his chest, starting to panic.

“We’ll get you some food right now… Burgess?” she called into the hallway. “You still got some of the mush you made him?”

He emerged, dropped the medical kit on Pen’s bed. and rushed back out to the kitchen. “R—right here!” he said. “Still warm!”

“Okay, can you get me some water for him, too?” Lucy asked, propping Pen up against pillows.

“Lucy,” Pen mumbled, eyes closed. Her name sounded like a prayer on his lips.

“I’m here…” She blinked through misty eyes as she put a hand to his forehead. His temperature was elevated, and his skin was clammy. Her breaths came in ragged.

Burgess returned with water. Lucy leaned in close to Pen, putting the glass to his lips. He obliged, taking a long, slow sip with her aid. She spooned some of the porridge up to his mouth, and he swallowed without chewing. His eyes darted left and right beneath the lids.

While she slowly fed Pen as much as he was willing to eat, Burgess swept up the glass shards. He sighed. “I tried to tell Pen that using electric lightbulbs, AKA ‘artificial Light,’ was one step too close to corrupted Old World technology.”

Lucy shook her head, but she didn’t argue with him. A sinking sensation put the blame on her. It was her fault. She built the stupid mirror. Maybe she miscalculated the angle of the lights and triggered some sort of neurological… whatever — Qi would know the words.

She offered to keep watch over Pen and make sure he ate his fill, which Burgess was grateful for. As he took his leave and closed the door behind him, she set the food and water down momentarily.

She pulled the sheets and blankets over Pen’s exposed body, being careful not to move him too much while she tucked him in. His muscles relaxed, and his veins were receding. She wondered how much longer he would’ve stayed like that, tense and frozen.

Despite the large armchair available in his room, Lucy sat by Pen’s side on the bed. Behind it was a beautiful bay window, lined with cushions and different photos of Sandrock. She noticed the posters by his workout equipment for the first time. One definitely looked like the Super Sane Men that he must’ve modeled his hair after. At least… when he was feeling well. Now, his hair was wild, almost rugged. Lucy’s heart clenched.

“Lucy…” Pen turned slowly toward her, and his eyelids fluttered open. His hand found her thigh and feebly squeezed, causing her to shiver.

“I’m here, Pen.” His eyes were sapphires on a bed of roses. It looked like he’d been standing outside in a sandstorm for hours. It terrified her to see him this way. She closed a hand around his, trembling against his clammy fingers.

“Protein… please…”

The mush had nothing in it but sandrice, water, and Burgess’s special blend of herbs and spices. There was no actual meat or other form of protein in it.

“I—I can pick up something from the Blue Moon, if you want…”

Pen shook his head weakly. “Check… the cabinet…”

He fell into a coughing fit. She swiftly set the mush down and offered him water. When he recovered, she checked the cabinet in question. Inside, she found several tubs of nutritional supplements.

She pulled each one out, setting them on the ledge of the bay window. “Uh… BCAAs, creatine, taurine… Please don’t tell me that ‘CoQ10’ is pronounced co*ck-ten.”

His lips held the shadow of a smile. “The big jar, Skinny… Three scoops. One dose of everything else.”

She grabbed the biggest container, which was labeled “Knight-X Protein & Dietary Supplement.” It boasted a million and one benefits on top of providing 50 grams of protein per scoop. “That’s a ton of protein, Pen. And… the other supplements? You have one, two, three… twelve jars here!”

Pen coughed — a terrible, wheezing sound, like there was a sandstorm in his lungs. “Please, Lucy. I need… my protein…”

She hurried out of the room and grabbed a tall, empty glass from the kitchen. Sitting back down by his side, she followed his formula. Three scoops of his crazy protein, one dose of everything else — sometimes a powder scoop, sometimes a liquid one. The concoction turned into something that resembled wet, blueish cement, before she added water to it. She stirred and stirred, doing her best to beat out the clumps.

“This better be some magic protein,” Lucy said, half-laughing. “You haven’t eaten in three days… I can’t believe you.”

The reality of his state, at least from her perspective, became less scary and more ridiculous the longer she stayed in that room. He starved himself half to death because he was staring at his own reflection, for Peach’s sake.

“You… saw me… right?” he shot back weakly. “Did you see… my abs? That light…”

“Shut up and drink,” Lucy said, fighting back a smile. “I’m still pissed at you.”

He slowly took the glass from her, his fingers brushing against hers, as if they spoke an apology where his voice couldn’t. Her pulse quickened at the gesture.

“I told Burgess to destroy the mirror… two days ago. He wouldn’t... trust my judgment…” A little frothy, lavender mustache formed just over his lip from the protein shake.

Lucy felt a little guilty now for ignoring his pleas from the beginning. “How did this even happen? Here… Let me get that.”

She reached over and used her thumb to wipe the froth. The warmth of her skin pressed against the coolness of his. She paused with her hand on his cheek. When she realized what she was doing, she pulled back, clearing her throat.

“I don’t expect you to understand, Lucy,” he said, smiling softly. “I worked so hard to create this… My blood, sweat, and tears…”

“You didn’t eat for three days. Nothing about this is normal or remotely acceptable!” She neatly stowed away the supplement jars.

“I… see what you’re saying.” He drained the glass, and she placed the empty vessel on top of the cabinet along with the mush. “I should have been stronger. You’re warning me that if enemies of Sandrock used this exact trick, as the Protector of Sandrock, I need to figure out how to power through.”

“That’s not at all what I was saying.” Lucy stared at him. “But, that is something to think about. If you can’t handle a mirror to the point that it’d cause a security issue, I find that… worrisome, honestly.”

Each time Pen closed his eyes, it took a little longer to open them again.

“Lucy… That’s your weakness, as much as it is your strength. You worry so much. Because you care…” His chest rose and fell in great waves. “I… I love that about you.”

He must’ve already been drifting off when he said the last part. For a while, all she heard was the sound of his breathing, even and slow. It was strange how he could look so strong, even when starving and exhausted. Despite the scars and disheveled hair, he almost looked serene. She rose from the bed, quietly grabbed the bowl of porridge and empty protein glass, and left the room.

Half an hour later, she walked into the Research Center. Qi was in the middle of poring over diagrams and research documentation. He glanced up at her when a golden beam of daylight spilled onto his work.

“You appear energetic as usual,” he said. “What of the homunculus man and his new mirror?”

She explained the situation with Pen, and Qi did indeed express some mild interest with the results.

“He was stuck for days…? Fascinating.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Now, I assure you, that was never my intent. I simply designed a filter with flashing lights to make himself appear more attractive. I figure after looking so good in this mirror to any other mirror, he would be so preoccupied that he’d be less inclined to ask for anything else. I didn’t expect the result to be so effective though…”

“This is slightly disappointing,” Lucy admitted. “I was almost hoping that I’d inadvertently followed instructions to create a paralytic laser. So, in the end, it was just because of his obsession with his own appearance?”

“I wouldn’t give him all the credit. The trajectory and pattern of lighting was specifically designed to capture his attention, although it was far stronger in practice, to the point of addiction.” He shrugged. “Well, live and learn. Apologies for the trouble I’ve caused. If the homunculus man ever requires another mirror, I will simply redirect him to the town carpenter and from now on will be making no more attempts to ‘play Light.’”

Lucy left the Research Center in a state of deep confusion and, admittedly, amusem*nt. It wasn’t fully Pen’s own fault, after all. It was Qi being far too intelligent for the good and safety of others. And… well, a little bit of her fault, too.

On her way back to her workshop, she ran into Burgess again. Now that his friend was no longer in mortal danger, he happily returned to watering the oasis plants and performing his regular duties. She let Burgess know that things were getting better for Pen, and that he was fast asleep after taking some much needed protein.

“Ah, he’s gotta have his protein, at least twice a day!” Burgess said, clapping a hand to his forehead. “Why didn’t I think of that?! Well, he also needs to have a full meal, too, to help him digest everything. I think that’s what he told me, once, anyway… He was trying to teach me the importance of tracking your ‘macros,’ and it got really technical. I don’t know how to cook the things he likes to eat. All I really know how to make is my signature mush…”

Lucy sighed. She would be a fool to leave Pen in Burgess’s care. He had the heart for it, but not the skills. “When I’m done with work, how about I bring him some food? I can cook, or I can pick something up from the Blue Moon.”

Burgess grinned. “If I didn’t know any better, Lucy, I’d say you’re a walking, talking telesis machine! But… Not a machine, because that sounds a little too Old World for comfort. You’re a walking, talking telesis flower!”

Back at Lucy’s workshop, she had a few more details to wrap up for the deputy hat before she continued a days-long sequence of smelting, grinding, processing, and assembling for the trusses. While she worked, the peaceful smile on Pen’s face kept coming back to her, along with his deep, yet tired voice.

I love that about you.

Lucy decided to cook him dinner herself. He didn’t deserve it. Not after ignoring her for two weeks and causing all this turmoil in her life. But she’d do it anyway, because she knew, no matter how stubborn she wanted to be, she did care.

When she returned to the dormitory that evening, Miguel and Burgess must’ve both been down at the saloon. No one answered Lucy’s knocks at the front door, so she let herself in.

She ran into Pen in the hallway. He had apparently woken up from the overdue slumber. He was drying his hair with a towel in one hand and holding a protein shake in the other.

“Skinny Arms!” His voice was stronger than before. “You… came back?”

“I did,” she said slowly, looking him up and down. “And I’m starting to think you don’t own that many shirts.”

At least he had on track pants.

“Why would I want to cover up all this glory in the comfort of my own home?” Even though he said something quite typical for Pen, there was a lot less energy to him. He was still recovering.

“I brought food,” She held up the containers in her hands. “I figured you’d need more, uh, sustenance when you woke up?” She frowned at his protein shake.

Pen’s lips parted in surprise. “You… cooked for me?” There was that glint of warmth — affection — again, swimming in his eyes.

Lucy nodded, blushing. “Um… Don’t look at me like that. I’m still mad at you. Take the food. I brought some for myself, too. I thought… you were going to be a little less conscious than you are now. I was gonna eat… here…”

He accepted his portion of the dishes — substantially more than she’d set out for herself — and led them to the dining area just off the hallway. As she followed him, she noticed the scars on his back had faded since she first saw them.

“You have every right to still be angry with me,” Pen said, gesturing for her to sit across from him at the dining table. “You’ve seen me in an impossibly weak state. That should’ve never happened. It’s… unforgivable.”

“That’s not at all why I was — am — upset.” She took her seat and threw him a perplexed look. “In fact, I’m only here because you seemed unwell.”

He opened the container of food. “Wow… This looks fit for a warrior, Skinny — er, Lucy.”

“It’s a few steamed sandfish,” she said quietly. “I dunno how much you eat in a day. I also made spaghetti, because, uh, you seem to like it.”

Pen’s condition put his emotions quite readily on display. Lucy almost felt bad that he couldn’t hide his smile as well as he probably would’ve liked. She hated that seeing him happy made her feel lighter somehow.

He handed her a set of utensils. “I’d like to explain why I didn’t answer your letter. Why I made myself scarce around you for two weeks.”

“So, there was a reason? Other than you just… being a dick?”

He chuckled. “I was busy, you know. My duties sometimes take me away from Sandrock for days. You never know the dangers that lurk in the outer reaches of the desert. Sometimes, the Protector has to patrol the dangersome borderlands.”

Lucy nodded silently. Of course. That was an easy explanation.

“But… there’s something else. I avoided you even after my return.”

She paused over her meal, a dagger in her heart. “But, why? What did I do to deserve that?”

“You… didn’t do anything.” Pen sighed. “In my position, I’m constantly under scrutiny. Every waking moment is dedicated to ensuring the safety of my charge, and that causes some… extra attention, sometimes. By enemies, and by adoring fans.” He shrugged. “How do you tell the difference between someone who wants to be close to you and someone who’s seeking to destroy you, Skinny?”

Lucy swallowed a mouthful of fish. “You thought I was an enemy agent? Or… some sorta crazed fan? I’m very much neither.”

“I see that now. Today was the perfect opportunity for you to show your true colors. An enemy might’ve struck me down while I was incapacitated! They’d be smart to do so, considering the only one capable of incapacitating me is myself. A fan, on the other hand? They wouldn’t have…” He gestured to the food, back to his room, and to Lucy. “They wouldn’t have cared as much as you.”

The way he said it plucked at a chord in her heart, causing his words to reverberate through her body. The way he looked at her now felt like a hug.

“I could always be playing the long game,” she said with a mischievous smile.

“That is the danger of trust, isn’t it? You could be. But, that’s a risk I am choosing to take, so long as you stay on the ‘protectee’ side of my protector duties.” He winked.

She traced the sharp edges of his face, deepened by his condition and the dimness of the light. Then, there was his hair. The silver had gone, vanished into the depth of purple strands. She looked down at his arms, studying him as he ate his meal in relative peace. The scars had faded there, too.

“You still mad at me?” Pen asked, catching her gaze. “You look like you’re trying to find my next weakness.”

She chuckled. “Still kinda mad.” She gestured loosely with her fork. “But less so. You got it right: I care about you. I hate that I do, because you can be an ass sometimes. I don’t pretend to understand your line of work, but I’ll buy that you’re either extremely paranoid, or jaded, or both.”

“Definitely both. Keeps me alive, though.”

“If I spent a long time constantly looking over my shoulder, I would be those things, too.” She took a bite of her meal, letting the flavors sink in while she turned the concept over in her mind. “The last time I stormed outta here, I wasn’t in my right mind. I was angry, and I was scared. Lonely, even. I came here to demand your attention, in some way. But… the more I think about it, the more I realize that I don’t have any right to do that. It doesn’t matter what you sell me — about you being my protector or not. No one has a right to demand another’s company.”

Pen raised his eyebrows.

“Time spent together shouldn’t be obligatory,” she continued. “That’s what I was struggling with. I hoped that everything you did for me was out of more than duty for you. You never said anything like that, though. I put that expectation on you without you even knowing it.”

Pen sighed, a pained expression in his eyes. “Lucy… Of course I consider your safety under the umbrella of my duties. What kind of protector would I be if that weren’t the case?” He lowered his voice, and he spoke gently now. “But, I might’ve taken some liberties with the job description in order to try and… look after you. In my own way.” He chuckled and leaned back. “Obviously you didn’t appreciate half of it, but that’s on you.”

“You’re right,” Lucy said with a wry smile. “I didn’t appreciate half of it. It’s not the way I’d want someone to express themselves. Barging into my home… Making a scene every morning in town…”

Pen co*cked his head. “Look at me. How can I not make a scene? Everywhere I go, people turn their heads.”

Lucy couldn’t help but laugh. “I acted just like you, didn’t I? Barged right in. Bet you wish you got me to wear a cape, now.”

“Just say the word. I know a guy in Atara.” Pen smirked, but soon, he grew serious again. He met her gaze, his smile faltering. “I care about you, Lucy, in my own way. I can’t force you to believe me, though. I just have to trust that you do — or that you will, one day.”

“That’s the danger of trust,” she echoed softly back to him. “We set expectations on someone — that they won’t hurt us, or that we can rely on them when we need them. But in reality, we don’t owe each other anything — neither the care we give, nor our faith in the other person. We choose to trust, and in doing that, we become… vulnerable.”

Pen met her gaze with such warmth, it felt like the sun shone wherever his eyes fell. “The only person who could’ve said it better is… me.”

Lucy laughed. For a moment, his smile reached his eyes, but she saw it again: that sliver of sorrow that swam up like an elusive, mythical creature.

Her heart moved her limbs, where her mind was frozen in wonder. She stood up, walked over to his side of the table, and laced her arms around his neck. She could feel him tense up at first. Then, he pulled her in closer, his hands settling on the middle of her back.

She could smell the soap he used to wash up with. It had a citrus and herbal aroma, but his musk melded with it. She breathed it in, letting herself enjoy this moment while it lasted. The closeness that she’d missed in the dark days of the past week. Her heart pounded softly, reaching out for his.

“I get this feeling that you’ve got some… personal things going,” she said into his shoulder, her voice slightly muffled. “I don’t want to push you to share if you’re not ready. I just want you to know that I’m here. You can talk to me. Just… not about your damn muscles.”

He let out a small chuckle, his breath tickling the side of her neck.

“I… don’t know what to say,” Pen said, his voice radiating through her body, down to her core.

“You don’t have to say anything.”

His fingers squeezed a little tighter, tracing down to the small of her back. It was such a slight motion, almost a caress of something feared to be lost. She fought back a shiver, but he nuzzled her shoulder slightly as if to let her know that he felt it, too.

“Lucy…” He loosened his grip on her. Her nose brushed past his mane of hair, a fraction of an inch from his cheekbone.

His eyes held her with the soft luster of starlight, pulling her into him, melting the room away. She traced the features of his face like she was doomed to forget. The way the shadows sat beneath his eyes. The sharpness of his brows. The softness of his lips. Drawn like a ship on open water with only the moon to guide her, she sailed cautiously toward those lips.

A door opened.

Lucy jumped out of Pen’s grasp. Cursing under her breath, she ran back to her seat, while Burgess announced himself down the hall. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Pen’s shoulders shaking from quiet laughter.

“Shut up,” she hissed, hiding her face in her hands. “I scare easily.”

“Clearly.”

Burgess appeared at the doorway, thrilled that his two (human) best friends were back on speaking terms. Lucy invited him to sit down and share the meal with them, but he declined, as he’d already eaten his fill at the saloon. He pulled up a chair anyway, however, and started talking about the Light, the latest Sunday sermon, and what he hoped to be in the next sermon.

Across the table, Lucy and Pen exchanged quiet glances while they feigned interest. Poor Burgess. Lucy couldn’t bear to tell him how little she cared about the church. The only “Light” she was interested in was receding from the depths of Pen’s eyes.

As the evening grew late, she excused herself to go home. Pen caught up with her just outside the building.

“Skinny Arms… Thank you for today.” He leaned against the wall outside, crossing his arms. “I, uh, would’ve taken a lot longer to break out of that without you.”

She rolled her eyes at his attempted humility. “Of course. It was nice. The last part, not the part where you were on your deathbed.”

“Hah! Deathbed? Far from it. It’d take a lot more than that to destroy me. Anyway, I’d like to reward you the official title of ‘Assistant Protector in Training!’ Intended for recreational use only; it bears no legally binding authority.”

Lucy snorted. “Thanks. I have no intention of using it.”

They lingered there for longer than a second, long enough for Lucy to notice the evening weighing down around them. Then, Pen cleared his throat.

“Well, good night, Lucy,” he said, opening the door to retreat into the safety of the dormitory.

“Good night, Pen.”

Chapter 14: Paradise Lost

Chapter Text

“Skinny…”

“No.”

“C’mon. It’ll be our little secret.”

“Not a chance.”

“Let me do it once. You know you wanna...”

“It doesn’t matter what I want. That’s not what it’s designed for.”

Pen took a little robot trotter in his hands and ripped it in half. Wires sprayed out with sparks like fireworks. Above the din of metallic death, he said, “Alright, but if that thing ever goes haywire, it’s my duty to punch it into space.”

Lucy hooked her pickaxe into a damaged hauler. “Oh, the mobile suit better not malfunction. My credibility as a builder is at stake here.”

“The best laid schemes,” Pen said, gesturing at the various robots lining up to zap, crush, and sweep them to death. “However, you’re no mere builder of bootless bric-a-brac, so I’m sure your little non-punchable bridge bot will work wonders.”

She leaped to the top of the hauler’s body and started swinging. Its large hauling arm swept uselessly in an arc on the floor. “Qi was explicitly forbidden from trying to weaponise the R47. As a member of the Church of Light, I thought you’d be on Team Matilda.”

“Remember this move from the Breach? Heads up!”

He tossed a trotter toward her. The little ball-shaped robot squealed all the way. She swung the flat side of her pickhammer against it, and with a boyish grin, he caught it with his fist.

“Ahh, great times,” Pen sighed with satisfaction. “You really think I’d choose to be boring over having an AI sparring partner?! Lame.”

They made their way deeper into the old shopping mall. A large, flickering sign that read “Paradise Lost” hung on its last support string high above them. As they went, Lucy kept an eye out for any particularly large machines, but so far, all their encounters were with “regular” sized AIs. None of them matched Qi’s description.

“Y’know, speaking of you not being a typical churchgoer, I noticed you don’t wear their colors.” She gestured at his costume.

Pen grinned. “Oh, yeah. None of this is Church of the Light ordained garb; I designed it all myself! Some of the weenies in Meidi tried to protest. I ‘showed them the Light,’ let’s say. But let it not be said that the mighty Pen is above compromise: I have agreed to wear the Church insignia on my belt. See? Everyone wins.”

Lucy took a peek at his belt, then her eyes wandered a few inches south. It was either a trick of the light, or fighting robots was doing something to the tightness of Pen’s track pants.

Fighting turns him on, she thought, a little color rising to her cheeks. That’s so on brand.

“My eyes are up here, Lucy.”

“You told me to look at your belt!” she squeaked.

“Hah! Took a detour, though, didn’t you?” He winked. “By the way, your fighting skills have gotten way better since the ol’ laser surgery incident. Look at you, maintaining a conversation and everything!”

“And look at you, the nonstop chatterbox,” she shot back. She dug through a pile of debris and dead robots, retrieving a key card to get them through to another area of Paradise Lost.

“Did you not understand what you were signing up for when you asked me to accompany you?” He put a sweeper in a headlock, which was a rather impressive feat, considering its “head” was hardly the shape for it.

Lucy raised her eyebrows in disbelief. “You gave me no choice, hanging around my workshop all morning. Might as well make use of those muscles of yours.”

He wrenched the sweeper’s head clean off. “Ouch, Skinny. Because you have none to speak of?”

“That’s right! You’re the looks. I’m the brains.” She raised her pickhammer to point at her own head, but she almost hit herself instead.

He chuckled. “Excuse you. I’m the whole package.”

While she inspected the smoldering carcasses, Pen took a seat on the large, rectangular body of a sweeper he hadn’t beheaded. Its eye stalks rose up behind him, and the great unseeing orbs looked at Lucy.

“Y’know, that could make for a quirky recycled couch,” she said, dropping a microchip into her waist bag. “Throw in some cushions, and it might be kinda comfy. Or a conversation piece, at least.”

“I like the way you think, Skinny! A trophy to commemorate such glorious butt-kicking!”

A few minutes later, they approached a lift. It was bare bones compared to the ones Lucy and Mi-an constructed for the salvage yard. Lucy hesitated at the threshold, eyeing the distinctly clean edges with no safety railings.

“Need a lift?” Pen asked, gesturing with his arms.

She shook her head. “I’ll actually give this a shot. I’ve been working on this fear of heights. Did you notice I didn’t scream and cry on our way down here? That’s improvement!”

She stepped onto the platform and immediately felt that familiar rush from looking at the bottom. She gulped.

“You sure?” he asked.

“Just get on here,” Lucy snapped.

“I was gonna do a sick flip down, but fine.”

As the platform began to move, Lucy’s stomach shriveled up. Her hands jerked, reaching out for something to hold onto, and they found Pen. There was no thinking — only static fear — as she latched onto the sleeve of his tracksuit. She endeavored to keep her eyes open, scanning the makeshift horizon between mounds of sand and Old World walls. Pen returned her grasp, holding her steady as the elevator finally reached its destination.

“You are doing better,” he said, impressed. “Dang, Skinny. Pretty soon, you’re gonna be joining me when I make my mega-leap from the church rooftop to the train station.”

His voice trickled down all over her skin, giving her goosebumps. She shivered and pulled away from him, suddenly bashful. The last time they hugged, she had almost kissed him. It was all she could bear not to think about it for the past few days, yet she hadn’t had the courage to even bring it up in conversation. He didn’t mention it, either. She was starting to think it was her imagination — that the dim light of his dining room caused some optical illusion of desire in his eyes.

A crash erupted several feet away.

“You comin’ or what?” Pen called, several paces ahead of her and already fighting with three different robots.

Lucy swallowed the thoughts and joined him. They tore through the small army of AIs that lay ahead of them, climbing and descending empty storage boxes curiously arranged like pathways.

At long last, they found a sizeable candidate — quite literally — for the R47 power core. A massive, rotund, cat-like machine sat at the center of a room, looking very much like the final boss of Paradise Lost. Pen must’ve been thinking the same thing, as he smiled with childish excitement at the sight.

“Remember, don’t damage it too much,” Lucy said. “If this is the one, then we need to extract the power source, not break it. If you can buy me some time, I wanna see if the console behind it does anything to shut it down.”

“Ooh, a battle plan: like music to my ears.” Pen pulled his gloves so they were snug over his fingers. “Let’s dance!”

The fight proved to be more complicated than Lucy had imagined, though Pen seemed to thrive in the complications. There were three control consoles instead of one, and there were backup power sources of some sort affixed to back of the automaton.

While Pen laid into its metallic body, Lucy dashed between the consoles. She was forced to break away every time the cat’s arms wheeled around, flickering with dangerous bolts of electricity. After the first few minutes, Lucy managed to dismantle the first console without getting hurt. The cat stopped turning momentarily, and Pen was able to break a corresponding a compartment in the back with some sort of conductive fluid.

“That’s one,” she said. “Two to go.”

The fighting got more erratic as the first sign of a power surge ripped through its shell. Lucy ducked and rolled several times on her way to the second console. Lucy blinked hard through stinging sweat. The hairs on the back of her neck stood high. She kept looking over her shoulder to make sure Pen was keeping the cat busy, but he could only do so much against a haywire system. She dodged another beam of electricity. In a fit of frustration, she pulled out her pistol and fired at the console.

“Second one down,” she cried.

Just as she was able to destroy the final mechanism, Pen swooped in and snatched Lucy off the ground, throwing her over his shoulder as he leaped away from the oncoming mechanical arms, raging with volatile electricity.

In the ensuing chaos, Lucy could only catch glimpses of what was happening. Flashes of light, sounds of aggressive buzzing and mechanical screeches, and then Pen’s cape obscuring her vision. In the middle of it all, Pen flipped and tumbled onto the ground, taking her with him.

Somehow Pen was able to cage her in his arms, protecting her from both electric shock and blunt force damage. When they stopped rolling, she ended up flat on her back, with his face right above hers. Lucy had just noticed how close he was, when he pushed himself off the ground, standing upright in one fell swoop.

He walked over to the sputtering automaton and landed several well-placed punches into its exposed back. With a clank and a rumble, the machine fell dead.

“Peach,” Lucy breathed, getting to her feet. “We really do make a good team. Thanks for that.”

The real work could finally begin. Lucy carefully carved open the dented chassis, trying not to rip too many wires along the way. The anatomy of the control cat was foreign to her, and all she had to go off of was a theoretical drawing that Qi made. On the bright side, she’d ripped apart enough AIs by now to know that the power core would be at the center. She delved deeper into the teapot-shaped cat, and soon enough, she heard the dim hum of a living core.

Lucy felt a surge of excitement. The inside of the machine was cool to the touch, which was extremely rare for anything that needed power to run in the modern era. All her workshop machines, for example, were hot to the touch near the power source. But the inside of this cat machine was room temperature, at worst.

After several minutes of careful prying and peeling away layers of machinery, she glimpsed something that fit the description of the R47 Power Core Ultra. It looked to be about half her height. With Pen’s help, it was pulled out and away from the center of the machine.

It weighed twice as much as Lucy, so Pen really did all the work while Lucy watched, trying to chase away inappropriate thoughts. With it fully extracted, Lucy walked a slow circle around the R47. It still thrummed with life. She hovered a hand over the top, feeling for the heat that she expected to radiate off of it. But there was none. She lowered her hand and brushed the cool surface.

Lucy stepped back with a laugh. “Damn. Qi was right. He’s a frickin’ genius. I didn’t really believe it when he said it, but this thing really does bend the law of thermodynamics! The fact that we’re able to touch this with our bare hands so soon after the machine went down is… incredible. Normally, things with such massive power outputs would undergo heat displacement, where — what?”

Pen was leaning against the remains of the control cat, peering at her with a curious expression on his face.

She raised her eyebrows. “What’re you lookin’ at?”

“You,” he said, smiling softly. “Is that so bad?”

She made a strangled noise. No, it wasn’t so bad. It was awful. The way he looked at her made her want to jump on him right in the middle of this haywire robot’s corpse.

“All that from a look?” Pen teased, as if he heard her very thoughts. But he didn’t need to be a mind reader. She was blushing, and she hadn’t uttered a coherent word in ten seconds.

Oh, he knows, she thought. I’m in trouble.

“Okay, we’re done here,” Lucy said, making an effort to appear annoyed. “Can you help me with transporting this? I think we oughta make a cart or something to roll it on. I know you can carry it on your own, but in case we encounter any rogue bots on the way out…”

“Way ahead of you, Skinny Arms.”

He dashed out of the room. A few minutes later, he re-emerged with materials in his arms. Lucy joined him with her pickhammer in hand. They created a makeshift cart, throwing together a sheet of metal, some wood planks, and two sets of sweeper wheels.

Pen placed the power core on top. Then, he turned to her. “Your turn! Hop on.”

“What? No way! I don’t need to be shuffled outta here like a piece of furniture.”

“Fine. You push me, then!”

Like children, they goofed around with the haul. Lucy actually made a valiant effort at moving both Pen and the R47, but they weighed a quarter ton together. Even with wheels, she only managed to inch them forward for a few seconds before her shoulders and back ached. The power core groaned in response, and when the rolling stopped, it exercised the law of inertia for a few inches.

She sighed. “sh*t, I’m gonna have to be on the cart after all. Gotta keep it from falling off.”

Pen hopped off the platform and gestured for her to sit on the generator. “Your chariot awaits, Lucy.”

Lucy scrambled onto the platform and sat on the R47 like it was a chair. She regretted it immediately. It was cool on the outside, but the power source gently vibrated with energy. With the bumps coming up in the trajectory, she knew this could cause some rather embarrassing sensations between her legs. She didn’t have time to look for an off switch, if it had one at all, because Pen put his hands on the core, his arms framing the sides of her body. He leaned over her, so her field of vision was dominated by his frame and — of course — his face.

“You really have to push it like this?” Lucy asked nervously, as if she was afraid to breathe in the wrong direction.

He answered her by setting the entire thing in motion. His shoulders and triceps flexed, visible even through the material of his tracksuit and beneath his shoulder armor. His face was dangerously close to hers again, almost as close as it had been on that night. He peered around her to make sure of the path, occasionally making eye contact with her as he switched views over either shoulder.

At first, Lucy was paralyzed. She clenched her core to counterbalance the rocking motion of the cart, and her voice was caught in her throat. She could feel the warmth of his arms. His hands, planted firmly against the power core, were just an inch away from her ass.

The sound of wheels and the occasional bump filled the air, but Lucy’s thoughts drowned out the sounds. She was thinking of all the ways this could go. She was pinned between Pen and a vibrating Old World machine. If he took a second to see how her lips quivered, how she squeezed her thighs together, he would know exactly what was on her mind. If she leaned forward at the wrong time — or the right time…

Her chest rose and fell at the thought of capturing his lips in one of this passing glances. Would he return the act of intimacy? Would he back away, or would he lean into it? As if to reward her floating down this stream of lustful thoughts, her body shifted. Her lips parted slightly. Her feet planted themselves further apart, as her legs opened up a little.

“How’s the ride?” Pen asked, shaking her out of her reverie. It did nothing to help her. His voice was low and soft. She could almost believe that he was thinking of the same scenarios.

“G—good.”

I’m so f*cked, she thought. Heat rose between her legs, which had nothing to do with the R47. It was her own making.

They reached the elevator, which proved to be a fearful moment for Lucy. This time, Pen didn’t ask whether she needed support. As the platform dislodged from the docking station, she slid her hands while attempting to stabilize herself better.

Her fingers brushed against his. “Sorry,” she breathed.

“I’ve got you,” he said, his voice slightly husky as he rested from the work. “Hold onto me if you need.”

Flashes of images of her grasping onto his shirt, pulling him into her. The memory of his musk, the feeling of his skin beneath her fingertips. Then, losing balance…

“I—I can’t,” she stuttered.

“Hey…”

She looked up and met his gaze, setting fire to her chest.

“Something on your mind?” Pen asked, his sapphire eyes glinting with concern. “Is it the height thing?”

“I’m scared of falling,” she admitted, and she meant it two ways.

“I have an idea to distract you,” Pen said quietly. “But don’t get all huffy and puffy with me, alright? This is for your own good.”

She nodded, swallowing hard.

To her surprise, he sighed. “I’ve been thinking about that little moment back at my place.”

She was going to have a heart attack.

“Wh—what moment?” she asked, feigning ignorance. If she was in danger of losing her life and her acting chops were the only thing that could save her, she’d have died right then and there.

“Oh, I think you know the one.” He leaned in closer to her, so close that his breath traced her cheekbones and drifted down her neck. “We were so close, weren’t we?”

Yes, they were. Her breath caught in her throat as she allowed herself to explore that thought, as if his words pulled her past the threshold.

The elevator jolted, stopping at the top level. The sudden motion, coupled with the vibrating power core, ricocheted up through her pelvis and her body.

Lucy shivered. “For Peach’s sake,” she muttered, turning tomato red.

Pen kept pushing the card toward the exit, a dangerous smirk on his face. “How’s that for a distraction?”

This is the worst, she thought. He knows exactly what he’s doing.

But she couldn’t give in. She wouldn’t allow herself to. Torture herself all she might, the one thing that she refused to do was to act like one of Pen’s alleged damsels, fawning after him at his door.

“Well, it worked,” Lucy said with all the nonchalance she could muster, crawling back to the inner ring of her sanity. “Nice job.”

Pen looked taken aback. “That’s all you have to say, Skinny?”

She chuckled in what she hoped was a convincing attempt at appearing unbothered. “I just figured you were playing with my feelings back there to distract me. So… Job well done.”

Now he looked affronted. “You said you weren’t gonna get mad.” His brows knitted together.

They were at the entrance of Paradise Lost, at last. Lucy’s chest heaved as she clambered off of the R47. Traces of motion vibrated across her skin, and she did her best to shake it off.

She averted his gaze as she spoke. “That was before I realized how f*cked up you were gonna be.”

“What do you mean ‘f*cked up?’ It was a legit question.” He crossed his arms. “You can’t tell me it hasn’t crossed your mind.”

Lucy’s mouth fell open. She scanned his face for the slightest hint of deception, but he seemed genuinely confused by her reaction. It was not her imagination. At that realization, her heart pounded against its fleshy cage, threatening to rip out her shirt.

“We’re — actually talking about this? After… how many days?” She let out a deep, shaky breath.

It was a rhetorical question. She knew how many days it’d been: ten. Ten days of them occasionally running into each other, having normal Pen-and-Lucy exchanges in the streets of Sandrock, and pretending like they never had “a moment.” They hadn’t been alone since — not until now. The longer it went on, the less she was convinced that it never happened the way she’d thought. As such, knowing the exact number of days was a shameful thing that she didn’t want to admit.

Pen pulled open the front doors for her to pass through. A satisfied smirk returned to his lips. “So, you do think about it.”

She braced herself to meet the waning sunlight glinting off the snow-covered ground. The chill of the outside world slid over her skin, raising goosebumps across.

“I guess so,” she said quietly. “Y’know, this is weird. I’ve never had a frank conversation about something like this.”

“Hah, me neither.” At the quizzical look on her face, Pen laughed. “Why is that surprising? Normally, someone just shows up on my doorstep lookin’ for all this Penergy, and that’s exactly what they get. There’s very little talking involved.”

Pen squinted up to the darkening surface world and back down to the R47.

“I think it’s too narrow,” Lucy said, taking the opportunity to dodge the topic at hand. “Can you carry it the rest of the way? We already took out the AIs here.”

“Easily.” He stooped and picked up the machine, lifting it over his shoulder. They were silent for a moment while they made their way up, but Pen was not one to drop something once he set his mind on it.

“Y’know, Skinny Arms, I came to your little workshop this morning to talk to you about it.” His steps crunched in the snow, creating much deeper imprints than his first set. “But… I saw that definitely-not-a-fighting robot you were working on, and that took precedence!”

Lucy’s chest tightened. They pivoted up some rickety wooden steps. The thought occurred to her that she could be confusing the topic entirely. What if his reference to “Penergy” was just his… personality?

“Let me double check,” she said, “so we don’t end up talking about two different things the way that Mi-an and Elsie do. We almost kissed. Is that… what… happened?”

Pen threw her a smirk. “Almost happened. We almost kissed. Kind of hard to not notice your face all up in my face.”

Ah, there it was. Lucy gulped. What could she even say to that? Her fingertips tingled with nervous energy, though her mind was zooming way out — out of her own body, yelling at her to respond.

“Yep,” she croaked.

That’s all you got?! her mind raged. Yep?!

“There was a lot going on that day,” she mumbled, as if it were an apology. Or a dismissal of her feelings.

That’s not what you meant to say, dumbass.

They pivoted again, back onto a metallic surface. The scaffolding creaked beneath them, adding to the tension of her inner turmoil. She waited for Pen to say something, lest she dig herself into a deeper, dismissive, self-deprecating hole.

“What I wanna know is why you haven’t come back to finish what we started. How are you resisting this absolute bangin’ bod?”

“Really?” Lucy shot him a bemused expression. “That right there. That’s how. You’re gross.” At the look on his face, realization dawned on her. “Wait — has this never happened to you before?”

“Well, I…”

Her lips twisted into a mischievous grin. “You’ve never pursued anyone in your life, have you? That explains a lot!”

Pen chuckled. “Whoa, is that what I’m doing right now? Pursuing you like you’re some sort of — sex criminal?!”

“Hey, you’re more likely to be a sex criminal than I am.”

“Rude, Skinny! Any and all sex acts performed by yours truly are done with emphatic consent.”

They both fell into laughter. Waves of silliness broke against the rocky, awkward truth of what they were discussing. When it all subsided, Lucy and Pen gazed at each other for a moment, as if engaged in careful dance of things unsaid. They could get serious, now. Or, they could keep dancing, leaving the subject buried in the snow. She considered leaving it. Was it fear that tugged at the stop cord? Could she choose honesty and bare her thoughts, instead?

“Here’s the deal,” Lucy said slowly. “I’ve thought about what would’ve happened if Burgess never walked in. Yeah, I probably would have kissed you. I never brought it up because… well, how do you even bring up something like that?”

Pen smirked. “I think I did a pretty good job.”

She snickered, and they resumed their cautious walk together, cresting the hill just before dusk.

“The thing is, I’m not interested in being another one of your so-called fans, Pen. I don’t give a sh*t about your titles — protector, knight, whatever. They don’t mean anything to me. The part of you I like is… something else entirely.”

His expression shifted from exaggerated offense to mild curiosity. The chasm fell away behind them. The snow muffled the sounds of life in the distance. It was just Lucy and Pen out there, steps crunching through the snow, mist forming from their breaths.

Lucy sighed, wading through words to find suitable ones. “Sometimes, there are little things you do and say that take me by surprise. I think to myself, ‘Pen can’t be the one saying these words. Pen can’t be looking at me in that way.’ But you do it again, and that gives me hope that you’re… more than this image you try to sell. You have something real hiding behind all this smugness and bravado.”

When Pen spoke, there was a hint of affection in his voice. “I’ve never met anyone like you, Lucy. Most people either love it or ignore it. No one has ever really cared to dig deeper.”

Lucy blushed. “You don’t make it easy, you know.”

He smiled, and she saw it again: a little bit of sadness in the depths of his eyes. “What’s life without a little challenge? It keeps you on your toes!”

“Everything in your life can’t be a challenge.”

“Why not? What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. I’m very much alive. And strong.”

“You’re still human… possibly.”

She said the last word under her breath, but Pen arched an eyebrow, having heard her. They passed through her workshop gate at last, as he gave her a questioning look.

“Possibly? Skinny Arms, they don’t make AI this buff and handsome.”

“Not that,” she said, stifling a laugh. “I, uh… noticed something about your… um… body.” She blushed. “Your scars. When you were recovering from the mirror thing, I saw a ton of scars on you, but they faded later.”

Pen walked up the platform of the assembly station and set the R47 power core down gently by the mobile suit. He took a deep breath. Apparently, carrying a three hundred pound weight for over a mile was a decent workout for him.

“You mean these scars?” He rolled up a sleeve. In the amber glow of the lamps along Lucy’s workshop fence, she could see the soft lines across his forearm and bicep. “Some days, they’re there. Some days, they’re a little more there. It depends on whether I’ve had enough protein for the day. Recovery, and all that good stuff.”

Lucy narrowed her gaze as he passed the sleeve back over them. She had to consider that Pen wasn’t the only one who had questionable genetics. One time, she saw Heidi break a Punch-o-Tron with a single hit. Everyone in town knew that the architect and her father were extremely strong.

I also once jumped on a moving train and didn’t die, she reminded herself. I guess Pen’s super-healing skin isn’t so weird.

“Can I ask where all the scars are from?”

Pen chuckled and leaned back against her workshop fence. “Skinny, I pulverize evildoers things for a living. I know I’m good at it, but that doesn’t mean I don’t get a scratch every now and then.”

“Speaking of good an evil,” Lucy said, now excited that Pen was humoring her. “You told me, back in the Breach, that you’ve never claimed to be a good person. Why is that? That’s been stuck in my head. Why would someone who punishes evil consider himself to not be… good?”

His eyes widened. “Lucy, I had no idea you were so interested in all this. Why didn’t you ask back — oh. You were going to, weren’t you? When you said you forgot.”

“I didn’t want to be nosy,” she said quickly. Her little flame of courage flickered. “You don’t have to tell me about it if you don’t want to.”

Pen crossed his arms. “Is this all related to why you haven’t kissed me yet?”

“Hey, it’s a two-way street,” she shot back. “And — well — kinda. If I’m gonna suck face with someone who claims to be evil, I’d rather know why. Not saying I wouldn’t do it, but I gotta know what I’m up against, here.”

They shared a laugh — a quiet duet in the coming night. Lucy bit her lip, thankful that Pen understood her brand of humor. She stepped closer and sidled up to the fence next to him, their backs turned toward the town.

“I never said I was evil, by the way.” He grew serious again. “I said I’ve never claimed to be a good person. I can’t be a good person.”

“Sure you can,” Lucy said, shrugging. “At least, you can try to be, if you wanted to.”

“I don’t,” he said curtly.

He hadn’t raised his voice, but it was an iron door shutting on the conversation. Her eyes darted from his calm, unbothered expression to the ground.

It’s my fault for bringing it there, she thought, shivering against the cool air.

To her surprise, Pen sighed. “Do you know what it truly takes to be a protector, Skinny? Don’t get me wrong. I was born for this. My Ma always said, ‘If you have a gift, it’s up to you to share it with the world.’ She never did imagine that my gift would be smashing faces and cracking spines, though!” He chuckled a bit, but his smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. “But… there are times you have to make tough calls and do terrible things. When you’re choosing between a ‘bad’ situation and a ‘worse’ one, there’s no ‘good’ in that.”

“I guess Operation De-Geeglate was the closest I got to that,” Lucy said quietly. “Enabling the mass murder of Geeglers so that Sandrock could be safe. The alternative was — what — some sort of Geegler-dominated society? I guess they would’ve done the same to us. We just got to them first.”

“You said you were struggling after it all, didn’t you?” He turned his gaze toward her, searching her features. “If you could go back and change the decisions you made then, would you?”

Lucy looked him in the eyes, a firmness in her previously quivering lips. “I’ve asked myself that question a few times, actually. No. I wouldn’t change anything.”

Without looking, she could envision the pinpricks of evening lights that dotted the skyline of Sandrock - a treasure she'd fight again to protect, should she need to.

“You understand me, then. When the question is survival, the answer is primitive and raw. When you strip away the niceties in which we dress ourselves — our moral compasses, the money we use to obtain material possessions, the literal clothes under which we hide our bodies — we’re all just animals in the end. When you’re left to the elements, cold and alone, body aching, clawing your way through the dark in search of food, water, and light… do you care how you get those things? If the Age of Darkness taught us anything, then we know the answer is ‘no.’ We can pretend all we want that we have elevated ourselves past that savagery, but it doesn’t take much to show us who we are again.”

Lucy wanted to argue back and say that there were lines she’d never cross, but how could she know? She’d never been put in that position. For that, she counted herself lucky. She watched him speak, his eyes far away, in some place where the world was wretched and stained with blood. She could almost see it. Feel it, as the evening breeze crawled around her, grazing her skin with its claws. She recognized it now — that same look of disdain he’d given the journal of Gordana, the little girl who died in the Breach. His brows furrowed slightly, the sorrow in his eyes mingled with a kind of defiance.

“Ah, Skinny Arms… The things I’ve done. The decisions I’ve had to make that I’d rather not relive. There is a reason why there are so few of us knights around. It’s not a duty meant for the weak, and those who choose this path usually walk it alone.”

She was reminded of her conversation with Justice, how it didn’t ever necessarily feel good to kill. She nodded slowly, understanding that Pen didn’t quite enjoy it either, no matter how much he seemed to revel in the perceived glory.

“It doesn’t mean I’m not proud of what I’ve done,” Pen said, softening his gaze toward the ground, as if a gentle reminder lay there for him in the snow. “Just like you, I wouldn’t change the decisions I’ve made. I’d rather not relive them, but I will if I have to. That is why I know I am not capable of making the proverbial ‘good’ choice. If that makes me evil, then so be it. I will be the evil one, again and again, if it means I’ve done my job.”

Lucy felt a tug in her heart. There was pain in his eyes — a pain that she felt in her core. She’d just had a taste of it, but how long had he been this way? How much death had he seen, and how much of it was his doing? She stirred with a mixture of emotions. There was nothing she could say to alleviate such a burden, nor could she blindly praise him for these things. All she could do was recognize his humanity — whatever was left of it — in this moment. It was there, laced in his words, seeking to be seen and felt, no matter how stoic he seemed to be.

“Pen…” She smiled sadly at him. “I’m bringin’ it in for a hug.”

He raised his eyebrows as she got closer, as if he couldn’t quite believe that this was her reaction to the horrible things he alluded to.

She had to stand up on her toes to reach her arms around his neck. Pen was warm, and his hesitant arms eventually wrapped around her waist, pulling her in and holding her up. Her whole body fit neatly in the fortress of his.

“Thank you,” she said quietly, “for choosing to be vulnerable with me — for sharing these pieces of the real you. I know it’s not easy.”

In response, he squeezed her tighter. He let out an affirming hum that reverberated through her spine, softening her muscles as she melted into him.

For a brief, blissful moment, Lucy let herself enjoy it. She loved the feeling of his arms around her. The winter chill could not reach her there, even as it licked at her fingertips on the back of his neck. She could’ve stayed like that for a long time.

Then, her mind kicked in, ready to crash the party.

Too much. Too close. Too dangerous.

She slowly started to pull away, turning her face slightly away from him. His eyes found hers, and she caught the flicker of his gaze down to her lips. But it seemed he felt the shift in her energy. He loosened his grip on her. Something like confusion, then doubt crossed his face. His jaw twitched, and he took his sights to the dark horizon as he let her go.

Lucy stepped back, the cold air sweeping her up once again. The silence fell as thick as freshly fallen snow.

“I should get going,” Pen said, standing up straight and donning his pompous mask. “Time for my evening workout.”

Her heart thumped against her chest, demanding the answer to why it couldn’t run free at this very moment, back to Pen’s arms.

“Yeah, I gotta get back to… the Gungam — er — mobile suit.” She flushed red. “Thank you for… today.”

He got halfway to the gate. A feeling of disappointment surged from her stomach up to her throat. Her chest tightened as he pushed the gate open.

Lucy’s heart made one last sprint for victory. “Wait, Pen—”

He turned back around, a look of mild surprise on his face.

“Next time we’re that close, if you wanna kiss me, you should.” She smiled, unable to believe the words coming out of her own mouth. “Think you can handle that?”

Pen laughed, and Lucy allowed herself to admire the creases in his face and the way his eyes sparkled in the lamplight.

“Challenge accepted,” he said.

Chapter 15: Train of Thought

Chapter Text

The morning sun shone bright on the metal-and-wood behemoth over Shonash Canyon. Smiles graced the Sandrockers’ faces. Lucy’s, too, but her palms were slick with sweat.

We built that, she thought, trying to trade nausea for pride.

She hardly heard Matilda’s speech. Her ears were filled the sound of screaming metal, ready to break the bridge all over again. This was her first time looking at the canyon, let alone standing near it, since the Gecko Station incident. Even when building the truss frames, Heidi’s team picked up the pieces directly from her workshop and installed them on-site.

She stood at the back of the crowd, despite Mi-an’s attempts at getting her to come up front. She had a perfect view of the back of everyone’s head, except Pen’s. He was standing a few feet to her side, his cape flapping in the breeze. He was a mental anchor for her, whether he knew it or not.

When her gaze drifted past the edge of the nearby cliff, she glanced toward him. When she heard the faintest creak of metal that set her heart thumping, her hand twitched in his direction.

“With that, I hereby declare this new Shonash Canyon Bridge officially open for business!”

Matilda beamed. The crowd cheered. Lucy steeled herself, doubling down on her facade of joy and accomplishment.

“Now with that out of the way, I call upon our own Dr. Qi to cut this here ribbon and hereby declare this bridge reopened!”

She looked around for the Director’s signature glasses and loose tie.

“Has… anyone seen Dr. Qi?”

A shape emerged from the far end of the bridge. Had Lucy not built it with her own hands, she would’ve been terrified at the sight of the mobile suit. It launched into the air. Sunlight glared off of its occupant’s glasses, forcing half the crowd to shield their eyes from the blinding beam.

With a metallic crunch, it landed just behind the ribbon. Lucy took in a sharp breath, her heart punching to get out. The grinding of gears. The gasps and cries of shock. Her neck tensed, and her stomach twisted. Her hand flew to her chest, squeezing the material of her jacket.

The mobile suit ripped through the ceremonial ribbon in its wake. It stooped over with a violent jolt, then ejected Qi, face down and ass up, on the train tracks. A clamor of clapping, nervous laughter, and concerned murmurs broke out. In the middle of it all, Lucy tried to steady herself. She hid the shaking of her hands by clapping along with the crowd.

I’m here, she told herself. I’m here, I’m safe, and Sandrock is safe. Focus on that, just like Justice said.

Her eyes flickered over to Pen, who caught her gaze this time. He gave her a barely discernable nod. “You good, Skinny?” he asked quietly, his voice masked beneath the din of the crowd.

“Mhm.”

The ceremony ended shortly after. Lucy joined the attendees heading toward the Blue Moon for the reception. Matilda and Miguel called Pen over to walk with them, while Lucy sidled up to Qi, whose nose was smudged with dirt.

“Director, are you—”

“I’m quite fine.” He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, still miraculously in tact after the tumble. “Certain details about the opening ceremony would best be forgotten. I take it you understand?”

“Of course.” Lucy cracked a smile. She didn’t need a reminder of it, either. “You joining the after-party?”

“Yes. Sleepyhead wishes to partake before he leaves the city, and I have decided this will be an opportunity to perform social research. Despite my initial disinterest in the idea, it has been brought to my attention that such endeavors are not necessarily as useless as I initially theorized. Just a theory, though. First, I must establish a control. Therefore, I will not consume alcohol or other mind-altering substances other than my standard tea…”

Lucy’s attention wandered. Pen, Matilda, and Miguel branched off from the main crowd. They must’ve been heading back to the church, or perhaps Pen was being given another protector-esque assignment. With a small tug of disappointment, she carried on to the party.

It was a fine day for a cozy winter gathering. Spirits were high in the Blue Moon. Owen waded through the crowd with two large platters full of drinks. With the bridge rebuilt, the doom of Sandrock was held off for another day. Lucy joined, despite the numbness to it all. She so desperately wanted to let the revelry sink in.

“Yer here!” Elsie cheered as she pulled her into a hug and squeezed like her life depended on it. She dropped her voice to a murmur. “Y’think I got a shot tonight? Before he leaves an’ all…” Elsie pulled back, frowning. “Nah, nevermind me askin’. He probably ain’t gonna fancy someone as dumb as me. Maybe I oughta try again after I read a book ‘r somethin’…”

Lucy scoffed. “Don’t you dare talk about yourself like that, Elsie. Just talk to him. Mint is a really nice guy. Or… if you want… I can do some sleuthing for you.”

“Eww, what? Why would ya wanna do that in public?!”

“Peach, Elsie. Just talk to him.” She stifled a laugh and the desire to explain the meaning of “sleuthing.”

“I gotta…. I needa drink.” Elsie wandered off to the bar, her ears as red as her hair.

Lucy saw Mint curled up in an armchair in the parlor, “talking” with Qi. His eyelids drooped lower and lower while Qi made animated gestures. Neither of them noticed the swing of Elsie’s massive ponytail as she gave him a second, third, and twenty-fifth glance.

Mint was jolted awake as the group nearby roared up louder than an armored train crashing on the ground.

“…all on account of a boy named FLIM FLAM MAGILLICUTTY!” Cooper slapped his thigh in frustration.

Hugo shook his head. “Coop, I told ya a hundred times. His name was Angus!”

“Flim Flam who-what-now?!” Rocky roared with laughter. “Whatta mopstick name!”

Lucy eventually took a seat at the bar. Beyond the smiles and lively chatter, she felt like there was an invisible wall between her and the rest of the Sandrockers. Justice and Unsuur were seated together, occasionally visited by Heidi. Elsie had found Mi-an to hide behind, instead of trying to talk to Mint.

Captain, newly deputized by Justice, was in a perfect loaf position atop the shelf by the bar. Lucy slid over a couple seats and admired him. His eyes met hers, and he blinked slowly. If it were quiet enough, she figured she could hear him purring. She was so very proud of the little hat that she’d made for him, even though she thought it was for Unsuur at the time.

A drink materialized by Lucy’s arm, which was resting on the bar top.

“You look like you could use one,” Owen said, smiling kindly. “Call it a barkeeper’s sixth sense.”

“Hah, you’d be right,” she said, raising the glass to him. “It’s been, uh, tough since the whole operation. I know it’s been a while, but…” She shrugged.

“However you’re feeling is how you’re feeling,” he said, lowering his voice as he leaned over the bar. “There’s nothing to be ashamed about… even if the feelings include shame. If anything, that just means you’re a good person.”

Her eyelids fluttered wide open. His voice almost sounded like Pen’s. She took a swig of the co*cktail, swallowing that dab of longing with it. “Thanks, Owen. It’s kind of you to say.”

“I mean it,” he said firmly. “You hold onto that good heart of yours, you hear me? What you did back there… Just look at how it’s brought everyone together. It doesn’t take away the bad stuff you’ve been through. It’s a reminder that it’s more than just those things.”

“Justice told you, huh?” she asked, smiling weakly. “About the — what does he call it? The Lizard Liquidizer?”

Owen grimaced. “He can let the story get away from him sometimes. That’s his way of coping, though. We all got our own methods.” His eyes flickered in the direction of Catori, who was already stumbling. “Just, uh, reach out if yours ever gets too sketchy, you promise? I think I speak for all of us when I say that people care about you here. I know I do.”

She nodded, feeling a swell of appreciation for this man who, with just a kind word and a gesture, pickhammered through her invisible wall.

Amirah approached the counter and greeted Lucy with a warm smile. As she ordered a drink from Owen, Lucy could tell something new was between them. Something electric and tender at the same time. As Owen passed Amirah her order, their fingers brushed against one another. The artist blushed, and she took off back to her table with Pablo and Heidi.

Owen turned to see Lucy’s wide grin. “Ah, yeah,” he said, suddenly bashful. “We went on a date, and uh, it’s going well. I think.”

“Cute,” Lucy said, giggling. “Finally.”

“We’re keeping it between us for now.”

“Oh, not a peep shall be heard outta me.”

Jensen slid into the chair next to Lucy. “Ah, my hero!” His mustache twitched over his wide smile. “How ya holdin’ up, kiddo?”

She smiled back and raised her glass to his. “I’m here, for what it’s worth.”

“Hey, that’s worth more than gold.”

They clinked their glasses, and Jensen made some small talk with Owen while Lucy’s internal panic motor started purring. She must’ve looked awful, if everyone kept treating her like she was on the brink of a breakdown. Was she pale? Were there shadows under her eyes? Did she still have blood in her hair? No. That was taken care of weeks ago. A frown flickered onto her lips. She actually hadn’t looked in a mirror in days.

The bartender excused himself to attend to other guests. Jensen turned and gave Lucy an appraising look. The wisdom in those old eyes sparkled. “You know what I like to do when I’m feelin’ a little stressed? Build model trains.”

“Yeah?” Lucy blinked slowly. She was definitely giving off a certain vibe. “That makes sense. You said so yourself: trains are the love of your life.”

“Hah! Sure do. But y’know what I love about making models, and collectin’ em, too? You kinda give yourself somethin’ to focus on, far away from all yer troubles. I’m sure you know what I mean, as a builder. You always got a big smile on yer face when you’re in the groove.”

“I do love my work, when it’s going right.”

“Lately I’ve been too stressed to enjoy my model trains… ‘cause of the bridge collapse, and everythin’ related to it. I seen that Geegler one comin’ from afar. Didn’t really get a good look ‘fore… you know.”

Lucy gulped. “I know.”

“But… it’s just like any other train, ain’t it? It’s got engines. It’s got wheels. Sure it’s big an’ ugly an’ it caused all this mayhem, but it was made of the same stuff as any.”

“Literally. They were stealing materials right off the tracks.” Lucy sighed. “Probably took the larger pieces from the salvage yard, too.”

“Yer right. They probably did. Y’know, it’s probably way scarier in my head than it was in person.” Jensen took a swig of his drink. “Anywho, I’m glad that it’s all over now. The new Shonash Bridge looks even better than the old one! And that new machine designed by Qi looks super interesting, I wonder if he’ll let me test-drive it?”

Lucy stared at her drink. Cinnamon dotted the surface like sand atop snowy, foamy hills. Jensen’s train rant gave her some perspective. She hadn’t actually tried to picture the train in a while. She only remembered how it made her feel. The confusion of its existence, the dread of its destination, the elation of its failure…

Giggling erupted at a nearby dining table. Heidi was teaching Jasmine how to build a truss bridge out of toothpicks, and it just collapsed. Ripped out of her reverie, Lucy smiled at them. Maybe Jasmine could grow up to be a builder one day…

“Ah… I’m doin’ it again,” Jensen said. “Just ramblin’ about trains…”

Lucy turned back to him with an affectionate look. “Y’know, you’re like the chatty, train-obsessed… but super encouraging grandpa I never had.”

“Yowza. I am all those things, but only ‘cause you never tell me to shut up about trains.” He chuckled warmly, but then he grew a little serious. “Ain’t neither of yer gramps encouraged ya, huh?”

“Or talked to me,” Lucy said, her bluntness swinging out like a pickhammer again. “Don’t be sad for me, Jensen! It just makes me appreciate you Sandrockers even more. Everyone’s been so kind to me, in their own way.”

“For what it’s worth, think it’s safe to say you’re a part of the Sandrock family, through and through.”

Over the course of the reception, Justice told the harrowing tale of Gecko Station again and again, each iteration getting its own little embellishment. The Lucy of the previous week would’ve scowled at the thought, but now, she felt some peace in being able to laugh it off. It boded well, as she and Mi-an were now honorary members of the Civil Corps. It wouldn’t be the last time she had to deal with the dangers of the deserts, nor the antics that followed.

The partygoers were well on their way to frolicking into the night, but Lucy could only handle so much. Her social energy reserves dwindled faster than she expected. A few hours in, sometime after Elsie finally got the courage to talk to Mint, she left the party with a mission in mind.

She went straight to her assembly station, itching to start building something. She cleaned off the thin layer of snow, dried the surface, and switched on the tabletop light. She moved her hands so much, they didn’t have a chance to get stiff from the cold. She moved from materials, to tools, to the sketchpad and back around. She wasn’t the best at drawing diagrams, but she had enough experience to doodle a concept.

Lucy’s fixation with the armored train took hostage of her. She pictured it in her mind, drew it on paper, and hammered it into reality. She thought about Jensen’s words — how she, too, couldn’t really even remember what the damn thing looked like. But it was worth a shot. She wanted a physical thing to hold, to feel, to know that it was something that was real. Not some monster lurking in the dark corners of her mind, waiting for a hairpin trigger to rear its ugly head.

It was the train that refused to leave her alone, not the Geegler corpses ground up in a bloody massacre. The object was forged by the remnants of humanity, and it served as a reminder of what they were capable of. The gnawing destruction that swallowed land, sea, and flesh into darkness. A different kind of shadow from the one in which she worked. The darkness that awaited the children of the Old World was like a smoking beast that growled in an endless night. Here, for Lucy, the night would end. The dawn would rise. Not for them. Not for the ones lost to time and memory.

Hours passed without breaks. Sunset waned. Dusk fell. A starlit curtain fell cold around her workshop. Her eyes drooped. She didn’t have an outdoor clock, nor did she have a watch on. Time didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was this monstrosity forming by her own hands, and the faint scent of honey barbecue from the ants down the hill, mingled with the phantasmal stench of iron… coppery blood… bloody fire. She heard the snoring of distant yakmel, not unlike the distant rumbling of train engines.

She blinked and tried to shake sleep from her mind. The project was nearly complete. She just… needed… to…

She was floating. Drifting, through snow touched heavens suspended in an ethereal plane. Her lips were cold, but a gentle warmth caressed her arms with the tenderness of a lover’s embrace.

Blue satin mingled with blazing gems above. Diamonds, aquamarines, and sapphires. Sapphires shaped like eyes. Gazing down on her.

There was a face in the darkness. Neither monster nor wild beast. A human face… the one that lived in the back of her mind. Gentle despite its sharp edges, stern despite its soft curves. A paradox of senses.

Her lips quivered, cold to the touch, begging to feel warm, to feel the slow breath of sleep.

Lucy awoke the next morning, swaddled in her sheets, bleary-eyed and aching in the back of her head. She stumbled to the bathroom mirror. A stain of darkness spilled beneath her eyes. The last thing she remembered was hammering away at the model train, driven by some unfamiliar desperation to get it done. Her whole body was sore.

“Damn,” she whispered to her reflection. “I passed out, didn’t I?”

She tried to play it back, but she could only guess from the pain in her skull that she hit the ground at some point. How did she make it back inside? With a jolt of panic, she wondered if her loss of consciousness caused some ruin to her project.

Still in pajamas, she ran outside for a blisteringly stupid few seconds, only to dash back in. She was barefoot, and the icy ground was unforgiving.

“Get yourself together,” she muttered.

Washed up, fed, and warmed with tea, Lucy made a second attempt at being human. She re-emerged from her home with her head screwed back on a little better, though her limbs still wept a little. She waved at Mi-an from a distance and went back to her workstation.

The armored train model was there, and in her momentary craze, she realized she’d made it way bigger than any regular model. But it was almost done. It just needed one more wheel.

She stepped back from her work minutes later, examining the product in all its ugly glory. A miniaturized version of something that haunted her thoughts, that churned her stomach and emerged in her nightmares. She was surprised she slept as well as she did, given she’d been looking at this for hours on end. Exhaustion must’ve done wonders to her psyche.

Mi-an called to her, coming around the workshop fence. “Look at what I got this morning. Oh, what is that? Is that… the train? Oh, Lucy, your eyes! Are you okay?!”

Lucy smiled softly. “Actually, I’m feeling a lot better than I thought I would this morning. I, uh, was doing a little bit of — therapy?” She gestured at the train. What else was she gonna call it?

Mi-an was holding a creased sheet of paper and an expression of deep concern.

“Whatcha got there?” Lucy asked, clearing her throat.

“Another anonymous letter. This is the third one I’ve gotten. The last one was about Operation De-Geeglate, and they said how impressed they were that I fixed up the engines while you guys were down there… I didn’t think it was as impressive as what you and Justice did.”

Lucy took the letter from her friend. “Oh, wow. ‘Maybe we should hold hands sometimes?’ Hah, I knew they had a crush on you!”

“I—I wish I knew who it was.” Mi-an shifted her goggles. “How can I go say ‘hey’ if they don’t sign their letters?”

“You really have no clue who it could be, huh?”

“I’m really unsure.”

“Me too.” Lucy handed the letter back. “Hopefully they come out and admit it sooner than later.”

“Hey, by the way, you’re still coming to dinner with me and Elsie tomorrow night, right? Around five o’clock?”

“Oh — yeah!” Lucy forgot she’d agreed to that during the reception. “I’ll see ya tomorrow night, for sure.”

When Mi-an left, Lucy put some final touches on the train. She stood back and looked it over, not necessarily with admiration. It wasn’t perfect. She could not remember every crevice, every burn mark, or every piece of bronze fused into odd angles. However, it was a good enough representation of the beast that lurked in her thoughts.

Even better: it wasn’t so scary anymore. If anything, it was just an ugly, misshapen thing — the product of a byproduct of a monstrous mastermind.

Lucy grabbed her pickhammer. It wasn’t going to be an eyesore in her home, she didn't want to sell it, and she certainly didn't want to terrorize Jensen with this. At the end of it all, some things were just made to be destroyed.

A strange, silly memory came back to her, halting her mid-swing. Out of place and out of time, in the tender days of autumn, Pen’s voice drifted back to her. She remembered his hands on her waist as they rode on Waddles the yakmel together. She hadn’t yet sorted through her feelings for him, and he had said something ludicrous that made her laugh. A strange sort of fondness breathed purpose into this bizarre project.

The next afternoon, Pen let himself into Lucy’s workshop.

“Got your letter, Skinny! What’s this thing you gotta show me?”

“I got something for ya!” She pointed excitedly at the model train, which was now dusted with a little bit of snow and placed in a more prominent spot on the assembly station.

Pen co*cked his head to the side. “Looks like a metal worm on wheels. Is it… some kinda… dastardly AI?!” He punched his open palm.

Lucy shook her head, chuckling. “Do you remember that day you helped me with the water, a couple months ago? You said you always wanted to know if you could suplex a train.”

“Uh huh…”

“Well, I thought it would be… a funny gift.” Her voice got a little quieter, while her self-doubt got a little louder. “For you. An inside joke, sorta? You said it’d be criminal to suplex a real train. Well, this train is criminal. Er… the original was. It’s the Geegler train. I made it from memory, so I’m not sure if it’s totally accurate, but—”

“Skinny!” Pen’s eyes lit up. “I’m… impressed! Oh, this is going to look fabulous split into a million pieces! You are giving me this so that I can destroy it, right?”

Lucy nodded, a relieved smile spreading across her lips. “Yes! You get it! I’m glad. Now, get this thing outta my sight and go do what you gotta do.”

He gestured off in the distance. “You sure you don’t wanna watch? I might get a hell of a pump, lifting this bad boy. You don’t wanna miss this.”

She considered the idea for a moment, picturing it. “Not sure if the main selling point is watching this thing get destroyed, or if it’s seeing you get all sweaty. But, yeah. I’m down. Let’s go.”

“The correct answer is both, Lucy.”

The train model was massive. She felt a little ashamed that she actually created this disproportionate eyesore, but it would be gone soon. Somehow, Pen still managed to swoop it up in a sort of fireman carry. Metallic groans struck a chord in Lucy’s chest, but she took a deep breath and steeled herself against the feeling.

“Y’know, a training dummy is never enough for the mighty Protector of Sandrock.” Pen adjusted the train. “No, the firm strength of furniture keeps my furious fists finely tuned to a solid mass. Never fear, my loyal fan. I will remain as powerful as ever, nay, more!”

“Not your fan, Pen.”

“Friend. Fan. Follower. Take your pick.”

Lucy cackled. “What happened to Skinny? Even better, Loosey-Goosey Noodle Arms?”

Pen groaned. “I forgot about that one. It was pretty good, wasn’t it?”

They found an expanse of space near the old windmill that was free of people and rocket roosters. It was a beautiful winter day. Little ledges of snow built up overnight, like whipped cream frosting on the layers of rocky mountains in the distance.

Pen set the fake train down and turned to face her. “You wanna give this a go before I pulverize it to pieces?”

“I need a break from pulverizing anything.” She rubbed her arms. “I kinda passed out the other night while working on this. I’m sore everywhere.”

“Careful, Lucy,” he said, smirking. “One of these days, you might catch a cold sleeping in the snow.”

“You…” She narrowed her gaze at him. “You took me inside, didn’t you? I thought it was a dream… Why didn’t you tell me?”

Pen straddled the replica train. “I did! Didn’t you get my letter?”

Her jaw fell open. She peered over toward her workshop as if she could see whether or not her mailbox flag was up now. “N—no. I didn’t check my mail. I was… distracted.” She remembered Mi-an’s own correspondence mysteries, and Lucy went straight to work on commissions from there.

“Besides, the last time I entered your home without your express permission, you were in a rather compromising position, and you got all mad about it.”

Lucy scowled, but she had no time to retort. Pen leaned over the train and hoisted it parallel to his own body. It was just taller than him like this. He wrapped his arms around it, locked his hands together, tucked his elbows in, and fell backward while slamming the train on the ground.

Though she anticipated it, Lucy still jumped at the sound. It echoed into the depths of the mountainous desert valley below. She put a hand to her chest to check her breathing, while Pen continued to pummel the object to oblivion.

Crunch after crunch, Lucy bade herself to look outward toward the destruction rather than inward toward her panic. She watched the bronze and iron contraption crumple beneath Pen’s fists.

Sweat formed on his forehead, and his face bore a focused expression. He grabbed one of the intact compartments and ripped it apart with his bare hands. A silly gift turned into quite an exercise in physical prowess for him. His rolled his sleeves back, exposing his forearms and teasing his vascular biceps.

A different sensation altogether took Lucy by surprise. Seeing Pen go to town on that train was causing her to feel hot in places. Her cheeks turned rosy, and a sensation tugged at her lower belly, down between her legs. It was all very confusing.

f*ck, am I TURNED ON? she thought, making herself blush even harder. She clasped a hand over her mouth, while Pen was fully ignorant to her plight.

She couldn’t help but watch Pen let loose. His movements were clean and well practiced, not the swings of an animal. That wasn’t to say there wasn’t a little bit of wild, frenetic energy to him. It was in his eyes, the primal desire to display strength, and…

It was over. He stood back from the wreckage and flexed his fingers. Shards of metal were littered everywhere, which Lucy would collect and recycle back into useful material.

“I’ll help you clean up,” Pen said, turning toward her with a satisfied smile. “That was… a fine gift. Thank you, Lucy. When the day comes, and there’s another evil train afoot, I’ll be ready for it! I hope it’s a big one next time.”

He met her gaze. Her chest rose high and fell low as she caught her breath. Glistening sweat, like a drop of melting snow, ran down the side of his face, accentuating the lines. Two locks of hair fell out of the mountain-like mould.

“Ready?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

She cleared her throat, tearing herself away from his expectant look. “Yep, let’s get to it!”

They hauled the debris back, with Pen doing the brunt of the work. She stole glances at him as often as she felt comfortable, bouncing between bashfulness and shamelessness. The thought occurred to her that Pen had yet to initiate anything between them. Was he waiting for a special occasion? It was clear, by the way that he looked at her and the way he smiled, that there was still a spark there. She wanted to stick to her guns, but she was only human.

When the items were deposited in her scrap storage, he turned to her with a wide smile. “Y’know, Skinny, I’d like to do something for you, now.”

“What’s that?” She blushed, daring to hope that now was the time.

“I’m gonna give you a real combat tutorial. Maybe I can even offer you an introduction to… the space punch!”

She stared at him. “Is that a euphemism for something?” He had a second chance to redeem himself.

He laughed. “You’ll see! Come. Back to the outskirts. We have much work to do!”

She considered letting him run off on his own. The heat in her legs turned icy, and she frowned at him behind his back.

Nah, I can’t do that to him, she thought, sighing.

They were still friends. She didn’t want to be “yet another fan” who only wanted him for his body, and Pen seemed to be truly eager to show her whatever this thing was. So, begrudgingly, she jogged after him.

Pen led Lucy into the southern outskirts, further this time. He ran ahead and punted a co*ckle-doodle-doom off the cliff. It shot off several explosives on its way down, which burst like fireworks in the late afternoon sky. Lucy let out a shameful snort of laughter. co*ckle-doodle-dooms were the bane of her existence in her early Sandrock days. One had almost set her hair on fire.

They dropped down to a ledge out of sight from the city proper. The wind was a little stronger here, but so was Lucy.

After all the sh*t I’ve been through, she thought, f*ck a cliff.

“Alright! Welcome to Space Punch 101. I’ll be your instructor, I hope you brought your… Pen!”

Lucy cracked a bemused smile. For the first time, she saw red in his cheeks. He was blushing.

“You don’t really need a pen,” he said quickly, chuckling. “That was just an icebreaker…”

A ticklish sensation fluttered in her chest at the sight of a bashful Pen. He bounced on the balls of his feet in preparation for his demonstration. The snow crunched beneath his sneakers, and she stood back to give him more space.

“So, the first thing about the space punch is…” He did a weird twisting motion with his torso while balling his hands into fists. “You take your hand like this, and, uh…”

He bent his knees low and launched himself several feet into the air. Lucy gasped as he did a trick flip, hovered in the air for a split second, and landed back down fist-first into the earth.

The impact melted the snow instantaneously, and it didn’t even have time to pool before evaporating in a haze of steam. Pen was down on one knee, one fist on the ground, in a perfect circle of rocky earth carved from his own attack.

He stood back up with a satisfied smirk, wiping excess dirt and water from his gloves. “Any questions?”

Lucy let out a nervous laugh. “You don’t actually expect me to be able to do all that, do you? If I could jump that high, I’d actually put stuff in the top shelves of my cabinets.”

“C’mon, Skinny Arms, just give it a shot! Check me out one more time. It’s just a little — boop — space punch!”

He crouched low again, sprang up into the air like there were hydraulics in his sneakers, and smashed the ground. Lucy stepped back a few more paces, feeling the rumble in the earth. For a brief second, she considered that the cliff ledge could collapse.

“Your turn,” Pen said, standing and crossing his arms.

Lucy rolled her eyes. “Fine, but you’re not gonna like what you see.”

She dropped low, bending her knees and flexing her quads and glutes until her ass almost touched the ground. She arranged her arms and fists as closely as she could to mimic Pen’s. Then, she jumped — higher than the expected, but not even half of Pen’s height — and punched back down.

There was no boom, no spray of snow, just the most pathetic crunch as she landed back down. The whole movement felt incredibly dull and useless. Nothing was gonna make it into space if she was the one punching it.

Pen looked stricken. “Oh… Oh no… That’s not it at all…”

“Told you,” Lucy sighed. “Do we really have to do this? I have dinner plans with Mi-an and Elsie in an hour. I gotta get ready…”

“Here, let’s give this one more shot. I’ll show you.”

He walked up behind her. Her muscles tensed slightly as the warmth of his body reached hers.

“I—I don’t think I can, Pen.” He placed his hands on the outside of her arms. “Not… without…” He traced the curves of her shoulders, down to her biceps and triceps. “…a lot… of…” She gulped. “Training.”

The same moment he stepped forward, she stepped back. They pressed into each other, and his arms slid over hers, taking over her senses.

“I know,” he said quietly, his voice taking on a different tone entirely. His breath trickled down her neck. “I kinda lied about the space punch. As much as I’d love to see you do it, it’s my thing.”

“Then, why…” But she knew why. She felt it in the way he was a little nervous at the beginning of the lesson.

“Look at me.” The command in his voice was gentle, but it could’ve made her knees buckle if he asked.

She turned slowly. Her hands found his chest armor, her fingers taking on a mind of their own as they traveled across its grooves. She struggled to meet his gaze, almost afraid of what she’d find there. The air was cold, but here, in his arms, she was on fire.

Pen placed his hand beneath her chin and gently lifted it. There, those sapphire eyes hooked into hers, pulling her in from the abyss of uncertainty. It was just a moment, but her mind raced until it ran out of breath, out of thoughts to turn over.

Every secret, every desire that ever dared to flicker to the surface of his gaze spilled out in a single look. From the second that he smiled at her that one summer evening, to when he listened to her heartache, to when he opened the door to his own. The laughter — the warmth they shared.

Her lips parted for him as he leaned in. There was no capture, no stolen kiss. It was freely given. A tender meeting of two souls dancing around the bonfire for too long.

Pen pulled her in closer, tighter, and she melted into him. Her fingers traveled beneath the armor, feeling the firmness of his body as he lifted her clean off the ground. They drifted together in the snow, their kisses growing more assured — and hungry. His tongue ventured out first, and hers slid against it with equal fervor.

He backed into an outcrop with her suspended in his embrace. She reached a hand behind his neck, tracing shapes on his skin with the tips of her nails. His breath sharpened, and he squeezed her tighter. The ground was somewhere far below, and she felt like she was floating.

His hands dared to travel lower, passing heat and pressure down to her lower back. His grip was firm, and she was certain that, if she wanted it, he’d never let her go. The taste of his lips, his tongue, filled her mind.

Desire took over her body, as she lifted her legs and pressed them on either side of his hips, seeking him out. His arousal was there, ready and waiting, and she could feel it even through the layers of clothes. The sensation made her gasp. He slid one hand down to support her, squeezing her ass. She rocked against him, her pulse quickening.

They broke for air, panting in tandem. Their faces were rosy, and Pen’s eyes swam with affection. “This… This is as I always dreamed, Lucy.”

She leaned in, pressing her forehead to his. “I gotta admit… I was in denial for the longest. I kept telling myself that you’re probably a terrible kisser.”

“Rude. I suppose this is one scenario where I’m glad to disappoint.”

They laughed, the warmth of their combined breath forming little clouds in the air. Then, he kissed her again, his teeth gently grazing her bottom lip, teasing out a moan. The sunset spilled ingots of gold around them, lacing the deep purples of his hair.

“I hate how much I wanted this,” she said softly, tracing his jawline with her hand. “How much I want you.”

“I love it,” he said, his voice resonating through her core. He captured her gaze, deep blue eyes hooking into hers. “Just to be clear, Lucy, if you couldn’t tell by now: I want you, too.”

He bucked his hips. She shivered as a soft moan escaped her lips. Her pride disintegrated in their combined heat.

“Um… Do you wanna… go back to my place?” she asked, voice slightly husky as she thought about all the ways this could go. All the ways he could have her.

Pen chuckled — a low, sensual sound. “I’d love to, but didn’t you say you had dinner plans? Unless you were just saying that to avoid my space punch lesson…”

“f*ck.” A different pulse hit her core: frustration. She groaned and scrambled off him. “I do actually have plans. I’m gonna be late. f*ck me sideways.”

“Hey, if you ask nicely…”

“Hah. Very funny.”

Pen leaned over and pulled her in for a kiss, his warm lips like a ward against her snark. “Don’t worry, Lucy.” He grazed her bottom lip again. “We’ll pick this back up another time.”

Flustered six ways to Sunday, Lucy rushed over to the Blue Moon.

As she slid into the booth with Mi-an and Elise, her cheeks were flushed red from running and the continuous flashes of intoxicating thoughts. Neither of them seemed to notice. The conversation took off like a rocket rooster, going over Mi-an’s secret admirer and Elsie’s brave conversation with Mint.

Lucy nodded along and offered no gossip of her own, for hers was frustratingly fresh and incomplete. She couldn’t even begin to explain it — how her heart raced at the very thought of him, how her skin craved his touch. Would they even understand? She’d never uttered a syllable in Pen’s favor, and here she was, unable to shake the sensation of their lips locked together. It didn’t even matter if it made sense anymore. She left her senses behind, in his embrace, drifting along in the snow covered cliffs.

Chapter 16: Paradise Found (NSFW)

Chapter Text

Lucy was distracted all morning. In the salvage yard, in the Commerce Guild, in her workshop, and in the ruins, she thought about Pen. The pressure of his lips against hers, the feeling of his tongue exploring her mouth, the way he pulled a moan from her with a gentle graze of her bottom lip. The vision of Pen loomed ever in her peripheral vision, looking at her with that little smirk of his. She cursed the audacity of this man to be overbearing even as a memory.

It was just a kiss, her mind said.

But… it was SUCH a kiss, her heart argued. It could lead to so much more.

When she crossed paths with Pen in the afternoon, she was a mess of torn emotions. She stood at the general store, a jar of salt in her hand and a heart knot under her gaze. The next natural course of action was to give him a heart knot, wasn’t it? But, that’s not what she wanted. Was that what he wanted?

“Skinny Arms!”

Lucy cursed under her breath. She paid for her salt and excused herself from Arvio’s next sales pitch. Pen was entering Martle Square from the direction of the church steps, his cape blowing gently in the late winter breeze. She stuffed her purchase in her pack and approached him, trying to even out her breaths as she went.

“We need to talk,” she blurted out the second she got close to him.

Pen gave her a bemused smile. “Why do I get the feeling that you’re about to tell me to f*ck off again?”

She shook her head, half-laughing, and led him to the bench by the oasis. The afternoon was bright and cheery, running counter to the cold and barren pond. Lucy took a seat on the bench and gestured for Pen to follow suit. Even the way that he sat was imposing — legs spread and slightly hunched, like he was ready to for a fight at any moment. Lucy begrudgingly inspected the curves of his upper back muscles from her vantage point.

“What’s got your pretty little lips in a pout, Lucy?”

She swallowed the giggle that dared to breach her throat. “I have a problem with you. I mean, not with you per se. Umm…”

Pen leaned back on the bench and turned to face her, resting an elbow on the top of the bench’s back. “You’re conflicted.”

“Yes. Exactly.” She felt a small flutter of relief. She went on to explain her predicament, how years of rendering herself invisible in the frame of her partner had led her to believe that she had no relevant feelings in any situation, that her heart had no say in any matter. She came to Sandrock with a three-pronged approach of being a helpful builder, indulging in her independence, and learning what kind of romantic partner — if any — would suit her. Pen listened quietly, as his eyes traveled across her features with an impassive expression.

“So, you see,” she said at last, “I logically understand that our kiss was ‘just a kiss.’ But, the rest of me is freaking out. Where do we go from there? Is it going to kill our friendship? Is it possible to still explore our interest in each other without immediately jumping to the notion of ‘us?’ I don’t want a commitment, but I don’t want to miss out on getting to know you more.”

She expected him to say something snarky, or even laugh at her little anxiety burst, but he didn’t. When he spoke, his voice was soothing. “Lucy, you don’t need to have all the answers right away. Neither of us do. You’re thinking in black and white, but the real answer could be somewhere in the middle.”

Lucy’s eyes widened. “So, you — you’re okay if we just keep…” She gestured at his lips and her own. “…without putting ourselves in a relationship?”

“I think the sexual deviants of today’s age call that ‘friends with benefits.’ I don’t like the term, though. We have a deeper connection than it would imply, but we haven’t exactly explored the benefits in full.”

They broke into quiet laughter. The corners of his eyes crinkled, and Lucy felt her swell of panicked emotions subside as she looked at him. Her cheeks got warmer, and it had nothing to do with the sunshine. “I don’t like the term, either,” she said. “So… Are we going to explore more?”

Pen tilted his head to the side. “I won’t tell you what to do… in this case, anyway.” His lips curled into a mischievous smirk. “What do you want, Lucy?”

Lucy’s chest tightened. On the cusp of saying something rather lewd, she pulled herself back for a moment. “I just want to spend time with you, wherever that leads us. We can figure it out as we go, as long as we communicate, like we are now. I don’t care what we call it.”

“Then that’s what we’ll do,” Pen said, smiling softly. “It works well for me, anyway.”

She nodded knowingly. “You said your line of work is one where people walk alone. So, you don’t believe in marriage, do you?”

“Ah, Skinny, you impress me with your keen insight. Yes, I am in strong opposition to this strange concept.”

“It is strange, isn’t it?” She ran a finger over her lips while turning the idea over. “I can’t believe I was engaged for as long as I was.”

They talked for over an hour, combing over the subject of romance and its intricacies with an almost unemotional lens. The sun moved downward in the sky, and the rustle of barren bushes could be heard in the wind. Lucy felt warm in his presence, bolstered by his unbothered attitude and his acceptance of her little quirks. They laughed as much as they rolled their eyes at one another, their conversation littered with little moments of affectionate looks. When he looked at her, she felt truly seen.

The time for talking began to wane. Lucy felt drawn to him in another way, as they circled back to the topic of their little moment in the snow. She inched closer to him, the warmth of his body radiating outward toward her. It didn’t go unnoticed.

“What’re you lookin’ at?” he teased.

“You,” she said quietly. “Is that so bad?”

He chuckled and leaned in, answering her question with a a gentle kiss. She kissed him back as her heart did a little somersault. He put a hand on the back of her neck, pressing a little more against her lips. Her hand found his chest and the cloth of his shirt. She gripped onto it as she slid her tongue out, inviting him to taste it. Her hand drifted lower, feeling his abs through the thin material.

A sudden feeling of ultimate daring, driven by lust, beckoned her hand lower to his growing arousal. Just thinking about it sent an electric pulse down through her lower belly and between her legs. She pulled back from the kiss and glanced around them. They were blissfully alone. Yet, this was no place for her intentions.

“I don’t have plans tonight,” she said with a meaningful look. “Do… you?”

“I do now.” He smirked at the look on her face. “With you.”

“My place?” she suggested, feeling like a broken record, damned if she wasn’t going to get this man into her bed.

“No, I have something much more glorious than that.” He stood, seemingly unaware (or proud) of his obvious erection. “Come! Let’s make a pit stop by your place so you can grab your daggers.”

She furrowed her brows. “What are the daggers for?”

“For the enemies we’ll be dispatching on our way through Paradise Lost! If we are to take this connection we have to the next step, we must test our chemistry in the only way I know how…”

“And that’s by… fighting?”

“Yes! On the battlefield!” He stood and gestured emphatically. “Adrenaline pumping, sweat flowing, blood spilling, chest hairs and more, all on brilliant display…”

Lucy stood slowly and followed his lead toward her workshop, ready to block the view of Pen’s crotch from anyone that they might’ve encountered on the way. Thankfully, the path along the boardwalk was empty.

As they approached her workshop, she shot him a questioning look. “You don’t happen to use sparring as foreplay, do you? I don’t think I’m down for that.”

“Hah! No. We’re going to be fighting together.” He opened the gate for her to pass through. “Indeed, the only way to truly know someone is to fight by their side.”

“Oh. That,” she said, relieved. “We’ve already fought together plenty of times.”

“That was all platonic warfare. This time... This time, let’s do it for real!” He grinned.

She retrieved her daggers from storage and carefully strapped them to her back, her thoughts filled with a confusing blend of lust and apprehension. As if to wipe the frown off her face, Pen pulled her in by her waist and kissed her passionately, turning her limbs to jelly.

“All set?” he asked, double checking that she was armed. “Off we go, Lucy! Huzzah for romance!”

He ran off toward Paradise Lost, and she followed.

Wait ‘til I tell Nia, Lucy thought shamefully, the things I’ve done for dick.

By the time they reached the entrance of Paradise Lost, sunset was in full swing. They entered a different wing of the old abandoned mall, where there were still enemies waiting to be dispatched.

Pen’s energy was altogether different. There was a warm joy emanating from him, comparable to the sweet glow of a budding love. Lucy found herself slowly drinking in his enthusiasm for battle. They tore apart robot after robot.

“Flugelhorn!” Pen shouted at one point.

“Isn’t that…an instrument?” she asked, perplexed.

With her recently improved daggers, she managed to make an X across the face of a disgruntled secretary, shredding through its chassis and cutting the wires in one fell swoop.

“Well executed, Skinny! Work those thighs!”

Half an hour later, Lucy almost fell over in a fit of laughter because Pen’s commentary was unhinged beyond measure.

“Guess what?” he had asked. “Robot butt. Guess why? Robot DIE!”

By the time they reached the bottom level, Lucy had to take off her jacket, as the workout from fighting was getting to be too much.

“Lucy!” Pen cried. “Those arms… Those supple arms…”

“You don’t mean ‘skinny?’”

“You haven’t realized why I call you Skinny Arms?”

Pen took deep breaths, sweat glistening from his forehead down his neck. Lucy watched the moisture dripping down his chin. The frenetic fighting mirrored the passion of softer things.

“You think I’ve been teasing you, but the truth is…” He pulled in closer to her and planted a kiss on her pouty lips. “I love the shape of you. From the moment I set eyes on you, I have found you to be… simply enchanting.” He caressed her arms, sending chills across her skin despite the warmth of his touch. “You are divine.”

Hearing Pen say these things rendered Lucy speechless. A deep tug of affection swelled within her, blending with the ferocity of their battle and the lust she felt for him. He kissed her again, more roughly this time, showing just how well he could read the look on her face.

He didn’t just graze — he bit her bottom lip. She nearly dropped her daggers as a wild moan erupted from her. If she could just have him now, that’d be f*cking fantastic.

But, he pulled back. With a satisfied smirk, he put her frazzled hair behind her ear. “The two of us fighting side by side, each step in tandem as we are soon to become lovers… My heart races… Doesn’t yours?”

“Mm-hm…” She was in a trance, feeling the motions of his hands.

“We’ve made short work of our adversaries. The only thing that remains is a boss fight.” His eyes glinted with excitement. Another control cat awaited them at the end of a long hallway. He leaned down and whispered in her ear, his lips just barely brushing against her neck. “Show no mercy.”

Just a boss fight? If that was truly the last obstacle in between her and Pen’s picture-perfect body on top of hers, then it was no contest. She reveled in this unfamiliar, exciting sensation — the excitement of battle driving her arousal even higher.

The control cat was similar to the first one they fought when they were looking for the R47 power core. This time, Lucy was not distracted by her personal issues, nor was she desperate to prove herself to Pen. She knew she was capable, and she knew that he had her back. They dashed around in well practiced rhythm with one another, performing the same dance of distraction and destruction. In no time at all, the control cat crumpled before them in a heap.

“Ah… yeah…” Pen spoke through heaving breaths. “That’s the stuff. Was that good for you, Skinny? It was good for me. Wait! Don’t answer… Now for the final act…”

She fully expected him to sweep her up in his arms and take her right there, but for all that was good in the f*cking world, he didn’t. She watched, jaw dropped, as he zipped around like a frantic bird, collecting bits and bobs from robot corpses to a target pile.

“Hyah!… Huh!…”

“Rip this one’s head off…!”

She followed him in a daze, trying to figure out what in Peach’s name he was trying to achieve.

“This one’s soft enough to be a cushion…”

Realization dawned on her, and she zig zagged right back to a tidal wave of adoration for this chaotic man. During their first visit here, she joked that the sweeper he was sitting on would make for an interesting couch. Here he was, building the real thing with multiple pieces of their destroyed enemies. She had no idea how he found pillows, but it must’ve been premeditated.

“Pen…”

Rosy-cheeked and touched beyond comprehension, she stared at the final product. It was an amalgamation of sweepers, secretaries, and haulers, with several comfortable looking cushions placed on top. A mechanical monstrosity with sentimentality that she didn’t know until now that he was capable of.

“Voila! A throne, Skinny! A throne for two, composed entirely of our fallen enemies, deserving only the buttocks of royalty such as ourselves…”

Pen stood beside his work and reached a hand out.

“Take your rightful place, Lucy… And let us seal our new romance…”

She dropped her daggers and approached, reaching for his outstretched hand. He spun her around and dipped her with such grace, she let out a little gasp. He laid her on the cushions and leaned over her, his cape blanketing the two of them in a little cocoon.

“Yes…” He spoke with a slightly husky voice, as one hand traveled over the outside of her clothes, tracing her arms, down to her fingers, and interlocking with them. “Now that I’ve felt our hearts rage together, intertwined and soldered by the fiery thrill of combat… I have no doubts in my mind that we share a true connection.”

His poetry made her heart drum. Her body trembled at his touch, begging for his large, calloused fingers to come and seek her skin beneath the barrier of her clothes. He accentuated his speech with wet kisses down her neck, as he slid a thigh between her legs.

“Our physical infatuations are just a nice… little cherry… on top. A hot, tasty cherry.”

She bucked against him while pawing for the latch on his chest armor, to no avail. He let out a wicked laugh as he pushed himself off her, keeping his thigh in place. He pulled off the chest plate and the shoulder pads. The cape went with them, a little flutter of wind caressing the top of Lucy’s chest just beyond the thin material of her button-up.

Pen returned to her lips as he worked the buttons on her shirt. Inch by inch, the cool air caressed her flesh. She tugged at his shirt, pulling it up so she was able to trace his abs. He was too tall for her to reach where she really wanted to. She wanted to know what it felt like, what it tasted like, how it’d feel inside of her. She wrapped her thighs around his leg and squeezed gently, a wordless plea.

“So eager,” he teased. He pulled back briefly and took off his shirt in one motion, revealing his perfect physique in all its glory.

When she saw his body for the first time, she was not in a state to fully appreciate it. It was different now.

Pen was massive. Somehow clothes only diminished the size of his muscles. There was no shame left in her — only a hot, wet need. His eyes followed her gaze, eating up the way that she bit her lip at the sight of him.

“Your turn.” He pulled her shirt off.

Wasting no time, she reached behind herself, unhooked the clasp of her bra, and tossed the unwanted garment into the growing pile of discarded clothes.

“Efficiency,” she said breathlessly.

He drank in the sight of her exposed skin, the curves of her breasts. Her first instinct was to hide herself, her nipples turning hard at their first breath of air. But Pen gave her no chance.

With a hungry look in his eyes, he kissed a path down to her swollen chest. Her hands traced his shoulders, reaching his upper back. He cupped one breast in the palm of his hand, his fingers closing in to massage the sensitive tissue and tease her nipples. His steaming kisses landed on the other breast, punctuated with flicks of his tongue and the grazing of his teeth against her flesh,

Lucy moaned and arched her back. Her voice traveled across the room and back to them. She moved one hand to the back of his head, combing her fingers through the unstyled base of his hair. With her other hand, she squeezed, digging her fingers into him, her nails matching the ferocity with which he used his teeth.

She’d never been touched like this. The feeling of her body being held, felt, and explored inch by inch. She felt vulnerable and powerful at the same time.

Pen switched, swapping hand and mouth to the opposite breast, working her buttons with pure enjoyment in each motion. Her breathing was ragged, and she wasn’t sure how much more she could handle before trying to rip both of their pants off. She clawed at the pillows, scraped her fingers against the cold metal backing of the couch.

He bit hard, followed by a gentle swirl of the tongue and a kiss. She cried out, the pain and pleasure pushing her hips to buck against him.

“Did I hurt you?” he asked.

“It — it felt good,” she gasped.

Still coming down from the shock, she ground her hips, pressing desperately against his thigh. A savage need took hold of her.

“Pen, please,” she whimpered.

He released her swollen nipple and looked up at her with a devilish smirk. “Please what?”

She sat up to reach for the waistband of his pants, but he took her hands and gently pushed them away.

“I gotta make sure you’re ready for me, babe.” He pulled her jeans down, foregoing the buttons altogether. She kicked off her shoes and socks, and he tossed away her pants.

She was almost completely bare before him, nothing but thin cloth separating her from the air and his scrutinizing gaze. Contrary to any bashfulness left in her, she spread her legs, showing him just how wet she knew she was. Her reward was the sight of him devouring her with a look, licking his lips as his hands traveled over her skin. His co*ck was fighting to free itself from the confines of his pants, but he still hovered over her, unrelenting.

He stroked her inner thighs, his eyes brushing every inch of her like he wanted to commit her to memory. She almost danced with the motions, desperate to drive his fingers closer to home. Every time her skin brushed the metal of the robot couch, the sensation of cold against her heat made her gasp and squirm.

She loved how much he was exploring her, how he looked at her, but she was about to lose her mind.

“Touch me,” she simpered. “Please.”

He let out a low, dark chuckle as he pushed her panties to the side. “How can I say no to you?”

His fingers swept across her swollen lips, lazily spreading her arousal. His eyes stayed on her face, watching her reaction as he played with her cl*t. He drank in every gasp and moan he won from her, a dangerous smirk on his lips.

She breathed in sharply and raised her hips higher, her body begging him where her words were lost. She started to shake, arching her back and her neck until the top of her head slipped off the cushion, meeting the hard metal beneath. One hand shot up and grabbed onto the sweeper’s eye stalk, as she was desperate to hold onto something while Pen drove her to madness. The thought crossed her mind that the couch was actually uncomfortable, but the pleasure built up so hard and so fast, it lost all meaning.

“f*ck,” she choked.

She was close, and he knew it. He pushed two fingers inside her soaking puss*, still running circles around her swollen bud. Lucy cried out from the sensation of his digits stretching her while her cl*t grew more and more sensitive.

“I— I’m gonna—”

“Come for me,” Pen commanded.

He had a serious look in his eyes, gleaming with pleasure from watching her come undone at his hands. He planted a bruising kiss on her lips, their teeth clashing as she sent the shaking moan of her climax into his mouth. He nipped her bottom lip and sent gentle kisses down her neck as her inner walls pulsed against his digits. His fingers slowed, releasing her cl*t from the tortuous sensation of being worked to the end, but he kept his fingers inside her, gently stroking, scraping every last bit of her pleasure from within while her body convulsed.

Lucy panted, her fingers aching from how hard she was gripping onto — something. Her hands had somehow ended up on his flesh in the savagery of her climax. She pulled her nails back out of his shoulder, seeing how little crescents were left indented on his skin. She blinked tears out of her eyes as he stroked her hair with his free hand.

“I’ve — never…” She swallowed hard. “… been touched like that.”

He let out a low chuckle, a sound that sent butterflies through her belly even now. “I’m starting to think you’ve been deprived.”

“I’m inclined to agree with you,” she said in a weak voice, a dazed smile on her lips.

He pulled off the useless panties and rendered her completely naked before him, dressed only in a thin layer of sweat and a trail of his marks.

“You are… truly divine.”

She felt bashful being complimented in such a way. No one had ever called her that before, but here Pen was, looking like a picture, calling her divine. It could’ve all stopped right there, and she could’ve drifted off into a serene sleep filled with dreams of his touch. But there was work yet to be done.

“I need you,” she said in a quiet, but firm voice. In a haze of shaky fingers and even shakier breaths, she helped him take his pants off. This time, he did not decline.

Freed from the entrapments of his boxer briefs, his co*ck sprang out with as much confidence and bulk as its owner. Lucy’s lips parted in surprise, understanding now why he’d said that he needed to make sure she was ready for him.

“Get on top of me,” Pen said, helping her to her feet. “Might be more comfortable for you. You looked like you were having a rough time on the couch.”

Lucy snickered. “I was. Ten out of ten for effort and sentiment, but zero out of ten for ergonomics.” They readjusted and re-fluffed the cushions, and he sat down in the center, his back against the metal. “You sure this is comfortable for you?”

Pen chuckled. “Come here.”

She straddled him, resting her knees on the remaining cushions. This was a lot easier than lying down. His co*ck stood tall, sandwiched between Pen’s lower belly and her cl*t, as she ground against it, spreading her slick over his length. He groaned, placing his hands on her hips and matching her rhythm.

“Good girl,” he said. “Get it nice and wet…”

They kissed, the energy and need growing each time his tip teased her entrance. She put one hand on his shoulder to balance herself, while the other explored both of their bodies. Their tongues slid across each other, grazing teeth and tasting lips. She traced his abs, ran her nails against his firm chest, and grasped her own breast, tugging and twisting her sensitive skin. Soon, his co*ck was covered in her juices. Her grinding grew more desperate as her cl*t swelled, her pleasure building up again.

Pen squeezed her ass and held her firmly, putting a pause to her motions. A small quiver of excitement ran through her. They broke for air, panting against each other as he aimed his co*ck for the hot, wet space between her lips.

Looking past him, Lucy could see the reflection of herself, her bare chest, and her wild hair in the glass windows. Faced against the destruction of the Old World was the pleasure of this current world — this little place that swam in a different kind of darkness and light, in the primal colors of human nature. Guided by his assured hands, she lowered herself onto his co*ck. She saw it in her own face — the anticipation, the hesitation of something so raw, the pleasure of it all.

It hurt at first. His co*ck was thick and slightly curved, a new sensation for every inch she traveled down. Pen’s soft groan of pleasure was enough to make her want to send her ass straight down, but she carefully slid into the rhythm for her own sake. As she bottomed out, a guttural, primal sound erupted from her lips — one that she had no idea she was capable of making. She saw her own mouth open in a little ‘o,’ her eyelids half closed in ecstasy.

She planted her fingers on his broad chest as she rocked slowly, learning the way his co*ck felt inside her. It reached all the secret, sensitive spaces of her inner walls. She bit her lip as she picked up the pace, aided by his strong hands on her hips. It was effortless. He kissed her from the neck down to her breasts, back up to her lips, while she bucked against him. Their breathing became more rapid, and Lucy held back nothing with her moans, each sound a new, unfamiliar song that caused him to squeeze harder, bite harder. She felt herself climbing back to the apex of pleasure. Between their ragged breaths and erotic sighs was the wet slapping of their bodies seeking release.

She squeezed her puss*, eliciting a deep moan from the depth of Pen’s chest. He responded by picking her up and driving her down hard back down on his co*ck. Again and again. The force was enough to render her undone.

“Pen,” she sobbed. “I… It feels… So….”

He could feel it. She knew it. There was no hiding from him. His co*ck filled every inch of her and then some. She could feel every nerve, and so could he.

“That’s it…” His voice was low and husky, shaking from the rhythm they created. “Look at me.” Her half-closed eyes found his, driving into her, reading her, taking in her flushed skin. “Come on my co*ck.”

Her puss* contracted, crashing hard against his length. She screamed, tears springing into her eyes as a powerful org*sm ripped through her, shaking her hips, her thighs, down to her toes and up to the tips of her ears. She pressed in close to him and buried her face in his shoulder, while he threaded his fingers through her hair, gently stroking as she succumbed to pleasure.

“I love the way you shake,” he sighed into her hair. He moved his hands lower, massaging her back, coaxing the last tremors from her body. His co*ck still twitched inside her, causing her puss* to spasm in waves.

I love… this… she thought, teetering on a dangerous ledge, looking at the depth of feelings she didn’t quite understand yet.

“Hold onto me,” he said gently, as she felt him shift beneath her.

She obliged, keeping her arms around his neck as he planted his feet firmly on the ground. She wrapped her legs around him while he wrapped his arms around her. He stood up slowly, ensuring that he stayed inside her.

“Ready for me?” he asked, slowly moving his hands down to her hips.

Lucy nodded, speech altogether erased from her tongue.

Whether or not Pen was trying to show off, she was impressed. He made her feel feather-light. She barely had to use her own core strength to stay afloat. Hands firmly planted on her hips, he lifted her so she slid just enough off of his co*ck, leaving the very tip inside, then he pulled her back into him. Again and again, while she cried out.

The angle here reduced the pain, leaving her with nothing but pleasure. She dug her nails into his skin while she panted and moaned with reckless abandon. He held her aloft while she held him close, one hand traveling to the base of his hair and getting lost in the strands. Peeking through heavy lids, she saw the reflection of Pen’s top half in the glass. His back was powerful, and her legs were laced daintily between his arms and his trim waist.

Pen’s breaths became erratic as he thrusted her harder against him. Lucy’s walls tightened around him as the pressure built on them both. His co*ck twitched against her caving walls as he spilled into her. An unstoppable shudder riddled her body, a final org*sm in concert with his climax. The heat, the tremors — all of it consumed them.

Legs shaking, Pen brought them down gently with all the control that was left in his body. He kneeled on the ground, and her feet found the earth again. They stayed like that, her clinging onto him while still attached at the hip, until their breaths steadied and her tears stopped.

Tender kisses were sprinkled between ragged sighs, as the two began to share the special kind of laughter reserved for two lovers in paradise. He pressed a hand on her cheek, caressing the edges of her face, his sapphire eyes glistening.

“Bad time to ask,” he said, “but are you—”

“—taking birth control?” she finished, chuckling. “Ever since I saw you shirtless.”

She wouldn’t have expected him to look surprised at her shameless admission, but his mouth fell open. They laughed again, but then they both performed an awkward half-moan, half-grimace, as their sensitive parts were over stimulated from the motion.

After cleaning up and getting their mostly unsoiled clothes back on (Lucy had to forego the panties), Pen pulled her in for another kiss.

He scanned her face with his warm gaze. “I’m afraid this moment cannot last forever. We must return to the hustle and bustle of city life… But let us always remember this place. Our lovers’ cocoon where, for one brief evening, the world was ours…”

That glimmer of sadness in his eyes, evading capture, swam by again. Lucy’s chest tightened from the desire to fish out that sorrow and burn it to the ground. It marred his soul, worse than scars could mark his body.

Pen stood up and helped Lucy get to her feet. “Well, I worked up an appetite,” he said, stretching. “Dinner?”

“Yeah, I’m hungry, too,’ she said. Her knees wobbled, and her jeans chafed against her unprotected areas. “This is gonna be a long walk back up to the surface…”

Chapter 17: Breakfast at Lucy's (NSFW)

Chapter Text

Lucy awoke to the sound of soft drumming against her rooftop. At first, she thought it was a sandstorm. As she inhaled, she realized it was dust-free. There was a long-forgotten humidity in the air, rather than the dry, caked layers of debris. She slowly opened her eyes and looked toward her bedroom windows. The outside world was gray. The light had a silvery sheen.

“No way.” She threw off her sheets, a childish excitement taking hold. With just pajamas and shoes on, she wrenched open her door.

Rainfall over Sandrock was a magical sight. Layers of dusty brown melted away, revealing vibrant shades of the painted wood buildings glistening with water. The gentle pitter patter was soothing, nothing like the monsoon winds of Highwind. The ground had been so dry, only patches of thick mud had formed thus far, leaving much of the ground still solid beneath a thin layer of rainfall.

Lucy ran over to the water collector and swapped out the basin. She dashed to her water storage and pulled out the empty tubs that she’d been planning to take over to Water World this week. As she lined up the barrels beneath the open sky, she smiled from ear to ear. Nevermind her soaking limbs and the thinness of her cloth pajamas giving way to the moisture. It was like the embrace of an old friend.

Wet footsteps approached from the front of her workshop.

“Lucy!” Owen called, chuckling in his special, charming way. “I wanted to come see the look on your face. Looks like you’re already getting ahead of the game.”

His hair was sprinkled with more than just salt and pepper at the roots.

Lucy beamed. “This is in-freakin’-credible! I didn’t know it was even possible to rain here!”

“It’s rare, but it does every once in a while. Kind of a sight to see, huh? And everyone’s helping each other out with collecting water. Look — seems Burgess left a bucket out for ya.”

He pointed to the gift placed atop her delivery box. A soaking note was affixed to it, celebratory words melting away. She grabbed the bucket, dumped the water into the reservoir, and set it back out to work again.

Owen scanned Lucy’s appearance. His smile faded as his eyes traveled from her gleeful grin to her exposed neckline.

“Uh — you… Are you okay, Lucy?!”

Startled, Lucy looked down to where he was pointing. Her cleavage was exposed. Various marks littered the surface of her skin. They were on their way to healing, which made them look ten times worse than they really were. Her skin was greenish-yellow in some places, purple in others, and red scratches marked her flesh.

She snapped her head back up and covered her chest with her hands. “Yep. I’m fine,” she said in a high voice.

“Lucy, are those what I think they are?” A mischievous smile broke onto his lips. “Are you seeing—”

“—Shh!”

“—someone?”

His voice was too deep and too loud for having this conversation outside, even if the rain provided a sort of muffling effect. In a panic, the builder looked around them to see if anyone was nearby.

“Come inside,” she urged him. “I’d rather not talk about it out here.”

“Probably a good idea,” Owen said. “You’re also gonna catch a cold.”

Lucy’s decision made things even worse. She’d forgotten the sizable piece of furniture she’d recently acquired — one that was unavailable at any of the town shops.

“What is that?” Owen asked, chuckling again, as he gestured to the eyesore of a couch. Unseeing robot eyes poked up from stalks at the back of it, unoffended at Owen’s bemused expression.

“It was a gift,” Lucy said, almost as red as her tank top. She shut the door behind them. “An inside joke… turned into a gift… from Pen.”

Owen nodded, raising his eyebrows.

“It’s a long story… I made him a train… He destroyed it — no, that was the point. This… couch… was another inside joke.” Her hands flew incessantly around her upper body, trying to obscure the evidence of intimacy.

I am actually f*cking awful at this, she thought, her ears burning.

“Hey, Lucy, I’m your friend,” Owen said in a soothing voice. “I hope you know that. I’m not… judgin’ you or anythin’, if that’s what you’re thinking. You don’t have to explain anythin’ to me, if you’re not comfortable.”

Lucy sighed. “Thank you. Wish you said that two minutes ago before I started word vomiting.”

Owen gave her an affectionate smile. “I know, a while back, I told you that you could do better than him, but I’m not here to judge you for what makes you happy. As long as he makes you happy.” The last statement was more of a question, and she knew it.

In a calmer turn of events, Lucy offered Owen some coffee, and the two sat down at her dining table, taking in the sights of the rain outside. The new bridge was a balm on her long-missed train watching. One was pulling into the station now, the rattling of the walls joining in the drumming of rain.

“We’re not dating,” Lucy said, a little more relaxed now. “It’s more like a… Well, I don’t know what it is. It’s still fresh. Neither of us want to be in a relationship.”

“So, friends with benefits?”

She grimaced. “Sure, I guess. We talk about a lot of stuff. I think we have a deeper connection than I’ve had with a lot of people. At the same time, he’s so… unemotional about things, in a good way. It allows me to bounce my thoughts off him without being afraid I’m gonna hurt his feelings. I don’t feel like I have to be careful what I say around him.”

Owen nodded and pulled his coffee closer. “I’m glad you have that understanding with him.” He rubbed his chin. “Gotta say, I’m a little surprised that it’s with Pen, but…”

“Preaching to the choir,” she said, snickering. “I still can’t believe it sometimes." She stood up and grabbed a kitchen towel, wiping off excess moisture from her skin. “I have a similar feeling with you, actually. I feel safe to be as blunt as I can possibly be.”

The barkeep shot her an appreciative smile. “Always here for ya, Lucy. It always brightens my day when we get to chat.”

She returned to the table and slid into her chair with a devious glint in her eyes. “Speaking of brightening your day, how are things going with Amirah?”

It was Owen’s turn to become flustered. He leaned back in the chair and looked out the window. “I guess I’m in the same boat as you, but the opposite seats. Amirah and I have been on a couple of dates. She said she’s attracted to me, but she’s not sure if she wants to be in a relationship…”

Lucy gave an acknowledging hum and frowned at her mug. She severely doubted that Pen was thinking about her in the same way that Owen thought about Amirah.

“She wants to take it slow,” he went on. “Go on more dates, talk more, really get to know each other. I understand. She’s constantly bombarded by propositions by men who just… don’t see her for the real person she is. They just want her for her looks. Well, I’d like to show her that I…” He chuckled. “I gotta be careful.”

She tilted her head to the side, eyeing him keenly. “You’re falling in love with her.”

Owen nearly spat his coffee. “Lucy, you gotta stop doing that. Or, I gotta stop being so damn obvious.”

“Sorry,” she mumbled. “I didn’t mean…”

“No, no. I didn’t mean it that way,” he said quickly. “I was joking. You’re the only one I really feel comfortable talking to about this.” His chest rose and fell with a deep sigh. “You’re right. I am falling in love with her. I just hope… well, you know.”

“I know.” She let out a little, breathy laugh. “It’s ironic. I also enjoy spending time with Pen for intellectual reasons. Obviously I’m attracted to him, but he’s just got this… way of viewing the world that I find interesting. After we, uh—” She gestured at her hickeys. “—the other day, we spent about an hour just talking about human nature.”

Owen arched an eyebrow. “Color me surprised. I would’ve never guessed.”

“I don’t think he actually wants anyone to know,” she said, blushing.

“Hah, well I won’t be telling anyone. The only time I talk about Pen is when he shows up for spaghetti breakfast day. Or, I guess, when I talk with you.”

The conversation pivoted to more routine matters, particularly the upcoming Winter Solstice festival at the end of the week. It would be Lucy’s first in Sandrock, and Owen explained how the Sandrockers did things. She offered to take up a spot at one of the barbecue grills, being an avid home chef of sorts.

As Lucy walked Owen out to her front gate, she saw none other than Pen walking up to her workshop. She’d invited him on a journey into the desert while she mined marble, promising him as many enemies as he wanted to punch. He was early.

She was still in a tank top and pajama shorts, and the rain was coming down harder, clamping the cloth flush against her skin. Owen waved goodbye to Lucy and headed toward the Blue Moon.

Oh, this is awkward, she thought, her heart clenching as the two men prepared to cross paths. This is very, very awkward.

Lucy saw him nod curtly to Pen, and the latter returned the wordless greeting before settling his gaze on Lucy. She half-expected him to turn away and leave, just like that time he disappeared for two weeks. But he didn’t. Instead, he glanced back once at Owen before continuing toward her gate.

“Skinny Arms!” he called. “Look, my pecs are glistening!” He gestured at his armor, The large gem in the center shone defiantly against the gray sky.

Heated visions of their passionate foray into Paradise Lost played back through her mind. His real, shirtless pecs were glistening then, too.

“Yeah — they are,” she said, laughing. “So are mine, I guess…”

A small smile curved on his lips as she gestured to her chest, drawing his gaze to her rain-kissed cleavage. Little streams crossed the rivers of the marks he left behind. A shadow of hunger crossed his lips. Lucy’s face got hot, reminded of the way he drank in the sight of her naked body.

“I need to get changed,” she said, clearing her voice. She dropped her voice. “I didn’t know you were coming this early. Do you… wanna come inside first?”

The double entendre was not lost on him, as he raised his eyebrows. She merely smiled proudly at the silent laugh that shook his shoulders.

“I’d love some breakfast,” Pen said in his regular bravado, gesturing toward her home.

Her eyes widened. “Well, that too. I haven’t eaten yet, so I guess you’re welcome to join—”

“Just roll with it, Skinny,” he said under his breath.

“Oh.” She spun around and led him into her home.

Safe inside her home again, she grabbed the same towel she used earlier to wipe her arms and legs dry.

“By the way,” she said, as he leaned against the wall by her kitchen, “I hope you don’t think that Owen and I—”

“—No need to explain, Skinny.” He gave her a smile. “It’s none of my business. You and I aren’t exactly ‘a thing.’”

She swallowed. “Right…”

“Besides…” He stepped forward and traced a gentle finger along her collar bone, down to her chest. “I’m guessing he saw these.”

Her skin set aflame and chilled at once, a duel of elements at his touch. She shivered. She didn’t understand this weakness she had for him, but she let herself feel it all the same. That sliver of possessiveness sent her down a rabbit hole of unspeakable urges. She merely nodded, at a loss for words.

“You said you had to get changed?” he asked, stepping around her and going over to her front windows.

Shaking off the intimate thoughts, she found her voice again. “Yeah. I do. I’ll be right back.”

“No.”

Lucy raised her brows. “No?” she echoed, indignant. “I’m soaking wet.”

She realized he’d closed her blinds. No one could see them together, here, in her home.

“I like the sound of that,” Pen said, returning to her with a meaningful look. He stooped down to kiss her, cupping her face in his hands.

Her cold lips met his warmth with fervor, like he was a bonfire on a cold winter night. He ran his hands down her waist, the heat of his body smoothing over the chill on her skin.

“Who’s the eager one now?” She giggled.

With a vein of concern, he asked, “How are you feeling today?”

“A little sore,” she admitted. “Not that I’m complaining…”

He stroked her hair. “I have an idea…”

“But — b—breakfast —” He started to plant kisses down her neck. “Do you wanna — eat now — or — later?”

“Both,” he answered. He picked her up by the waist and sat her down on the dining table. In a daze, she watched as he pulled her legs around him. She could feel his arousal pressed against her, and she let out a little gasp. With one hand holding onto her, the other hand pulled her in for a deep kiss, passionate tongues flickering like flames against one another.

“Pen, what are you — oh.”

His hungry eyes met hers, and she understood. He helped her undress, pulling off her soaked tank top and pajama shorts, shimmying them down her wet legs. The two forlorn mugs of coffee started to shake with her motions. Pen picked them up and moved them haphazardly to the kitchen counter.

“You want it… here?” Lucy asked, suddenly shy as she sat naked on her dining table. He caressed her legs, from her ankles up to her thighs. A dark laugh emanated from his chest — a sound that tugged at her lower belly.

Yep, he does, she thought. This is happening.

She leaned back, propping herself up on her elbows. The thought occurred to her that this was going to be uncomfortable, but lust yanked the concern right out of her brain.

He laid her back against the table, her breath hitching slightly as warm skin met the cool surface. He stood back, watching as she spread her legs and used the dining chairs as leverage. His jaw twitched slightly as the hint of a smile graced his lips. She felt powerless — vulnerable, laid bare and trembling before him. But she also felt powerful, as he looked at her with such reverence that one would reserve for a goddess.

Pen leaned over her and pressed his lips to hers before moving down, planting kisses down her cheek, to her jaw, her neck, and further. Each motion was a tender press of the lips, void of the savagery he presented her the last time. He massaged her breasts as he ran his tongue over her nipples, only just grazing them with his teeth — enough for her gasp and arch her back slightly.

He continued down the path, his hands on her body, following the trail left by his wet kisses until they found her waist. He squeezed her so gently, it was hard for her to believe that his hands were touching her. She started to squirm as he brought his tongue out along the journey, swirling lazy patterns at the base of every kiss. Just when she thought he was going to reach her cl*t, he pivoted, kissing her inner thighs instead. He massaged her hips while he slowly kneeled before her.

“You are soaking wet,” he whispered, lust-filled eyes taking in the sight of her.

She inhaled sharply as she felt his warm breath on her entrance. He laid light kisses against her lower lips, moving slightly up to her cl*t. He flicked the sensitive nub with his tongue, and Lucy let out a moan as he started to take it in, pressing it between his lips and lapping it with his tongue. He nipped and sucked, drawing out shivers that ran down her body. She bucked against him, which only drove him harder against the sensitive bud.

He held her by the thighs, keeping her in place as she squirmed uncontrollably at each sensation. His tongue explored more of her lips, lapping up her juices in wet kisses. Her breaths came in ragged. She reached for his hair, grabbing a handful of the stiffly styled peaks. He responded by squeezing her thighs and groaning into her puss*, vibrating against her.

As he took his attentions back to her cl*t, his fingers stroked the outside of her puss*, massaging the lips and teasing entry. With a smooth glide, his thick fingers came home, pushing against her walls. Pen looked up, meeting her gaze and watching her reaction with a devilish glint in his eyes as he proceeded to thrust his fingers harder and deeper into her. Lucy moaned with reckless abandon. Her hands flew out to the edges of the table. The gray light spilled in through gaps between the blinds, as she started to see stars reflected in his deep blue eyes.

As she came down from her climax, Pen released her from the warmth of his mouth and hands, leaning back over her to plant a tender kiss on her lips. She tasted herself on him, her lips quivering as he explored her mouth with his tongue.

“Bedroom,” he said, his voice husky with need. “I’ll carry you.”

She nodded dutifully, and he swept her up in his arms, releasing her from the pedestal upon which he’d worshipped her. A half-dazed Lucy noticed that Pen was still fully clothed, save the armor. That was remedied quickly as they reached her bedroom and he laid her down on the mattress.

Lucy watched him undress, biting her lip at the shameless show of Pen’s muscular physique. Here, in the privacy of her own home, there was no need to deny that she loved his body. Every inch of him, scars and all, was worthy of being seen and felt. As she eyed the veins on his shaft, she thought — selfishly — that it was all for her. She licked her lips. She expected to get to her knees, but he motioned for her to turn around.

An excited tingle ran through her body. He couldn’t know, but this was her favorite position. She lined herself up with the edge of the bed and rose up on her forearms and knees. She arched her back so he could get a full view of her from behind.

She heard a sharp intake of breath and a satisfied groan. “Look at you…”

Pen leaned over her, encasing her between the bed and his muscular form. He ran a hand up her thigh and teased her entrance with his co*ck, eliciting a soft, simpering sound from her lips. He placed bruising kisses down her back and massaged her breasts, her waist, back down to her ass as he retreated to the edge of the bed. She glanced at him over the back of her shoulder and watched his reaction as he spread her slick on his co*ck, an erotic smile on his face that matched hers.

“Ready for me?” he asked, meeting her gaze.

She nodded, eyeing the sheen of her own juices on his co*ck. He aligned their hips and pressed his tip past her folds. She felt a natural wave of anxiety come with the sensation of his thickness pushing against her walls, spreading her wider. She gripped the sheets and gritted her teeth through as he pressed deeper, ever so slowly.

“Breathe,” he coaxed her. She could hear the quiver in his voice, like it took all of his dwindling senses not to pound into her right then and there.

She inhaled slowly and exhaled, willing herself to relax for him. As he filled her completely, hitting the end of her depth, their satisfied moans chorused together.

“Good girl,” Pen sighed.

His fingers clutched her ass as he took control. He slid his co*ck back from her and pushed it back in, slowly at first, while he held her firmly. She was forced to move at his pace, and she moaned in both excitement and frustration. He continued this way, sinking into her soaking depths with an intoxicating rhythm. Her eyes were forward, facing her wall, but she could picture the way he smiled and his half-closed eyes every time he pushed into her. As the sensation grew easier to take, and his co*ck was covered in her slick, Lucy grew more restless with the slow motion.

“Pen, please…”

She curved her back more and and pushed against him the next time he thrusted forward. A raw, animalistic sound erupted from him. Without words, he took the hint with a devious chuckle. He picked up the pace, pushing hard against her while she ground back. The wet slapping of flesh mingled with her increasingly wild moans, and all of it was softened by the incessant drumming of rain outside.

Her knuckles turned as white as her sheets. She buried her face in the mattress, muffling the sounds of her own pleasure. Soon, she screamed her org*sm, coming hard. He continued to pound his co*ck into her, spurred on by her cries and trembling body. Her legs wobbled as he held her in place, his rhythm building up to his own apex. She felt his co*ck twitch, pushing against her already sensitive walls. She shut her eyes tight, sobbing in the pain and pleasure, begging for him to come inside her. At last, his pace staggered and broke, a shuddering moan ripping through his body as heat flooded her aching puss*.

Lucy was grateful for Pen’s assistance in cleaning up. Her back ached, and her thighs were ready to protest before she even started their adventure for the day.

As they got dressed, Lucy found herself smiling at him. He’d been quite tender in the aftermath of their tryst, which was something she wasn’t betting on. He bore the mark of a strong fighter easily enough, but a caring lover?

“Something funny?” Pen asked, catching her gaze as he slipped on his tracksuit.

She shook her head. “Thinking about how thoughtful you can be, when you wanna be.”

“Ouch, Skinny. You’re calling me thoughtful? It’s like you don’t even know me!” He chuckled, shooting her his signature, unserious smile.

“You’re right! You’re only thoughtful about yourself.”

She started heading toward the opposite end of the house, stretching her back a bit.

I’m gonna feel this tomorrow, she thought.

“What do you want for breakfast?” Lucy asked over her shoulder. “You do want to eat before we go, right? You and your protein…”

“I don’t want you to feel obligated,” he said, following her to the little collection of cabinets and a stove that she called a kitchen. “I did have a protein shake this morning.”

“It’s no trouble. I can just whip up a couple of omelets, if you like that sorta thing. You can do your part by cleaning my table.”

They shared a shameful giggle at what they’d done there moments ago. He wiped down the surface of the dining table and even went so far as to make more coffee and reopen her blinds, letting the cool gray light back into the space. Seeing him do small, household tasks gave her a strange little flutter in her chest. The feeling didn’t last long.

Cut it out, she told herself. Butterflies are not allowed.

She busied herself with bustling about the kitchen. Soon, the smell of breakfast pervaded her small home, leaving their satisfied smiles and sideways glances as the only evidence of their previous activities.

“I can’t believe it’s almost the new year,” Lucy said, taking her seat adjacent to him. “Do you have any special Winter Solstice activities you like to perform? I know some people go buy new curtains, new clothes, all of that…”

Pen arched an eyebrow. “Small talk, Skinny?”

“No. I’m genuinely curious.”

“Well, I don’t have any special activities, but then again, everything I do is special.” He took a bite of his omelet. “I don’t make any resolutions, either. What am I gonna wish for? More muscles? I’m already working on that every day.”

“Man, you really are a meathead.” She snickered at the look on his face. “Speaking of resolutions, I have a meeting at City Hall tomorrow. Matilda has some sort of idea about how to boost the morale around here.”

“I keep telling her that the morale would be great if she’d just let me put together a mud wrestling pit. We already have a sparring ring. It’s not that far off. Just make another one! Lower to the ground and dirtier.”

“Nothing’s stopping you from rolling around in the mud right now. I’m sure there’s plenty of it outside.” She gestured with her fork toward the window, indicating the rainfall over Sandrock.

“It’s gotta be a spectacle, Skinny.”

“Oh, you’re saying you’re not a spectacle by yourself?” She tutted. “Disappointing lapse in your narcissism.”

Pen’s eyes widened. “You — you got me! I totally am.” He made a dramatic display of punching his palm. “How could I forget?”

It was almost noon when they wrapped up the actual, food-based breakfast, but it was hard to tell without checking a clock. It felt like a perpetual morning, with how gray the skies were and how comfortable Lucy felt. But the moment could not last. Work needed to be done.

She geared up and headed off with Pen on the back of Waddles. The rain let up, almost mist-like now, as they ventured toward the rockyenaroll habitat. As he slid his hands over her waist, she was reminded of a more frightening, tense time when she wasn’t sure why he had such an effect on her. Now, it was scary for a different reason. It bordered on the territory of comfortable.

After hours of mining and fighting, rain-drenched sweat, and snarky jokes, Lucy and Pen returned to her workshop. The sky was quickly darkening, and the rain started to pick up again.

“Thanks for today,” she said, gesturing to the heavily laden cart of raw materials. “I’ll catch you at the Winter Solstice festival?”

“Possibly, if I make it back in time.”

She blinked. “Make it back?”

“I have a long patrol ahead, now that the bridge is open again.” He nodded toward the Shonash Canyon. “I should be back on the day of the festivities, but you never know. If I run into a certain criminal out there, I might just take my time dishing out justice...”

Lucy felt a little tug in her chest, not fully understanding the feeling. “When do you leave?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Oh.” She swallowed. Her own voice deceived her internal confusion. Like a puppet master pulling the strings on her lips, she willed herself to smile. “I’d tell you to stay safe, but who do I think I’m talking to?”

“Exactly. You gotta have some faith in ol’ Pen. I’ll be fine. I do this all the time!”

“I guess it’s a good thing that I won’t see you for a few days.” At the look on his face, she chuckled. “It’ll save me a trip to the chiropractor.”

Her internal tension shattered as they shared one more laugh. He stooped down and gave her a hug, followed by a kiss that lasted a little longer, partially because she captured his lips again as he pulled back.

“I’ll see ya later, Lucy.”

“See ya…”

Alone at her workshop, Lucy unloaded the materials they gathered. She continuously wiped the rain from her forehead and whipped her hair around to reduce the moisture pooling on her shoulder. All the while, she felt a chill that had nothing to do with the weather.

A hollow feeling that promised a slow week ahead, framed with the maybes and maybe-nots that swam around her head. Maybe Pen would get back early. Maybe he would want to go to the festival. Maybe he would want to dance… with Lucy. Could she even picture that? Was it too much? Yes, it was. It was a childish image, scrawled by her immature desire for this man’s attention.

With a heavy sigh, Lucy wrapped up and went inside. She shuddered against the warmth as her body acclimated to the change in scenery. Goosebumps spread across her skin as she dried off.

“I gotta get my sh*t together,” she muttered to the emptiness.

Chapter 18: Solstice

Chapter Text

Nia,

I went for it. Let’s just say things happened. A couple of times. I’ll tell you more if you ever come to visit, but I’m definitely not giving away all the juicy details in a letter that could get lost in the mail (or worse, be read by accident by my Ma).

We’re not in a relationship. We simply like to spend time together, and we’re leaving it at that. It’s refreshing, you know? I feel like… he sees me for who I am, and he has such a fascinating mind. Yes, I’m talking about a guy I called an ass and a ‘cartoon super hero.’

I’m really excited for the Winter Solstice Festival here. Even though it’s a small town, they do it big! There’s a few speeches, a big barbecue, and dancing (line AND formal) leading up to the fireworks. I commissioned a dress from the local tailor, Vivi, who’s basically the town grandma. I love her! She’s so sweet and hilarious. The other day, she told me she always wanted to play matchmaker for the town. Guess who she tried to make me dance with when I went to my first party here? … Hahaha.

Your friend forever,

Lucy

Lucy had plenty of work to keep her busy leading up to the festival, but her thoughts were on anything but her work. Her hands gestured for her to “make some marble bricks,” but something in her chest said “speaking of flat surfaces, remember that time on the dining table?” This was dangerous. She was at a very real risk of hurting herself from being distracted.

When Grace crept up to the border of her workshop about halfway through the week, Lucy was cursing at herself under her breath.

“Knock knock,” Grace said, tapping her knuckles on the fence. “You alright?”

Lucy looked up from the mess on the assembly station, her scowl melting away. “Hey! Yep, just the usual. I’m having the worst time on this kiosk.”

“It looks pretty great so far, actually. Is that… marble?”

“Cracked marble. I f*cked it up, again. Why does Catori even need marble for this? Anyway, please distract me. You out foraging? I think Fang beat you to the oregano...”

Grace chuckled. “A little foraging, but I also wanted to talk to you about Owen’s latest idea. Wanted to wait for you to stop by the saloon, but I figured — I’m in the area, so I’d come see you for a change.”

She went on to explain an idea for an insulated backpack to carry food, allowing for deliveries to the remote villages in the greater city-state of Sandrock. As she explained the usefulness of such an item, she pulled out a diagram that she designed herself.

“Damn, I didn’t know you were a talented designer, too.” Lucy pored over the instructions with an impressed smile. “Count me in.”

“You’re the best, Lucy! Take your time on it. Dan-bi has already volunteered to do the inaugural runs.”

The builder stowed away the diagram in her workstation and returned to the fence with a curious glance at Grace. “Say, do those villagers ever come into Sandrock proper?”

“Sometimes. Why?”

“Just curious.” She shrugged. “I got stuck on a cliff a while back, and someone helped me out. They sounded local, but not like anybody here. I guess it was someone from one of these villages.”

“Ah, is that so?” Grace co*cked her head to the side. “You didn’t ask them?”

“Didn’t get a chance. I didn’t get to see them, either…”

She explained her little story to Grace, who listened with a wry smile.

“Ah, you’ll have to pass this story on to Owen,” the waitress said, putting her hands on her hips. “The Rescue of the Potato Thrower, or something like that. I’m sure he’d come up with a great title.”

“It’s not a crazy story, though, right?”

Grace shrugged. “You’ve heard his legend of the ghost that lives near the salvage yard.” Her eyes went wide. “No, I didn’t mean you were rescued by a ghost. Just sayin’ it’s not that far fetched.”

Lucy snickered. “Maybe I’ll get to properly thank them one day. In the meantime, I’ll get to work on this backpack and let you know when it’s ready. I love the idea, and I’m certain the villagers will appreciate it.”

That afternoon, Lucy went into town. The sun shone cheerfully and warmer than usual, hinting at the oncoming spring and the new year. The bright, yet sand dusted buildings greeted her on her way up, as she thought about how familiar she’d already become in less than a year here. Despite the quiet brought on by the distinct lack of Pen shouting at her down the street, it seemed to be livelier than usual. Tourists were abundant this week.

Just up ahead, she spotted Unsuur setting off on a speedy trot across Martle Square. She raised an eyebrow. Normally, Justice was the one in a hurry. She watched the aspiring deputy haul ass in his own special way, walking with far-reaching strides. His face was serene, but his body was not. He clutched an envelope in one hand, crinkled heavily from his firm grasp. He disappeared over the hill just as Lucy made it to the top. She figured he was in a rush to get back to the Civil Corps office.

As Lucy pulled out her advertisem*nt to pin to the bulletin board, quick and loud footsteps hammered into the square from somewhere behind her. Mi-an was coming in hot, hair flying and goggles threatening to fall off her head.

“Mi-an, is everything—”

“—Can’t talk, gotta run!” She threw a hasty wave in Lucy’s general direction as she zoomed by.

“—okay…?”

Lucy thought she heard her call Unsuur’s name in the distance. Her curiosity piqued, she wrapped up her post quickly and peeked over the hilltop to see if she was headed to the Civil Corps. Unfortunately, Arvio called to her.

“Lovely to see ya today, Lucy!” Arvio called cheerfully. “I’ve got some amaaazing discounts just for you!”

Lucy frowned at the price tag next to the salt display. “Y’know, Arvio, you advertise discounts every day, but the actual cost never changes. At that point, it’s just the regular price.”

He let out a high pitched laugh and scratched his head. “What ever do you mean, dear Lucy?! Of course it’s a discount. All my wares are a bargain!”

She couldn’t knock the hustle, at least not too much. She made a polite show of examining the wares. A special collection of solstice-themed items were on display, including a winter heart knot. In addition to the traditional red cord tied into a basket-weave styled heart, a silver ribbon was added into the mix, and the whole item was painted with flecks of white to make it look snowy.

“Ah, I see you have your eye on the special edition heart knot,” Arvio said, beaming. “Isn’t it wonderful? Imagine this: you, dancing the night away in your immaculate ball gown. Your sweetheart-to-be, approaching you from across the dancefloor…”

Against her better judgment, she did imagine it, for a little bit. She could almost feel the warmth from the bonfire in the air. She stepped forward into the night, with the slower music playing on the speakers by the stage. She approached… who was it in her imagination? Of course, she only had one answer: Pen. What would he even look like in a suit?

Stop it, she told herself.

Lucy cleared her throat. “Right. I have no sweetheart-to-be. It’s a nice image, though.”

Arvio looked crestfallen. “Now, Lucy, don’t you worry. There’s someone out there for you!”

“I’m not worried, Arvio. If I catch wind of any budding lovebirds out there, I’ll let them know you got an extra shiny heart knot for ‘em.”

The next day, she found that she couldn’t be safe enough from thoughts of Pen, even when she visited Tailor Made to pick up her dress. Vivi had all her best formalwear on display outside, spilling into the front area of her home. Some tourists crowded the display racks on the porch, which boasted colorful numbers in Vivi’s style. Little triangle motifs adorned the borders of many of the pieces.

Jasmine sat in the comfortable chair on the porch, a drawing pad and some crayons at her disposal.

“Whatcha drawing, Jasmine?” Lucy asked, leaning over the fence as she waited for tourists to clear the area.

“Uncle Pen.” Jasmine turned the art pad to show Lucy a violent array of blue, yellow, and orange. A spiky artichoke-looking thing was in the center.

“That’s… a wonderful drawing.” She beamed at the child’s imagination. “You gotta show him when he comes back in town!”

“Oh, I will! He loves my drawings of him!” She lowered her voice, her eyes glinting with mischief. “Y’know, I have a little secret weapon when Uncle Pen babysits me. I hand him a mirror. Just a little one. Then he’s so busy looking at himself, I can go play and come back before he even notices!”

“I didn’t know Pen babysat you.” The builder raised her eyebrows. That man was full of surprises.

“Don’t tell him I told you,” Jasmine said quickly, eyes big.

“It’ll be our little secret,” Lucy said, putting a finger to her lips.

Inside, Vivi was working on a dress with a mermaid silhouette. Lucy eyed it with interest, though she knew she could never make it work.

“Mornin’ Lucy! Come on now, child, let me make sure this fits you.” She led the builder to the back room, which was really her bedroom covered in scraps of cloth. Vivi patted a black dress on a hanger by the door. “Go on and get changed. Come out when you’re ready.”

Moments later, Lucy emerged, smiling from ear to ear. The black gown was sleeveless, high necked, and had a tasteful split down the skirt. When Vivi turned around and saw her, she put her hands over her mouth as gave her a heartfelt smile.

“My, my. Look at you. You never woulda known what you were workin’ with under all that sand, huffin’ and puffin’ all day.”

“This is all you, Viv!” Lucy ran her hands over the bodice of the dress, feeling the soft, silky material beneath her fingertips. “I almost don’t wanna take it off, but I do have to get back to work…”

She let Vivi fuss over her for a few minutes, ensuring that the dress was tapered to her exact vision. When she stepped back, she put her hands on her hips. “Well, I do some fine work, if I may say so myself. You be careful at the function this weekend, Lucy. Don’t trip over all the jaws you’ll be droppin’ to the floor.”

Saturday came, heralded by massive snow sculptures and “Winter Solstice” banners spread across town. Fresh snow dusted the tops of the buildings. Throughout the early afternoon, Owen, the ranch family, Heidi, and Hugo put together the grills out by the stage. Matilda oversaw the final arrangements, ensuring the bonfire was placed far enough away from the other fires. The stores of charcoal, lighter fluid, seasoning, and — of course — items to be grilled were checked and double checked.

By the time Lucy set down the small amount of work she managed to squeeze in for the day, a large crowd already gathered by the stage. Tourists were in full swing, many of them opting to spend a winter in “the middle of nowhere.”

Matilda and Owen were up front and center, with the minister giving an initial sermon with wishes for the forthcoming year. Owen followed up by a dramatized summary of the year’s events.

The more he spoke, the more Lucy was enveloped in a blend of embarrassment and affection. The year leading up to the builders’ arrivals was apparently uneventful. Nothing was built that was particularly innovative. The oasis was as dry as it was now. Trudy left for her mission in the desert. Prospects were, in retrospect, looking drab at best. No wonder why Mi-an and Lucy’s appearance in Sandrock seemed to kick up a storm of sorts.

This year’s boons were a long list of the builders’ accomplishments and bravery. As Owen reviewed the events of Operation De-Geeglate, she noticed that he softened the story a bit. He made brief eye contact with her as he told the tale, and he distinctly avoided using overly violent or dismissive language. He was a man of taste and tact.

The barbecue kicked off with an intoxicating blend of aromas. Lucy took her spot at her designated grill, tied her apron herself, and cracked her knuckles. She diced up steaks into cubes and skewered them, lacing chopped vegetables in between. Someone was using honey in their seasoning blend, as the sweetness drifted over on the wind. Hers was a smoky, flavorful punch of garlic and chilis. The snow just beneath the grills melted away, and the foot traffic carved tracks into the ground as Sandrockers made their rounds between stations.

Justice approached her station at some point in the day, a nervous smile on his face. After he ordered, the sound of sizzling kicked up between them. He lowered his voice, barely audible above the grill. “Hey, uh, Lucy… You seen Heidi around?”

“She should be here somewhere.” She did a quick scan over his shoulder, but the crowd was sizeable. “I think I saw her at Owen’s station a second ago.”

“Right, right.” He fidgeted with his uniform jacket. “I just gotta give her somethin’… No big deal. Nothin’ to see here.”

“You saying that makes it sound like it’s a big deal.” She rotated the barbecue skewers, tongues of flame licking up between the gaps. “Is it her birthday?”

“No.” Justice’s eyes darted from left to right. “Alright, I’ma show you, but only ‘cause I know you won’t say anything.”

He unzipped his jacket slightly and pulled a small, shining object from an inner pocket. The red rope was interlaced with silver ribbon. It was one of Arvio’s special edition heart knots. He hid it again quickly and zipped his jacket back up.

Lucy disguised the change in her expression by appearing to be interested in the status of the grilled steak. Her grin could be mistaken for a happy chef, satisfied with the sear.

Under her breath, she said, “I knew you were into her!”

“Yeah.” Justice hid his boyish excitement by passing a hand over his goatee. “Wish me luck, partner.”

“You don’t need it, but I’ll wish it anyway.” She nodded with a coy smile, the coyness possibly resulting from some revealing conversations with the Fleeting Youth Tea Society. He had nothing to worry about.

She didn’t get a chance to see the outcome of Justice’s romantic endeavors, as her station was soon crowded by a handful of tourists, Rocky, Cooper, and Hugo. Cooper was in the middle of telling the tourists about the dangers of rutabagas, nearly drowning out the upbeat music playing on the speakers from the stage.

As the afternoon wore on, Lucy found herself looking for a certain someone. If Pen were to arrive, no doubt she could see him from far away. Even in the crowd, he’s stand out with his cape and gaudy colors, a firework in the snowy landscape. Before she knew it, the sun started to lower in the sky, and he still had not arrived.

Maybe he’ll make it in time for the dance, she thought.

She kicked herself for wishing that. She wasn’t supposed to be looking for him or expecting him. She would dance with whoever she wanted to that night, and if he happened to be there, then it’d be a happy coincidence. That was the right way to feel.

“Alright y’all,” Matilda said, her voice coming in with a metallic effect over the microphone. “Now’s the time for our lil’ siesta. The barbecue’s gonna be put away, and any leftovers will be available for munchin’ during this evening’s hoe-down. Y’all go on and go home, take a lil’ nap, and get ready to dance the year away.”

Many attendees were grateful for the chance to take advantage of the food coma. Nearly everyone, even the kids, had eaten a minimum of two platefuls of barbecued meat, fish, potatoes, and tomatoes. Lucy had snacked on her own cooking while in between crowds, but she wasn’t feeling as sleepy as everyone else. Instead of heading home right away, she helped Owen and Grace with scrubbing down the grills while they were still hot. The music played while they worked, and Lucy hummed along with the melody.

“Did you guys see the special edition heart knots?” she asked at one point. “From Arvio’s shop. I didn’t know this was a romantically inclined holiday for you guys.”

Grace snickered. “I wouldn’t put it past him to have a style for every season, but that is kinda cute.”

“You don’t find the solstice romantic?” Owen asked, arching an eyebrow as he scrubbed some grills with steel wool. “At midnight, people might kiss, or they might confess their feelings for one another so they start the new year together. Some think it’s a sign of good fortune for the relationship. Out with the old, in with the new. New chapters, new seasons, all of that good stuff. Hey, I should add that to my story nights.”

“You should,” Lucy said, nodding. “Back home, it’s just about the food. It’s an excuse for a big party, but most people eat and go home. That’s it.”

As the work slowed down, Owen shooed Lucy away. “Go on, get ready for the night.”

“I—I wanted to help,” she said, pouting. “You still have to bring out the tables for the food and clear the snow from the area…”

“You helped plenty. Zeke and Rocky are on their way to do all that. Besides, didn’t you tell me you got a new dress just for the occasion? Can’t be covered in dirty snow and charcoal stains when you put that on.”

Grace peered around him, elbow height while she stooped over a crate. “Oooh. So did I! You know, the solstice is a great time to wear your newest wardrobe acquisition, according to this astrology magazine I subscribe to…”

Begrudgingly, Lucy marched back home. She checked her mailbox on her way in. Even though the flag wasn’t lifted, she had some sudden hope that there’d be something there for her. But the inside was cool, hollow, and void of any words.

When she passed through her front door, she was greeted by the robot couch, which tugged at her heart more than usual. She leaned against the wall, staring at it for a few seconds, while she sank into images of the fabled afternoon in Paradise Lost. The memory of his voice, full of desire, tickled the back of her neck.

Now that I’ve felt our hearts rage together…

She swallowed hard and willed herself to move into the next room to undress and wash up.

You are… truly divine.

Looking down at her naked body as she dried herself off, she thought back to the way he looked at her from the vantage point of her legs, pupils dilated and a soft, wicked smirk on his lips. She shivered.

Look at me.

Dressed in her black gown, she peered at herself in the mirror. The high neck and solid draping around the chest to effectively hide the last, fading hints of Pen’s touch. She traced the fabric down to her hips and adjusted the skirt. The hem of the dress had Vivi’s signature triangle motif in a muted gray, an elegant and subtle detail.

To finish the look, she put on silver earrings and a matching necklace that she never wore. Her Ma had gifted it to her one solstice, some years ago, but she never had an occasion to wear it until now. She wasn’t one to buy into the same astrological superstitions as Grace, but it didn’t hurt to feel her best tonight.

Evening came. The snow had all gone from the festival area, and a clearing was made for the festivities by the time that people started gathering again. Periwinkle ribbons melted into a glistening indigo silk. The moon shone milky white with pale satin blues, backed by the millions of stars in the heavens. The Winter Solstice bonfire blazed like a fiery portal to summer.

Lucy approached the party, the hem of her dress flapping with each step, just high enough from the ground to be saved from snow. She rubbed her arms and shoulders, thinking about turning around and grabbing a coat, but she figured she’d warm up — and calm her nerves — with a glass of yakmel milk. Owen and Grace were serving up a special hot version this evening, for those who wanted to start off with a cozy beverage. Grace wore a low cut gown with Vivi’s signature triangle motif, while Owen had on navy silk shirt that hugged his muscles in all the right places.

“Lucy, you look beautiful!” Grace said, grinning. “Doesn’t she, Owen?”

“Y—yeah! You look — wow!” Owen chuckled and scratched the back of his hair.

The builder turned a light shade of pink. “Thank you guys,” she said in her best attempt at sounding confident. “Right back at you, looking all hot!”

The food table was piled high with leftover barbecue turned into finger food: sliders, cubed potatoes on sticks, and miniature steak skewers. “I have no idea how you guys are able to turn all this around so quickly.”

“We did most of the work earlier on the grills,” Owen said, shrugging. “You do this enough times, you get pretty good with it.”

Lucy grabbed a mug of hot yakmel milk and took a tentative swig. The temperature was just right for steady sipping. She excused herself to allow the saloon pair to cater to other guests. She walked the perimeter and scanned the crowd, trying to decide who she’d mingle with first. Pablo, Amirah, and Heidi had formed a tight fortress of locked arms and giggles. As Lucy passed by, not wanting to interrupt their conversation, they called her over.

“Darling, this dress is giving,” Pablo nodded approvingly. He was in a gorgeous teal outfit with gold embellishments and a sheer, silky scarf that shone in the moonlight. “Those toned builder arms, that tasteful-but-kinda-slu*tty leg. Yes! I approve.” He raised his drink and clinked it with hers.

Lucy snickered and returned the compliment to each of them. They were truly a sight to behold. Amirah had on a reddish clay colored dress, fitted at the bust and waist, free flowing from the hip below. Her hair was styled in an updo, showing off textured glass earrings. Heidi was wearing the mermaid silhouette gown that Vivi had been fussing over the other day. Its strapless bodice was fitted with an intricate lace overlay, something new that must’ve been added since Lucy saw it last.

“Come and weigh in on this,” Pablo said quietly, gesturing for the builder to come into their huddle. “We’re making bets on who’s gonna hook up tonight.”

Amirah giggled. “Pablo, we were not. You wanted to make bets. I wanted to enjoy the bonfire.”

“Don’t be shy, honey. You really wanna go get your man. It’s not like Catori’s gonna try to throw herself on him again.” Pablo shot Lucy a smirk at the inquisitive look on her face. “He shut her down quick last year.”

Lucy’s mouth fell open in surprise. “She didn’t.”

“She did.” Pablo sipped his drink, reveling in the shock. “As a rebound, I heard she hooked up with Pen...”

Lucy’s chest tightened. She blinked hard but said nothing.

“She wouldn’t,” said Heidi in her stead.

“She would.”

All of a sudden, the builder’s yakmel milk felt too spicy and cold at the same time. She shivered, staring at the frothy surface while trying to find a way to engage in this conversation. Unfortunately, the unbidden image of Catori and Pen locking lips — and other body parts — put a bitter taste in her mouth that had nothing to do with her drink. She excused herself from the gossiping crew, mumbling something about going to find Mi-an.

One would never guess that Sandrock was as harsh of an environment as it was, based on the crowd that night. Everyone was dressed beautifully, multicolored shades of revelry painted across the sand. Upbeat, line dancing music began to play. Locals and tourists alike started gathering on the floor to ring in the first phase of the evening’s hoe-down.

Lucy spotted Mi-an standing with Unsuur a good distance from the bonfire. The two of them glanced at each other on occasion, seemingly engaged in some sort of awkward, sparsely-worded conversation. Mi-an was blushing so hard, Lucy could see it from where she stood. She was free of her goggles for just this one night, and her hair was curled into shining black spirals. Unsuur was in still in his Civil Corps uniform.

Lucy didn’t need much more information to know that she’d be interrupting something if she were to head over there. She wheeled around and took herself to the dancefloor, as the warm buzz started flooding down to her toes.

f*ck it, she thought. I’m dancing.

She didn’t know their dances, but she followed along from the back row. Owen was up front, and he had Amirah’s hand in his. The latter looked rather uncomfortable, but she humored the joyous look on his face. From the Church of Light to the salvage yard crew, to the tourists and everyone in between, there were a few dozen folks on the floor. The warmth of the evening kicked up, as the fervor of dancing melded with the yakmel milk to raise the temperature immediately over the dancefloor. Lucy’s drink sloshed on occasion, as she held onto it and sipped on occasion, a distant smile on her lips.

It had been so long since she danced like this, carefree and unafraid of what others thought. She rocked her hips to the rhythm and picked up the moves of the first line dance right before it was time to get lost in the second one, then the third one. A film of sweat formed on her brow, and a lock of hair fell loose over her face. Over an hour passed like this, and she only took a break to grab another drink.

Eventually, slower music began to play. The more intimate part of the evening had arrived: slow dancing. Still warm in the cheeks, Lucy felt a cold flush in her chest. Pen still had not come, and the gentle strum of acoustic guitar was a ringing reminder of that absence.

Established couples started to pull together, as Lucy and other singles drifted to the perimeter of the dancefloor. Feeling out of place, she found herself taking a seat next to Qi — the only other person who looked as uncomfortable as she felt.

“Ah, Builder,” he said, regarding her with a look of vague curiosity. “Have you also come to pressure me into engaging in the frivolity?”

“Nope. Just here to sit.” She pulled her drink close to her chest.

“Good choice. I find this seat suitable for observing the merriment while not necessarily partaking in it myself, yet. I also find the cross breeze agreeable.”

“I didn’t think you’d be looking to revel so soon after how miserable you looked a couple weeks ago after the bridge reopening.”

Heidi and Justice were getting on the dancefloor, eyes shining with the tenderness of a blooming romance. Lucy watched them, a small swell in her heart, followed by a little glum downpour of loneliness.

“Oh…” A little color rose on Qi’s face as he reached to his side for his own beverage. “I came for social research. When I attended the post-ceremony celebration for the Shonash Canyon Bridge, I did not engage in the consumption of alcohol. I calculated my enjoyment rate to be abysmally low, that is — I enjoyed less than ten percent of the conversations in which I engaged. That is the control. Now, I am taking the next step of experimentation: socialization under the effects of inebriation.”

Lucy nodded slowly. “And… you are doing all of this just because of our brief conversation some months ago?”

“No. I have also had conversations with Grace about this matter.” He took a sip of the yakmel milk, a little frothy mustache lining his upper lip. “In fact, it was she who convinced me to facilitate this experiment. This drink is displeasing. I do not see how some people engage in this on a daily basis.”

“A daily drink could be the sign of trouble,” Lucy offered. “It’s best not to be done as a habit.”

The builder’s gaze drifted over to Catori, who had a tourist in her grasp on the dancefloor. Then, she looked away and caught Grace’s eye, who was indeed looking over at Qi. The two exchanged knowing smiles, and Grace gave her a thumbs up. Lucy mouthed the word “nice” at her, while Qi was busy inspecting his drink.

“Curious,” he said quietly.

“What is?”

“I now find myself curious as to why you’re here — physically, sitting on the outskirts of the concentration of festivities. Your behavioral patterns, particularly this evening, indicate that you enjoy this utterly meaningless self-invocation of body spasms.”

Owen and Amirah got on the dancefloor, finally courageous enough to look each other in the eye in public as they held each other close.

“Meaningless? I disagree, Director,” Lucy said, smirking.

“What is the purpose, then? Do enlighten me.”

“Think of it as cardiovascular activity.”

Qi raised his eyebrows. “Ah. That is beneficial, however I don’t see the point of the music in that equation. Moreover, that does not answer the question as to why you aren’t partaking in this ‘phase’ of the revelry.”

“I don’t have a partner to dance with.”

The crowd swayed. The couples leaning in for little conversations, shared smiles, and doting looks. Lucy felt a cape of chilly air on her back, curving around her shoulders like icy hands. She shivered and took a large swig of yakmel milk. They went back and forth for a while, with Qi pointing out the various dancers who were, in fact, solo. Burgess, for example, was a surprisingly smooth dancer, out on his lonesome.

In the end, Lucy was saved from losing the argument by Grace’s intervention. The fry cook arrived and pulled Qi away for the “next stage” of his “experiment,” which was to actually dance with Grace.

With the third yakmel milk tucked into her bloodstream, Lucy gave in and joined the floating islands of single people who danced on their own. She created a little group between herself, Ernest, Burgess, and Elsie. They twirled around the bonfire, doing a more traditional solstice dance in lieu of all the romance. The bonfire was warm and glowed vibrantly, occasionally crackling in tune with the music.

All the while, she couldn’t help but think about whether or not Pen would show up. When it came time for the fireworks, her hair had become further undone. Her hopes for his arrival were dwindling steadily, like the last few grains of sand in an hourglass.

Midnight struck. Lights exploded in multicolored patterns, followed a second later by the boom of their explosions. Lucy flinched at first, startled by the sound of gunpowder. She hugged herself, letting the warmth of her own hands smooth out the goosebumps across her skin. She reminded herself that she was safe among the Sandrockers, and it was a celebration of things yet to come.

Some pairs of townsfolk kissed to ring in the new year. Rian and Dan-bi pulled each other close. Cooper and Mabel giggled while landing affectionate pecks on each other’s foreheads, noses, and lips. Justice lifted Heidi high and did a little spin with her, while the two laughed.

Lucy giggled to herself at the audacity of them all — to be so joyous and so full of passion on this night, as gunpowder and bonfire smoke rose up in the air to reach the cloudless sky.

She yawned, sleep daring to come to claim her. It was over. The fireworks would go on for a little while longer, but there was no real reason to stay out now. Everyone would be retiring to their homes, or to each other’s homes to finish what they started.

She bid everyone a good night as she passed by them. Many were too drunk to utter a coherent well wish for the new year, but they all smiled at her the same. Eyes half-closed, dreamy looks on their faces. She left the revelry behind and strolled up to her fence, giving Waddles a few friendly pats on the head when he opened a bleary eye to sound of her approaching.

Before she entered her home, she took one more look toward the explosive display in the sky. Red, blue, orange, and white splayed out in sparks, like the colors of Pen’s costume. As she watched the arms of the fireworks arc down, a silhouette caught her eye in the distance. It would’ve been impossible to see, had she not been at the exact angle for a spray of fireworks to light it up.

She screwed up her eyes and looked again. Sure enough, there was a figure seated on the edge of the Grand Mesa, toward the back of it. No one would be able to spot them from the angle of the town. Soon, the figure — and the fireworks — dimmed out into darkness. Perhaps it had been an illusion of some sort, brought on by drink and exhaustion.

Lucy held her breath, waiting for the next sparkler to fly out. When it did, she realized that there really was a person. It wasn’t some trick of starlight and smoke. Her wild, tired thoughts ran to Pen first, but the figure didn’t match his silhouette. They didn’t have his signature spiky hair, and their frame wasn’t as large as his. Actually, it appeared that they were wearing a hat of some sort.

She leaned against the edge of her fence and squinted. She wondered if that was the same person who rescued her from the cliff many months ago. Had he, perhaps, been one of the tourists in town this week? And if he was, what was he doing out there? Maybe he was trying to get a break from it all, staring off into the distance. If that was the case, she definitely understood.

The fireworks were picking up speed now, getting ready for the grand finale. Lucy watched the figure and wondered, selfishly, if they were waiting on someone that night. Someone who didn’t show. It would’ve been nice to not be alone in this loneliness that clawed at her heart. In that vein, she wished she could reach out and let him know, whoever he was, that there was a kindred spirit somewhere in the distance behind him.

The sky lit up with a shower of color, sparkling like diamonds. The silhouette moved his head, watching the spiderweb of lights explode through the sky. Soon, the air was thick with smoke, and the sky went silent. The silhouette disappeared into the canvas of night.

Chapter 19: Disarming Glare

Chapter Text

Lucy shouldered open the kitchen door. The aroma of stewing tomatoes and herbs filled her nostrils and brought a smile to her lips. Grace stood over a large, stainless steel counter. A layer of flour covered the surface, her hands, parts of her apron, and some sections of her hair. She seemed to be mid-argument with a thick, smooth blob of pasta dough.

“Delivery!” the builder announced, brandishing a large soup pot with a plastic-lined bag inside. “Two for one.”

“Oh, hey Lucy! Just in the nick of time. Is that — is that what I think it is?” She patted her hands down on the apron and grabbed a nearby towel to wipe excess flour off. Her bemused smile turned into a cheery beam.

“Soup pot commission here,” Lucy said, setting it down on the island. “And, here’s the insulated bag.”

“You’ve really outdone yourself,” Grace said, inspecting the bag. She reached a hand inside and felt the lining. “This will do perfectly.”

“Let me know how it goes.”

Grace set the bag down and leaned against the counter, one hand on her hip. “Hey, by the way, you looked kinda sad the other night. I didn’t wanna press you on it. Just wanted to let you know that I’m here for you if you ever need.”

“Oh — during Winter Solstice?” Color rose to Lucy’s cheeks as her mind took her back to the fireworks, the silhouette, and the strange, hollow feeling of loneliness as she watched for Pen’s arrival that never happened. “I was just… thinking a lot.”

“Mm, my bullsh*t meter isn’t going off this time.” The waitress gave her a coy smile.

The builder thought about it for a moment, and then she shrugged. What could it hurt? Grace seemed to be more in tune with people’s emotions than Qi was, but she wasn’t as gossip-prone as Pablo or Heidi were.

“I was hoping someone would show up,” she said slowly, “but they didn’t. That’s all. No big deal.”

“I wasn’t aware you were dating anyone.” Grace arched an eyebrow. “My first bet would’ve been Owen, to be honest. You guys seemed to have a vibe for a while.”

“Hah. Did we? I had a crush on him when I first got here.” Lucy shrugged. “But, no, I’m not dating anyone. That’s why it’s not a big deal.”

“If you say so.”

Lucy felt like she was an ant under a microscope. She knew that there was no risk of gossip with her, but Grace had a knack for looking right through people, and it made her feel a lot less clothed than she really was.

She cleared her throat. “What about you and Qi? This little social experiment that you got him on? And the dancing…”

“Oh! That’s me trying to prove a point.” Grace smirked. “Our dear ‘Director’ was trying to say that human contact is an obstacle to his more important pursuits. I got him to make a bet with me that socializing can be good for him. He seemed to enjoy it, until the dance. He got rather sweaty.”

Lucy giggled. “Grace, have you seen yourself? I imagine it was for certain reasons that he wouldn’t wanna put in his research notes. When you put his hands on your waist, I thought he was going to blow a gasket.”

“He doesn’t think of me that way, believe me,” Grace said, a little wistfulness in her voice.

The builder shot her with her own version of a piercing look, which didn’t feel as successful. In the end, she decided to take her leave and let Grace get back to work.

Back in the bar area, Owen looked up and shot Lucy a smile as she emerged. “Thinkin’ about stayin’ for lunch?”

Lucy considered it for a moment. “I am hungry. Maybe I should—”

The front door opened, and daylight spilled in. Lucy’s brows knitted together as she assessed the silhouette of the newcomer.

Owen cleared his throat, as if a laugh was about to bubble up through his lips. “Afternoon, Pen. Dining in?”

Lucy understood now. Her heart bounced like a ping pong ball across her chest. Pen was back in town, and this was the first time she saw him in town since things escalated between them.

“Indeed,” Pen said. “I shall take my usual seat. Ah — Skinny Arms! It’s your lucky day.” He gestured with a bundle of papers in his arms. “Why don’t you join ol’ Pen for some righteous refreshment?”

“Sure.” She said, finding her cheeks hot and her eyes unwilling to meet his gaze.

Owen’s lip curled in a mischievous smirk as he sat them down for their meal.

“Well, you’re in luck! As a part of a very new Blue Moon marketing campaign, today, we’re offering a couple’s discount of 50% off and a commemorative gift after your meal!”

Lucy screwed up her face in confusion and looked around the parlor for evidence of this promotional item.

“Dang, y’all, nice one! I didn’t know you two were a thing,” he continued awkwardly. He definitely knew they were a thing — though the nature of the thing had yet to be fully defined by either party, and he knew that, too. “… Nice.”

Lucy frowned, the muscles in her neck joining in the tension on her face. “Um… Owen, why are you being weird? Is this really only available to couples?”

“Uh, yeah? Made obvious by the fact that the name of the activity is ‘couple’s discount...’” He chuckled and looked at Pen. “So, you two a couple or not?”

The Protector’s eyes lit up with a devious flicker. “I’ll let Skinny Arms answer that.” He leaned back in his seat and, in doing so, playfully kicked her foot under the table.

Lucy’s mouth went dry. “Yeah — no.” Her consciousness lifted from her body. “We’re not a couple.”

She looked right at Pen to see how he reacted to her statement, but he made no discernable change in his expression. His leg was also still invading her space.

“Alright, whatever, you two,” Owen said, shrugging.

Lucy made a soft wheezing sound, fighting back the expletive-ridden statement she had in mind for the bartender. After he took their order, he headed back toward the kitchen, but not before he made eye contact with Lucy behind Pen’s back. His was an inquiring look — as if he wanted to know why she’d said no. She shook her head softly and pulled her attention back to the man in front of her.

“Good call,” Pen said, smirking. “Choosing to pay full price when offered a discount? I missed your penchant for unerring truth.”

“What were you gonna do if I said ‘yes?’” she asked, incredulous. “I bet I’d see a Pen-shaped hole in that wall.”

“You think I find you that repulsive?”

“You’re commitment averse.”

“Skinny, that’s both of us.”

Lucy chuckled. “True.”

She fidgeted in her seat. She just registered that he’d said he missed her. Well, it was part of his statement, but still. It was enough to knock her off balance. The loneliness that she felt during the Winter Solstice festival crept over her skin, pulling her back from him.

“You’ve got the broody look again.”

She glanced around to ensure that no one else was listening. Venti, Fei, Peck, and Bamna were engaged in a lively conversation in the other corner, and Hugo and Cooper were having lunch in the upstairs parlor.

“I missed you at the festival,” she said quietly, her hands fidgeting over the surface of the table. “I don’t like it.”

Pen leaned in, his body almost eclipsing the overhead lamp. “You don’t like the fact that I wasn’t there, or the fact that you missed me?”

Lucy met his gaze. Damn her nervousness to hell, she still had her honesty. The amber glow of the next table’s lamp highlighted the sharp features of his face — the shape of his nose, and the lines of his lips.

“Both.” She grimaced slightly. “Obviously, if I missed you, that meant that I didn’t like your absence. I’m more concerned about the overall feeling, though. I wanted to have fun at the festival. I mean, I did have some fun. I was dressed up, feeling cute—”

“—You are cute.”

Taken aback, she nearly choked on her words. Her cheeks turned red as she stifled a terrible giggle. “Hey, I’m talking about my feelings here. It got me worried that I was getting too attached.”

“For what it’s worth, you sounded distinctly unattached when Owen asked if we were a couple.” He leaned back in his seat, smiling a little softer now. “You’re allowed to miss people, y’know, and I’m quite miss-able when I’m not around.”

Her lips parted in surprise. “Damn, you’re right. It’s no different from missing my friend Nia from back in Highwind. Well — I take that back. There’s a difference.” She pointed discreetly down at the table, in the direction of his crotch. “A big difference.”

The two of them devolved into immature snickering, just as Owen reappeared with their food. This time, he made no attempt at drawing out their budding non-relationship, but he did shoot Lucy another curious look. She just smiled at him and shook her head gently.

As they began to eat, Pen shifted in his seat, which caused the bundle of papers by him to rustle.

“Whatcha got there?” she asked, pointing with her fork.

“Ah. New posters of the criminal Logan.”

“Oh yeah — the last sandstorm blew most of them away, didn’t it? Funny that only Logan’s posters went. Haru’s are still up.”

Pen’s eyes gleamed with a new idea. “Say, wanna go put them up with me around town?”

She felt a tug in her chest. She actually would’ve loved to go on a long walk with Pen, but she shook her head and frowned. “I actually can’t. We’re almost ready to go with the sandrunning stuff in the desert. Catori is…”

The sudden, unwelcome image of Catori and Pen together invaded her mind, as abrupt as someone barging into the very room.

“Catori is…?”

Lucy shook the image from her mind. “She’s pushing for an inaugural event in three days. I’ll be busy ‘til then.”

She took a sip of her sand tea and thought over her feelings. Jealousy? What a disgusting feeling. It crawled over her skin and clamped its fangs into her. What for? There was nothing to be jealous of. She didn’t own Pen. And… was the rumor even true? Did it matter if it was?

“That’s a shame,” Pen said with a dramatic sigh. “I suppose poor Pen with his sore and swollen feet will have to trek all about town to finish this job by his lonesome. Poor Pen. Poor, poor Pen!”

“Oh no,” she said in a mocking tone. “You gotta walk around town while I haul lumber and marble out to the desert.”

“See, if you asked me to help, I wouldn’t miss the opportunity.” He shrugged. “Love a good workout. We should swap.”

“I got it,” she said. “I have to actually build the things, too, not just haul materials. Besides, you just got back from — where was it again?”

“All over. I covered a ton of ground.” He gestured vaguely around them. “You should see how fast I can run.”

“I’ve seen it. You hauled ass to the moisture farm that day the Geeglers attacked. What do you even do out there? Is it a sort of patrol for monsters, or what?”

“I was on the lookout for Logan,” Pen said, looking disgusted at even saying the man’s name. “This bandit roams the desert looking for the weak to prey upon. The lowest of the low.”

She frowned. “I haven’t seen anything in the Tumbleweed Standard about him since the train incident.”

“Exactly. He’s been quiet lately. Too quiet. You’d do your best to be on your guard whenever you’re out in the desert. You never know what kind of dastardly schemes he might be... scheming... schemily.”

Three days later, in the early morning of the inaugural sandrunning tournament, Lucy was dreaming of Gecko Station again.

The rumbling of the armored train…

Her narrow escape from being swept into that chasm…

The resounding boom when it landed at the bottom of the ravine.

Boom.

She peeled open her eyelids. It’d been a while since the last time she had this dream, but that was a strange addition. The train didn’t boom when it fell. It sounded more like distorted, metal clanging. What’s more, the sound woke her up. It was too real to be from her dream, too different to be from memory.

Daylight crept in. Early spring whispered with a hesitant warmth across her bed, but it didn’t quite reach where she lay. She blinked slowly. The sounds of a commotion nestled into her ears, disturbing the typical tranquility of a desert morning. Something was wrong… somewhere, here, in the real world.

Alertness came crashing. Lucy slid out of bed and dashed to her front window. Fire and smoke cut into the canvas of Sandrock, like a red and black scar at the end of the oasis. She ripped herself away from the terrible scene and got dressed as quickly as she could, snatching up her gun from its hiding place beneath her nightstand. Not the safest place, but she couldn’t sleep without it in range.

When she got outside, a growing rumble announced the morning train’s untimely arrival from the eastern outskirts. Sunlight lit up the earth, setting the landscape ablaze. A great deal of shouting was in the distance, drowned by the oncoming train.

A figure was riding a goat at breakneck speed right on top of the train tracks. The blurred images of the Civil Corps and a third figure — most likely Pen — were hot on his trail, but too far behind when the train came.

Lucy held her breath. The metal behemoth on wheels screamed toward them all. In a split second, the goat and its rider pivoted out of the way, and the train cut off the view of Justice, Unsuur, and Pen. The conductor must’ve pulled all the emergency stops, as a terrible screech rang out, slicing open the morning with metal blades.

The goat paused in front of Lucy’s house and kicked up onto its hind legs. It must’ve been protesting the interruption of the train and sudden change of course. The rider managed to stay on, adjusting with relative ease to the change in angle, while he caught his hat from falling. He held it high in the air as he maintained his balance.

The man’s hair, momentarily revealed, shone like threads of silver and pearls in the early morning glare. Lucy stared, recognition ticking slowly like a broken clock, daring to reach its destination two seconds too slow. She knew of only one person with that kind of hair…

As the goat got back to all fours, the man peered at the now-halted train, then over his shoulder at the direction from which he’d come. His pursuers were probably stuck behind the long, mechanical body now, either trying to find a way around or through.

At last, he noticed Lucy.

When their eyes met, it felt like someone had reached into her chest and pressed their fingers into the fleshy pit of her heart. She was frozen, pistol held loosely at her side, as she realized who this man was. His eyes were as piercing as the night sky riddled with the moon and stars, but they softened for a split second when he looked at her.

Like lightning, the look they shared was over in an instant. And, like lightning, his gaze would be seared into her memory for the rest of her life. Over time, it would come to mean different things. For now, it was the look of a killer. The sharp, cunning stare of someone with ill intent.

The bandit broke eye contact and steered his goat forward, east of the town. Lucy didn’t have much time to think, if any at all. The smoke billowed high in the sky from the destruction in town. The train, stopped on the spot, cut her off from the rest of Sandrock — from getting help from the Civil Corps.

There was only one thing to do. Lucy scrambled onto Waddles and urged him forward, as quickly as he was willing to go. She held on for dear life as he kicked up speed with a chirp of warning. She steeled her core and legs, cursing under her breath. The goat was fast. They were already losing him.

Logan glanced over his shoulder at the sound of yakmel hooves. He pulled out his gun and fired. The bullet hit the ground in front of Waddles. He screeched in terror and skirted to a halt. Lucy started to slide off the saddle. She fought to stay on top and pulled out her gun, urging him forward again, but he would not sprint.

Her vision was swimming with the scenes of the desert, the train, the bandit speeding away. She aimed and fired. The goat bleated and jerked in response to the man’s urging. The bullet must’ve whizzed close to them. They zig-zagged dangerously. Lucy aimed and fired again, one last attempt, even though she knew they were too far for impact. Again, they jerked out of the way. The bandit’s hat flew off his head in the violent motions and pulled away from its owner in a buffet of wind.

It flew up, high in the sky, and arced back down to the ground. Logan disappeared around a bend. Dust kicked up all around Lucy, building a wall around their pursuit. But Waddles would not break into a run again. He trotted defiantly beneath her, no matter how she pleaded. It was over.

“For f*ck’s sake,” she growled to the nothingness in which the bandit had disappeared. She leaned down and gave the yakmel a gentle stroke behind the ears. In a gentler voice, she said, “Sorry Waddles. I know it’s not your thing…”

She hopped off the yakmel, sore in the legs, and went on foot to inspect the fallen hat. A large “L” was stitched into the front, and yakmel horns were affixed on either side. Lucy sighed. It matched the drawing of the bandit in all the Wanted posters around town. As if she didn’t already know it was Logan the criminal by the hair and the look in his eyes, this was definitive proof. She’d have to hand it to the artist of his posters. They were spot on.

What kinda bandit monograms their hat? she thought.

Lucy turned back and mounted Waddles again, who was in a slightly better mood. The train had gone, and the destroyed water tower was in the distance. The heat waves caused mirage-like distortions in the distance, as she squinted to try and get a better look.

“Let’s go see what happened,” she said to Waddles, urging him forward gently.

As she rode, she looked at the hat in her hands. What was she supposed to do with it? Was it smart of her to pick it up? She’d maybe offer it to the Civil Corps, if they were interested in that sort of thing. The leather was worn. The underbrim was coated in sand, which she dusted off. The sweatband was moist and warm to the touch. The look in his eyes from beneath the brim flashed back into her mind, fresh and — yes, Ernest was right — disarming.

Half the townsfolk already formed a crowd a short distance from the remains of the water tower. Some eyes lit up upon her approach. Everyone parted to give Waddles a wide berth.

“Is that—?” she heard Owen say, pointing at the hat in her hands.

Lucy’s cheeks turned red as she nodded silently at him. Justice, Unsuur, and Pen arrived on scene, and she converged with them toward the front of the crowd.

“Well?” Matilda asked them.

“The coward escaped,” said Pen, lips twisted in a snarl, making no attempt at hiding his contempt.

“We lost him at the train tracks, ma’am,” said Unsuur, crossing his arms.

Justice shook his head. “He’s gone too far this time…” There was a sadness in his voice that didn’t quite match Pen’s anger and Unsuur’s matter-of-fact-ness.

“I say we get a posse together and make Logan pay for what he’s done!” Matilda nodded firmly.

Lucy hardly recognized the fire in her eyes. In fact, the bystanders in the crowd all had mixed expressions of either sorrow, fear, or outright anger. It was understandable, of course. The water tower was in ruins. That would mean terrible things in the days to come, if the repairs weren’t well on the way. She cursed herself for being unable to capture the culprit.

“Say no more, Minister,” Pen said. “Civil Corps, with me! Let’s see if we can’t track down that ne’er-do-well before the trail goes cold!”

Justice put his hands on his hips. “Hey now, as senior officer and guy who’s been here in this town way longer than your Mr. Macho, protein-huffin’ behind, I give the orders around here! But, uh, yeah. Unsuur, do what Pen said. Let’s ride.”

Lucy snapped back to the moment as she squeezed the bandit’s hat, feeling the leather crinkle in her grasp.

She cleared her throat. “Wait! Let me go with you. I saw him head off in that direction.” She jabbed a thumb in the extremely vast expanse of the southeast.

Pen caught her gaze. He arched an eyebrow, ready to inquire more.

“Hang on, now, Lucy,” said Matilda, holding up a hand. “We need your help right here with this water tower. We need to get a new one in a hurry.”

“Time is of the essence, Minister,” Pen said. “The builder must provide her account of the miscreant’s meanderings at once, at the very least.”

“Very well, but just as you say, time is of the essence.” The minister gave them both a rather stern look. “Make it quick, y’all.”

Pen gestured for Lucy to follow him closer to the Civil Corps. Meanwhile, Yan materialized the scene, and Matilda called him over to assess the water tower damages. The crowd started to disperse in a series of head-shaking and concerned murmuring.

Lucy gave her shaky account of the events after they lost sight of Logan. She walked them through the moment of seeing the tower up in flames and Logan escaping on his goat eastbound. She also mentioned that they engaged in a brief exchange of gunfire, at which point she saw a twitch in Pen’s jaw and a dark look cross his eyes.

“Is that his hat?” Justice asked, furrowing his brows.

She raised it up for them to see. “Y—yeah. I dunno what to do with it. Not sure why I grabbed it. Is this something you might need? Evidence, or something?”

He rubbed his forehead, a pained expression on his face. “Uh… We ain’t got the time right now. Hang onto it for now, alright partner? We’ll figure that out when we catch the guy. C’mon Unsuur.”

The two officers went to the stable to saddle up their horses, leaving Pen alone with Lucy. He scanned her from head to toe, almost indiscernible if anyone else was looking.

“Are you hurt?” he asked quietly. Beneath the veil of nonchalance, she could hear a tug of concern.

“No, I’m fine.” She tried to give him a smile, but it came out like a wince. “Alright… I’m a little shaken.”

“I will hunt him down like the animal he is. That’s a promise, Lucy.”

His eyes betrayed a glint of malice, but not for her. It should’ve brought her some comfort, but it unnerved her for some reason.

“I—I don’t need that,” she said awkwardly, remembering the fire in Logan’s eyes when he looked at her. “Just do the judicious thing. You know, catch him, put him on trial, and whatnot.”

He narrowed his gaze, then turned away with a shrug. “Well, I can’t promise that he’ll be fit for it. It’ll be hard to be put on trial when you’ve been punched into space.”

The Civil Corps officers returned on horseback, and Pen jogged alongside them. She blinked rapidly after them as they kicked up dust. It was truly a marvel how the man could run so fast that he could keep up with horses.

Lucy had to find Mi-an for the repairs. She stopped by the Blue Moon, in the off chance that she was there. There was a sizeable crowd, made up of the leftovers from the incident’s onlookers. Owen and Grace were at the counter. Ernest, Heidi, Pablo, Amirah took up seats at the bar. Cooper, Hugo, and still others were in the dining room. A nervous, frenetic energy filled the space. Everyone was on edge.

Lucy approached the counter, meaning to ask if anyone had seen Mi-an.

“That Logan,” Grace was saying. “He’s got some nerve.”

Owen ran his fingers through his hair. “I dunno what to say. He was always a little ornery, but this? I didn’t think he was capable of such a thing.”

Lucy frowned. “You’re telling me. I can’t shake the feeling of actually looking him in the eye.”

A chorus of gasps rose from the bar’s occupants.

“I can’t believe I missed him again!” Ernest cried. “And you got to see him? I mean, darn… That bandit… got away again!”

“You did what?” Grace asked, brows raised.

Lucy explained the minor role she played in the chaos of the morning. As she spoke, her voice trembled, prompting Owen to pull a glass from the bar and fill it with a blend of summer sand tea.

“It all happened so fast,” Lucy said, shaking her head. “I don’t know why I picked up his hat.” She stared at it with disbelief. “I’m still holding onto it, for Peach’s sake.”

“Here,” Owen said, handing the tea to her. “You probably need this. You never know what the Civil Corps will find useful in an investigation, y’know. Just hang onto it. I think it’s better that you picked it up. Don’t need a tourist seeing that and getting spooked.”

“Can I… Can I see the hat?” Ernest asked, reaching out a hand. At the look on her face, he withdrew it as if he’d been burned by fire. “Nevermind! Haha. I just thought… for my writing… Nevermind.”

Lucy took a deep draught of tea. “Thanks Owen. You’re right. Man, I wish I knew what this guy wants. Criminals usually have a goal, don’t they? Money, fame, revenge… What’s his end game, and what does blowing up the water tower have to do with it?”

“When I left, he was still on our side,” Pablo said, taking a sip of his drink. He shrugged emphatically. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

Amirah spun her glass in her fingers in a pensive way. “Logan used to come by my shop from time to time; he was always polite. But I guess it goes to show being polite doesn’t make you a good person…”

Lucy nodded with a deep frown.

Grace took a breath and let out a long, drawn-out sigh. “I don’t really know anything about Logan other than what I hear from Sandrockers who have been here a while.” She gestured around at the others. “From what you guys have shared, it sounds like he’s got some personal vendetta against this town or something.”

“His Pa was a well respected man around these parts,” Owen said. “Logan was a little rambunctious, but he was well on his way to followin’ in Howlett’s footsteps. He was honest, far as I knew. Always paid his tab.”

“Howlett? I recognize that name…” Lucy tilted her head to the side. “He was an adventurer, wasn’t he?”

“A monster hunter,” Heidi said. “Logan and his father were both monster hunters.” She sighed. “I… grew up with Logan. He always looked out for me. It’s hard to kinda wrap my head around this. I suppose he and his Pa kept us safe, so long as we had the pay to keep them around. How does that saying go? ‘One who fights with monsters must be careful of becoming one themselves.’ Well… Too little, too late on that one.”

“I’ve never heard that saying,” Lucy said, frowning.

It didn’t quite sound right, knowing that many of the Sandrockers who lived there chose to stay. Surely being a monster hunter in Sandrock wasn’t as profitable as, say, stationing somewhere near the Peripheries. There was a hint of betrayal or disbelief in Heidi’s voice. Maybe both.

“What happened to Howlett?” she ventured to ask.

“He passed away about… I guess it’s been almost three years, now. Man… Time flies.” Owen’s shoulders drooped a bit. “I hope they find Logan soon. In the meantime, I guess it’s back to the drawing board to see how we can help out with the water situation.”

Lucy clapped a hand to her forehead. “sh*t. I gotta go find Mi-an. We have to fix that tower before the next water shipment comes in. I’ll catch you guys later.”

The freshly pasted Wanted posters seemed to follow Lucy’s every step as she searched the town for her coworker. She should’ve been among the first on scene when the tower blew up, if her work ethic set any sort of precedent for her. Then again, Lucy was a little late to the party as well, for rather important reasons.

She went home first to stow away Logan’s hat in her wardrobe, hanging it on one of the spare hooks inside. She wasn’t sure what good it’d do, but at least she wouldn’t wander around town with a wanted man’s hat in her hand.

She went back to town thereafter. She wandered down Main Street to no avail, followed the staircase up to the church, went out to the Moisture Farm, and turned back toward the main town through the east end. Her legs started to pulse in protest, already sore from the early morning’s pursuit.

All the while, her mind ran circles around her. Flashes of Logan’s gaze on her set chills down her spine. The smoldering ruins of the tower made her palms slick with sweat. She had to find Mi-an, fix the water tower, check on Burgess’s well-being, and—

Glass shattered. Someone shrieked nearby.

Lucy dashed toward the noise, heart thumping. When she rounded the corner, a blend of relief and puzzlement hit her hard. Mi-an was there, standing in an alleyway, wide-eyed and covering her mouth with her hands. Elsie stood beside her, looking flustered.

“Move along, Lucy,” Elsie said in a high-pitched voice. “You ain’t seen nothin’.”

“Right,” Lucy said, narrowing her gaze. “Yan sent me to come get you for the water tower, Mi-an. Logan blew it up this—” She spotted the shattered remains of a window, thousands of shards at their feet. “What’re you guys doing?”

Mi-an’s face turned the shade of Elsie’s hair. “I guess we’re… breaking into Logan’s house?”

“What?!”

“Quiet!” Elsie snapped.

Mi-an chuckled nervously. “We’re tryna look for clues as to why he went off the deep end and blew up the temple.”

Lucy screwed up her face in frustration. “Temple? You mean the water tower, don’t you?”

Her coworker shook her head, eyes darting to Elsie as if asking for permission to explain further. “He blew up a temple that used to be in town… a couple years ago.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Lucy asked, gesturing wildly. “He blew up a water tower less than an hour ago.”

“No he didn’t. He’s innocent!” Elsie’s blazing stubbornness lit up like a bonfire. “We’re gonna prove him innocent is what we’re about to do! He ain’t done none of the things y’all think, and if he did, he had a good reason, I’m tellin’ ya!”

“But… I saw…” She realized she’d only seen him running away from the Civil Corps. She didn’t actually see who blew up the tower. “…I thought…”

She struggled against her memory. Who actually said Logan blew up the water tower? How did she come to that conclusion, and how did she become so adamant about it? The conversations were already happening when she got into town. Things unraveled so quickly.

“Uh, hellooo?” Elsie put her hands on her hips. “You comin’ with, or are we gonna act like y’ain’t never seen us here?”

The gears slowly turned in Lucy’s head. She had to admit she was curious about Elsie’s claim. The girl had a short temper and was prone to pranks, but there was something honestly eager and serious about her at this moment.

“Why do you think he’s innocent?” Lucy asked, looking over her shoulder briefly.

“Y’all don’t know him like I do,” the girl said, a thread of exasperation in her voice. “I grew up with him like an older brother. Even my Pa said all the time, ‘That boy ain’t nothin’ but good.’ Then the temple got blown up, and the whole town’s gone and… Ah, sh*t, just come on, Lucy. Let me show ya. I swear there’s gotta be somethin’ that’ll prove it’s all just a big load of hooey!”

Lucy sighed. At worst, if Elsie was wrong, knowing more about the enemy would allow her to better anticipate his next attack. She could take that intelligence back and use it in her favor, or in the favor of the Civil Corps. At best, she could help reveal a years-long misunderstanding.

“Okay, I’ll come with,” she said, sighing, “but we’re patching up this window first. What’re you trying to do? Get glass splinters up your legs?” She gestured at the jagged teeth on the bottom of the window frame.

“H—how else are we gonna get in?!” Elsie demanded.

“Where’s the front door?” she asked, dropping her voice.

Elsie took the lead and showed it to her, walking them shortly around the corner of the building. Lucy tried the knob. It clicked in agreement, and the door swung open.

She closed it again and shot Elsie and Mi-an a pointed look. “Now, help me fix that window.”

Chapter 20: Something to Hide (NSFW)

Chapter Text

The bandit’s home had all the makings of comfort, but it was buried now — literally. Cone-like hives of sand and dust marked the rooms like mountainous turrets. The air was stale. Lucy’s nostrils stung just by breathing it in. She imagined that once upon some years ago, a guest would’ve opened the front door — just as she had — and been welcomed by the white-haired man, peering down at them from the second floor landing. He might’ve even invited them in for a glass of yakmel milk.

But, the ground floor did no favors to the criminal image. The first thing they found was a crinkled map of Sandrock with several points of interest, outlined in both green and red.

“When did this temple incident happen again?” Lucy asked, scanning the chaotic scrawls and trying to make sense of it.

Elsie screwed up her face as she did the mental math. “Almost three years ago or so?”

“The temple used to be where the church is now, right? Do you know why they bombed it?”

She got quiet. “Yeah, we got an idea. Howlett was in there.”

The builder’s eyes widened. “His father? Why would he want to bomb the temple with his father in it?” She’d had the impression that the father-son duo had a good relationship, just from the brief snippets of conversation at the Blue Moon.

Elsie threw her hands up. “He was sick, and he coulda gotten the rest of us sick. That’s what the pastor said, and my Ma and Pa told me to listen to what the pastor says…”

“He was quarantined, then,” Mi-an said slowly. “Miguel might know more about that, then, if he was involved in the quarantine…”

“Sure, yeah, that’s the word they used. But, this map ain’t got nothin’ to do with it. It’s just a buncha malarky! Logan wouldn’t ever come up with no plan, and he certainly wouldn’t make no revisions. He just does whatever his heart tells him!”

Mi-an snapped her fingers. “Elsie, that’s genius! The big cross-out and the crumple marks — they show just how he can be impulsive!”

Lucy rolled her eyes as Elsie started to argue that it meant nothing. She left the two of them to bicker, heading toward a large closet at the far end of the space. Different tools and weapons lined the walls, a variety of options for all sorts of monsters. It was apparent that the bandit’s choice of melee weapon was a dagger. There were none in sight, though she spotted an empty space where they would’ve been.

She frowned slightly. She knew for certain that he owned a gun, and it looked like he started with a lot of ammo when he left this place. There was no ammo box in sight.

She tried to envision this: Logan, a younger man, maybe with a little less ferocity in his glare, though his face was still covered by a mask. That was the only way she knew him. He intended to use explosives to get his father out from quarantine. He made a plan — or not — that involved getting his gun, his dagger, and all the ammo he had in store. They left quickly. That much was clear. The map with the plan-or-not-a-plan was left out in plain sight. Anyone could’ve used it to incriminate him, if they’d bothered to come and investigate. But it didn’t matter at that point, did it? He’d probably skipped town right after the incident. He was already a criminal the second the building went down.

Upstairs, the fragments grew in number, but the picture was no clearer.

They found a ripped photo of Logan’s parents on their wedding day. Howlett was grinning from ear to ear, and his bride wore a dress as immaculate as her hair. A young Owen was visible in the photo, which made Lucy smile. He was an adorable kid, grown into a handsome man, not unlike his father pictured with him.

“How does this prove Logan’s innocent?” Elsie asked.

“Logan is not innocent,” Mi-an said, sighing. “I would really give that one a rest, but it’s important to learn the motives of everyone involved, don’t you think?”

Lucy nodded in agreement, still scanning the wedding photo. She found herself lingering on the bride’s face. There was a softness in her, a kind of distance that made her feel sad. In some ways, it felt that the woman in the photo knew that this happy union could not last forever. Having seen the woman’s son in person just that morning, despite the circ*mstances, his gaze was still emblazoned in her memory. As fierce as it was, she could see the resemblance with the wintery chill presented in the photo.

Mi-an brought out her camera and snapped photos of the clues. They discovered the early makings of explosives, which were easy enough to tell. Another drop in the criminal bucket for Logan and his accomplice Haru.

They found a drawing Jasmine made of herself holding hands in the sunshine with them, which stood out to Lucy as rather strange.

“Jasmine’s a smart girl,” she said. “I don’t think she would’ve drawn this if they didn’t get along at the time.”

Mi-an snapped a photo of it. “You’re right. Logan and Haru must’ve been well liked before the, uh, incident.”

“Course they were,” Elsie said, putting her hands on her hips. “I coulda told ya that. You don’t need a kid’s drawin’ to prove it. Logan was one of us! Is one of us. I bet he is, still… But, when you like somebody and they do somethin’ to hurt you, that makes you double mad! That’s why everyone wants to bring Logan in...”

Lucy was poring over a slightly cryptic journal littered with frantic notes and more circles drawn. She took a deep breath and let out a long sigh.

“You don’t mean to say…” She furrowed her eyebrows at Elsie. “That was how Howlett died? From the temple bombing… and Logan was the culprit?”

“That’s what everyone says, but he’d never…” Elsie’s voice quivered. “He’d never kill his own Pa… I refuse to go along with that stupid idea. He spent the longest time tryna fight with the church to let his Pa go.”

Lucy pulled Mi-an over to read the journal with her, and it seemed that, indeed, Howlett suffered from a mysterious illness of some sort. Notes were made about similar diseases, as well as references to other doctors. A prescription was made out to Howlett, signed by “F.”

“Dr. Fang?” Mi-an offered.

Lucy nodded, frowning. “None of this makes much sense…”

There was work yet to be done, but Lucy began to feel like she’d roped herself into a lost cause. The water tower needed repairing, and delving into the heartache of a troubled mind was doing her no favors in getting the job done before the next water shipment. It was the mid-afternoon when they emerged from the house. Mi-an joined Lucy in heading over to the water tower for a full assessment of the damage.

On their way back into a less suspicious part of town, they ran into Unsuur.

“Hey — did you guys find Logan?” Lucy asked.

Unsuur shook his head. “I’ve thought about it, though, and I have an idea. Logan always attacks from where we least expect. Maybe I need to try to think of somewhere I would never be, then be there. That’s how I could catch him, I bet.”

She nodded. “That’s certainly an idea.”

Mi-an and Unsuur exchanged glances, and Lucy felt a strange friction between them.

“Hey, Mi-an,” Unsuur said, as calmly as ever.

“H—hey,” she replied in a small voice.

“Bye, guys.”

Lucy waved as he left them there. “What was that about?”

Mi-an wrung her hands together. “Uh — remember the person who was… writing me letters?”

Her mouth fell open. “Nooo… Unsuur? Really?”

Her coworker’s eyes darted around. “Look, it just — it got a little awkward. I caught him bringing the next letter to me. He ran away and hid in his closet, and—”

“He hid in his closet?” Lucy hissed, bemusem*nt wrinkling her forehead.

Mi-an pulled her by the arm forward and gave a quick, quiet rundown of her catching Unsuur in the middle of depositing a letter in her mailbox, then proceeding to run off and hide in the closet of his home.

“We did kinda kiss,” Mi-an said in the smallest voice yet. She was tomato red.

“Kinda?! Are you unsure about it?!” Lucy stifled a terrible cackle.

Her coworker covered her face with her hands. “I—I don’t know! We haven’t really talked about it since…”

Despite all her snickering, Lucy listened with empathy to Mi-an’s confused retelling of her situation with Unsuur. She could understand being at a crossroads of feelings and not knowing where to step next. The conversation as they observed the damages was a strange paradox. At one point, it was like she was sitting at the table with the Fleeting Youth Tea Society, exchanging excited whispers of budding romance. At another point, it was the lament of a terrible event that shook the town — quite literally — just hours ago.

The sun started to lower in the sky. Little, hopeful patches of leaves were starting to sprout in the sparse trees in the southern outskirts. Lucy took calming breaths as she walked, trying to embrace the feeling of cool spring on her skin.

Left to her own devices, she kept playing the scenario with Logan over again in her mind. It all happened so fast. It felt like she missed crucial pieces of information in their exchange. What was the look he gave her? Was it mild surprise — perhaps the unexpected sight of a builder who wasn’t Mason? Or, was it more sinister? The sight of a target, perhaps. Maybe it was fear, seeing her gun ready to aim at him.

What about the shoot-out? It wasn’t so much a shoot-out, she supposed, as it was a pathetic excuse for one. Neither of them actually hit the other. Lucy was aiming to, seized by the wild courage that came seemingly out of nowhere. But what was he aiming for? He was hardly looking over his shoulder. Perhaps he had meant to only startle the yakmel. Perhaps his number one priority was to lose her. And, lose her, he did.

Lucy sighed as her workshop came into view. The tracks were empty. No train would arrive for the rest of the day. She needed to go straight to the salvage yard and pick up some scrap. Her routine had been bulldozed by the morning’s chaos and the afternoon’s sleuthing. She shoved her hands in her pockets, her tool belt clinking as it shifted against the cloth.

From a short distance, she could see the little flag on her mailbox. She also hadn’t bothered to check her mail. She was surprised it was delivered at all. With a tug of concern, she wondered if Jasmine was doing alright. Did she still consider Logan a friend, after everything that happened? She must’ve been only six or seven years old when he skipped town…

She opened the metal container and slid out a letter from Catori, announcing that the inaugural sandrunning competition would go on the following day. Lucy tutted softly. How could anyone want to go sledding in the desert, dressing themselves in thick layers of dust, when there was a threat of a water shortage — again?

She hadn’t even circled back to the issue of her pseudo-investigation with Mi-an and Elsie. It was clear that the young redhead was fond of Logan, but she was fighting a lonesome battle against the rest of the town. With a heavy sigh, Lucy figured that she could ask Owen or Heidi for more information about Logan’s time as a Sandrocker. They were both born and raised there, so perhaps they had some deeper insight than Elsie was willing (or able) to provide. She tapped the letter thoughtfully against her chin, daring to get lost in the idea.

“SKINNY ARMS!”

Pen’s voice rang out like a cannon. Lucy jumped at the sound, her mouth opened in a silent shout. He catapulted down from the top of a nearby building — her home. As he stuck the landing with aggravating finesse, she clutched her shirt at her chest, trying to capture her breath again.

“PENf*ckINGHELL! You scared the sh*t outta me. What’re you doing — PERCHING — on my rooftop?! Stalking me?!”

“No way! I was practicing my sickest flips, when I saw you trudging over here.” He put his hands on his hips. “Thought I’d make it a fun show for the fans at home! You’re the fan, and this is your home!”

Her eyes narrowed into slits. “How many times do I have to—”

“Just roll with it, Skinny.”

“Don’t tell me what to do!” Her own voice echoed back to her, shriller than ever. Her face fell, and she got quiet. “Sorry. It’s been… a special kind of day.”

“I understand,” he said, nodding. “I only regret that I didn’t leap right over the train and prevent him from ever looking upon you in the first place. He doesn’t deserve to.”

Lucy’s chest tightened. “Wow.” Her voice was tiny as she ran her fingers through her hair, nearly giving herself a paper cut in the face with Catori’s letter. “That’s very swee—”

“You know, I think Logan’s been avoiding me on purpose!” He crossed his arms and looked off in the distance, oblivious to the effect of his words. “That’s no way to treat an old friend. I’ll have to teach him the meaning of ‘justice’ once I finally get my hands around that stringy neck of his.” He rubbed his hands together. “Ooh... ooh hoo hoo, boy...”

“Eh, couldn’t really see beneath the bandana, but I don’t think his neck is stringy.” Lucy’s eyes popped open. “Wait. You two were friends?”

“Once upon a time.” He shook his head. With a dramatic shaking of the fist at the sky, he said, “Now, he’s just a lowly villain, taking advantage of the weak. There is no honor in defeating those that have no means to defend themselves.”

Lucy sighed. “But, the story sounds so much more complicated than that.”

“Not at all, Skinny. He’s a deviant, through and through.”

“That’s not the impression I’m getting from people. It sounds like you all got along with him at one point or other, then things went south only after his father got sick… I don’t know about you, but I’d be a f*cking mess if I had to go through that…”

She passed through the gate of her workshop, and Pen followed suit, looming over her shoulder. “Are you sympathizing with the scoundrel, Lucy, or do my ears deceive me? Hint: my ears never deceive me.”

She felt a tug of stupidity at the back of her neck. She shouldn’t have brought up the inconclusive thoughts she’d just formed in the past couple of hours.

“You said you were friends,” she said, deflecting with a shrug. “Doesn’t that mean you considered him — I don’t know — worthy of your company at some point?”

She opened her front door and gestured for him to enter, if he so wished. He passed the threshold with a stubborn frown on his lips and no response.

Lucy smirked. “I thought so. Either he was a stand-up citizen who underwent a traumatic event that affected his behavior, or he was a ‘scoundrel’ his entire life and pulled one over the mighty Pen. Which would you rather be the case?”

Pen spun around, leaning over her so that she was slightly trapped between him and the door. For a second, she thought he was going to kiss her. Her lips parted slightly, almost welcoming it. They had not been this close since before the Winter Solstice.

But, he didn’t. He spoke instead, his voice down to a low hum. “You leave out one fatal fact. The reason why his father is dead.”

Her lips clamped together again. Pen stepped away and marched casually around her living room, gesturing as he spoke.

“Nevermind his continued life of crime. If he were redeemable, why would he be out there now, playing a coward’s game?”

Lucy grumbled in frustration. She hated arguing when she didn’t have all the pieces of the puzzle. She didn’t have the answers to these questions, and she wanted to believe in Elsie’s heartfelt plea. But… Pen had a point. She still had to consider the reputation of Logan’s gang and their alleged crimes. The only one who could know the truth was the one person who was evading capture.

To her surprise, Pen smiled. “It’s a lot to think about, I know, and I’m not one to waste my time with thinking. I’m a man of action. The rogue can tell the stars his sins after I’m through with him. I won’t be listening.”

She carried Catori’s letter to the dining table, where she dropped it with a satisfying smack. “Right. Well… I guess none of that is my business anyway. I mean, besides this morning’s chase.”

“Speaking of that little display of heroics, I’ve got a bone to pick with you.” He leaned against her dining room wall and co*cked his head to the side, a faux expression of upset on his face.

“What?”

Lucy was starting to get annoyed now. Her nerves were all aflame after the shaky morning she’d had, and their usual banter did nothing to reel her back from the edge. What she really wanted was to disappear into a hail of work. Sawing, grinding… The heat of the furnace burning away any thought, sensible or no, outside of creating functional and workable things. But she allowed Pen in here, and she gave him space to be a distraction. Him, his stupid smirk, and the way his muscles bulged when he crossed his arms the way he did. Such a distraction.

“I told you that, if you ever saw the criminal Logan, to run. To me.”

Lucy clenched her jaw. “There was a frickin’ train in the way. Besides, I was the one chasing him.”

“Then you should’ve left well enough alone.”

“There you go, telling me what to do again,” she said, exasperated. “I can’t change what happened. I wasn’t thinking about the repercussions. I was, honest to Light, trying to help.”

“You’ll help no one by offering yourself up like that,” Pen said, shaking his head. “A beast like him, trapped in a corner, is bound to lash out. What then, Lucy? What if he decided that you were prey, not predator?”

She maintained eye contact as she strode up to him, her cheeks getting hot. Even though she was much shorter, she glared into those blue eyes with with a fiery challenge. He stared back down his nose at her, brows furrowed in equal defiance.

“Then I guess we’ll find out if I’m as weak as you think I am,” she said hotly.

His lips parted in surprise, and his face softened. “Weak? You think that I think you’re weak?”

She could breathe in his musk, they were that close. Her eyelids fluttered as her body betrayed the anger crawling beneath her skin. She hated it — how his scent drove her heart rate up, how close they were.

“Don’t you?” Her voice had a telltale quiver as she glanced at his lips. “You think I’m some kind of damsel in distress that you constantly have to hover over. Let me be clear, Pen. I only ask you to come with me when I’m out in the wilderness or in the ruins because I want you to be there, not because I need you to be there.”

“This isn’t some light-hearted traipse through the ruins,” Pen said, his voice taking on a low, almost dangerous quality. “Logan is not an AI hauler you can hack away at. Tell me, have you ever killed a man before? Would you be willing to, if it came to that?”

Lucy swallowed hard, watching Pen’s neck muscles tense as he spoke. “I don’t know, but we can’t always choose when the situation arises, can we?”

“You can always choose,” Pen said, frowning. “And I hope you do choose to run. To. Me. If you got hurt… or killed… and I wasn’t there to—”

Lucy’s eyes grew wide. She took a step back and gave him an appraising look, like she was seeing the sun for the first time after a week of clouds. This whole time, she thought he was condescending, belittling her own abilities to fend for herself. But she heard it now. The little tremor in his voice at the idea of not being able to protect her when the time came.

“Oh… That’s what this is really about.” A smile broke out on her lips. “You’re… worried about me.”

She had possibly meant to think it rather than say it aloud, but there it went.

“Well, duh!” He laughed, a clear and ringing sound that filled her chest with warmth. “Wasn’t that obvious?!”

Lucy charged. Pen’s face, in a split second, went from surprise to a deep smile as she put her arms around his waist. He leaned back against the wall and allowed her to carve a wedge between his legs in which to plant herself, forming a little fortress out of his body. He emitted a low chuckle and returned the hug, his hands traveling up and down her back in soothing motions. She let out a deep sigh.

“We hadn’t even hugged since you left,” Lucy said, her voice slightly muffled in his chest.

His hands stopped momentarily as he considered her words. “No, we hadn’t. Was this all you needed to get over yourself and take ol’ Pen’s advice?”

“Compromise,” she said. “I’ll be extra careful if I ever run into the big bad bandit again, I promise.”

He ran his fingers through her hair and stooped down. “You are a real piece of work, Skinny.”

The combination of his warm breath and his low, rumbling voice tickled her ear. She shivered. Pressed between them, Lucy could feel a shift in his body, close to her lower belly. Her hand traveled from the small of his back to his abdomen. She felt the ridges of his muscles and, taken by a sense of daring, traveled downward. A gentle movement, but one that caused a hitch in Pen’s breath.

“You’re one to talk,” she breathed, as her palm found what it was looking for: the stiffness against his pants, the telltale sign that his mind was steering in the same direction as hers.

Lust acted as an eraser to all the thoughts that came before, a sandstorm sweeping over loose thoughts left on the surface. Her concerns for the tower, the town, her own safety, and the work that needed to be done. The indignity of Pen underestimating her prowess in combat. Gone, with a simple touch, replaced with the craving for his body on hers.

She stood up on the tips of her toes and planted a firm kiss on his lips, keeping one hand on his arousal while the other found the back of his neck, pulling him even closer to her. Her tongue slipped passed his lips as she stroked his length through the cloth. He breathed in sharply, his hips bucking against the gentle pressure she applied.

“Brave of you,” he said, his vowels slightly elongated, his eyes half-closed. She watched the pleasure form on his lips in between their kisses. Her own heat rose between her legs as he panted.

In a blur of wet kisses and groping hands, they stumbled to the bedroom. The last time they touched, it was winter. Their passion burned into the snow and steamed the rain that fell on her rooftop. Now, the golden rays of a springtime sunset flooded the space, threading them in sun-kissed heat.

Pen removed his armor and shirt in one fell swoop. His broad chest and meticulously formed abs were outlined with deep shadows. His eyes glinted with hunger as Lucy slid off her top and bra, letting her breasts spill out. He kneeled down and kissed her body, from clavicle down to her lower belly, stopping to taste each breast in a swirl of tongue and kisses. She gripped the back of his hair, fingers traveling through the strands, as she let out a moan.

In a single motion, Pen picked her up and tossed her lightly on the bed, the two of them sharing a delicate, intimate laugh.

He crawled over her on all fours, eclipsing the sun while the faint rim of light highlighted his triceps and shoulder muscles with every inch he moved. The back of her head found her pillow. Plush comfort met a hard pressure as he lowered himself onto her, both of them still clothed. She wrapped her legs around him, not quite enough for her ankles to meet behind his back. He rocked, pressing his co*ck against her. It was positioned at the perfect angle to tease her cl*t, even through the combined fabric of their clothes.

Lucy let out a soft gasp, and he smiled, eyes half-closed as he listened to the sound of her pleasure. He swooped down for a kiss, continuing to buck against her. She arched her back and rolled her body in rhythm with his. They performed this erotic dance while she dug her fingers in the bare skin of his back. Her knuckles turned white. Her swollen cl*t became more and more sensitive, and she felt herself at the edge of climax.

Pen pulled away just as her moans started to grow in desperation. “I know,” he cooed, kissing away her protests. “I know you were so close… but I need to feel your tight little puss* around my co*ck now.”

She nodded meekly. Her chest rose and fell as he pulled off the rest of his clothes. His co*ck sprang out, a little drop of glistening white at the tip. Lucy licked her lips at the sight. She started to prop herself up, zeroing in on his co*ck like it was the only meal she ever wanted in her life, but he put his hands on her shoulders and pushed her back down onto the bed.

Her eyes went wide as she met his gaze. Her lips in full, glistening pout, she gave him a questioning look.

“I know you want to taste it.” His voice caused ripples across her flesh.

He kissed her, tongue against tongue, teeth sliding against her lips. She moaned against his mouth. He took his lips down the path of her neck just beneath her ear. She hardly heard herself, letting out the phantom of a “yes” in a sigh. There was a plea in her voice, but she was weak. He had a delicious, mesmerizing power over her. Everywhere he touched, she shivered and writhed. Everything he put his lips to melted beneath his warm breath.

“Believe me… I can’t wait to see your pretty lips around my co*ck… taking me in.”

He backed off her a little bit, hands on her shorts. He undid the button and the zipper with an agonizing slowness. Her gaze zeroed in on his co*ck, the way the veins stood out, the glistening tip that just begged to be tasted. She was at his mercy, and he knew exactly what that did to her. She could feel her wetness pooling between her legs.

“Let me tell you what I want…” He pulled her soaking panties down her legs, tossing them over the edge of the bed.

The cool air against her hot skin made her gasp. Right before her impatience hit the roof, she was naked before him, and his warm hands were on her hips.

“I want you to watch me while I f*ck you.” He positioned himself at her entrance, pulling her legs around him again. Her thighs trembled with anticipation. “I want you to see exactly what you do to me.”

He groaned as he swirled her entrance with the tip of his co*ck, spreading her slick over the head. She planted her feet and raising her hips up to meet him.

“Please,” she sighed. “I need you.”

“Oh?” He co*cked his head to the side, a mischievous smile on his lips. “So, you do need me?” he teased.

The last thread of reason wobbled in her mind. She furrowed her brows, ready to correct herself as her lust simmered down for a brief second.

“That’s not what I— ahh…”

Pen pressed into her. For all the anticipation and desire she had for his co*ck to finally slide in, his thickness was still something to get used to. She let out a soft cry at the sensation of being spread wide open. The pleasure was spelled out on her face, and he rewarded it with a smile and the gentle stroke of her thighs.

He paused to let her breathe, adjusting to his presence inside of her. Then, he slowly rocked his hips, watching her expression shift.

“You’re so… f*cking tight,” he groaned, his words accentuated with a thrust of the hips.

Lucy gripped the sheets, feeling the cool cloth counterbalance the heat of their bodies. She rolled in tandem with Pen’s motions, matching his rhythm the best she could and driving him deeper. Each thrust was met with a new sound that she didn’t even know she was capable of making. He was drawing the most erotic whispers from her lips.

Pen gently shifted, getting on his knees and pulling one of her legs straight up, leaning the underside against his torso. The change in angle allowed him to penetrate even further. She bit her lip to keep from screaming. As he wished, she kept her eyes on him. The way his body flexed with each motion. She could see his co*ck glistening with their combined juices as it slid in and out of her, glinting in the waning light. And, best of all, he made no effort to hide his pleasure. The way he smiled, the way his lips parted. It all sent waves of rapture through her core.

“I love the way you look at me,” Pen said. The words nearly stopped her universe right there. He uttered them with such passion, such devotion, that he could have told her “I love you” and she’d believe it.

With one hand, he supported her leg, while the other explored her body, gripping her breasts and teasing her nipples, squeezing her waist, and ultimately coming home to her cl*t. Lucy choked out half a scream, half a moan, as he played with the sensitive nub. The new combinations ripped through her body. The tenderness of her swollen bud was too much. Each circuit of his fingers tugged on the frayed chord of her control. She writhed against him, not quite sure if she was trying to get away or make him go harder. In either case, he maintained control, holding her firmly in place.

“Pen,” she sobbed.

He hummed in approval, tilting his head back in unrelenting pleasure as he rammed his co*ck into her, taking advantage of the position.

Tears sprang in her eyes just as he finally released her cl*t, back to exploring her body, teasing her and massaging her all around. He placed a tender kiss on the calf he was holding up, all while gazing down on her. The sensual nature of his touch was enough to send Lucy into a spiral. She clenched her puss* as he thrusted, eliciting a groan of pleasure from him.

Pen was looking at her — all of her. The way her body moved for him. The shape of her breasts in the golden light, round shadows cast down from the mounds. How her neck was fully exposed to him as she arched back with pleasure.

His abs were flexed, his thigh muscles were bulging, and a little lock of hair had fallen loose. In an unexpected surge from the depths of her heart, she realized how handsome she found him to be, and how much she loved the way that he looked at her, too.

It was so… intimate. The lingering seconds of eye contact, like still moments of deep affection between the raw, wet slapping of their bodies against each other. A wild eroticism combined with tenderness. The thought was dangerous. She knew this, but in this moment, while they were one, she succumbed to it. She loved this. She loved…

Lucy gasped. Pen tensed up so hard, it felt like he’d grown even larger. He rammed his co*ck with reckless abandon. She could see the delirium of pleasure taking over his face. He wasn’t alone. She felt her own pressure building, filling her to the very edge and over.

The mounting tension was threatening to spill over. She couldn’t speak, only left to cries of pleasure as he rocked with her. She mouthed the words, and he seemed to understand that she was there, at the precipice of insanity.

He thrusted hard, forcing her walls to cave in while his co*ck twitched violently inside. The force of their combined org*sms ricocheted through her core. She saw stars littering the the ceiling as they came together, a chorus of released tension and sensual sounds. Her puss* clenched hard against his co*ck as his movements staggered and slowed. She felt tears springing to hear eyes, every nerve in her body tuned into the climax.

“Kiss me,” she whispered, as he released her leg gently with a shaking hand.

As if hooked by her very words, he leaned over her. She welcomed him with all the warmth and tenderness that she could muster from her lips. He helped fix some stray locks of her hair, revealing her shining, rosy-cheeked face as he scanned her expression one more time, lest he forget this moment. After all the noise they made, their ragged breathing was all that could be heard now in the quiet of her bedroom.

With their pent up ambitions seen to fruition, Lucy and Pen cleaned up and got dressed again. Evening fell as he stood on her doorstep, ready to leave. She leaned against her doorframe and peered at him with a small smile. The light from inside her home spilled onto him, illuminating his facial features as he looked back at her.

“I’d invite you to stay the night, but…” She shrugged.

Pen shook his head. “That would raise too many questions, for them—” he nodded back toward the town “— and for us.”

Lucy nodded, a little disappointment pinching her chest. “Exactly.”

They wished each other a good evening, and she returned to the quiet of her home, alone. A soft draft blew in through her open dining room window, like a soothing balm on her overheated skin.

Her hand hovered over her chest, not quite grabbing onto the feeling that lurked in the corner of her mind. No commitments. No promises. No expectations. That was the agreement. So, why was she disappointed? What was she hoping for? If Pen stayed the night, that meant that they were ready to wake up next to each other. That was something far too intimate, wasn’t it? Nevermind that they were happy to bare their bodies together, and nevermind the way he looked at her — the way that he spoke to her — during their moments of passion.

With a sting of bitterness, she chided herself for going too far, for leaning into the fantasy that their physical interactions were some form of metaphor for something deeper. Something that she didn’t want. Like a hand on a hot stove, she pulled away from the door and receded into the safety of her empty home.

Chapter 21: Hats Off

Chapter Text

The builders dusted off their hands and stood back, a twin grin of pride on their faces. The afternoon sun gleamed bright and cheery over the new reinforced steel water tower.

“We did it!” Mi-an cried, sending a high-five through the air.

Lucy met her halfway with a loud clap. “It looks great.”

Burgess wiped tears from his eyes. “It’s beautiful!”

A crowd gathered steadily, trickling in from the two directions on Main Street. An excited murmur grew into cheers. Matilda stepped to the front and put her hands on her hips.

“You two did a mighty fine job, once again. Just in time, too. I believe our next shipment of water is scheduled to arrive tomorrow! Our town owes you two our gratitude.” She turned to Yan. “Commissioner, you really ought to handsomely reward these Builders for their efforts.”

“R—right. I’ll add that to the tab as well…”

Lucy noticed his eyes flicker over to Pen, who stood at the back of the crowd, arms crossed like a bouncer. She swallowed a sick chuckle at the sight of her boss squirming. Yan’s forced respect — if she could call it respect — didn’t spread to Mi-an, who was still suffering from tyrannical rules and nonsense expectations.

As the crowd dispersed, Mi-an pulled Lucy aside.

“Thanks again for not going along with Elsie’s little plan the other day,” she said, frowning. “I still can’t believe she thought it was a good idea…”

Lucy snickered. “No need to thank me. I agree. You can’t just go waving photos of bombs around town and asking people those kinds of questions.”

“Well, let’s hope she learns to be more subtle from here on out. Justice let her off with a warning.”

“Did she at least find anything useful?”

Mi-an gave her a pointed look. “Not that she’d think. That’s the only reason why I wish I was there when she was interviewing people, so I could make my own judgments. You know how she can get. Anyway, she’s really upset about it, so she’s not coming down to the saloon tonight.”

To Lucy’s surprise, Pen showed up shortly after she and Mi-an entered the saloon. He crossed the threshold and looked around, catching her eye and shooting her a small, barely perceptible smile. Her neck stiffened, and she gave him a cursory nod. He ordered at the counter and took a seat in one of the large parlor chairs.

Mi-an spotted Unsuur on the second floor and, with a red face and squeaky voice, excused herself. Lucy wasn’t left alone for long, as Burgess approached her table, grinning from ear to ear.

“Ever since you showed up, it’s been telesis overload up in this town.” He wrung his hands with giddiness. “Mort told me that it took you guys a fraction of the time to get the new tower up, compared to when Mason built the original one. If that’s true, just imagine all the amazing things you guys are gonna keep bringing to this town.”

She nodded, blushing slightly. “Thanks, Burgess. We’re just doing our jobs.”

“I mean, no disrespect to the original water tower, but this one… Woo!” He feigned wiping sweat from his brow. “It’s a looker.”

Heidi, Amirah, and Pablo appeared with drinks, at which point Burgess decided to go talk to Pen.

“Congratulations, Ms. Lucy,” Pablo said with a keen smile.

Lucy raised her eyebrows. “Oh, for the water tower reward? Yan only gave us fifty gols apiece, but… thanks! It’ll definitely get me a drink or two tonight.”

“What?!” Heidi’s mouth fell open. “Fifty gols? We’re circling back to that.”

“That’s not what you meant?” The builder gave them a bewildered look. “Then what am I being congratulated for?”

The Fleeting Youth Tea Society cemented their presence by sliding into the booth with her, giggles abound. Pablo slid one of the drinks over to Lucy and offered a toast.

“You have the distinct aura of someone who’s been getting lucky,” he said. “Cheers.”

“I can neither confirm nor deny.” Blushing fiercely, Lucy clinked her glass with all of theirs and took a swig while a terrible smirk crawled onto her lips.

“You wouldn’t be the only one,” Pablo said meaningfully, nodding at Heidi and Amirah. “I’m so happy for my friends. You all deserve to be taken care of.”

“My dear Pablo,” Amirah said, turning red. “Such a gossip.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Is this a new revelation for you?”

Heidi leaned in and lowered her voice. “But, who is it, Lucy? C’mon, you already know about me and Justice.”

“We’re not together, so I probably shouldn’t say.” Lucy took another sip of her drink, if only to keep herself from spilling her metaphorical tea.

“Oh, it doesn’t matter if you’re together or not. We don’t judge.” Pablo smirked.“We just wanna know who’s making you walk all crooked on a Tuesday.”

Lucy nearly spat her yakmel milk. She covered her mouth as she dissolved into bashful mumbling and nervous laughter. Since the day of the water tower explosion, Lucy and Pen had engaged in what he would have called a “heart-pounding duel of naked flesh” a couple of times. She had no idea, however, that her gait had changed. Was that even possible?

Heidi stifled a cackle. “Pablo, you broke our builder!”

Lucy fought the natural, blunt honesty that threatened to pull her gaze toward Pen’s direction. She swallowed hard, the corners of her lips twitching. She could do nothing for how red her cheeks were, and how hot they burned.

“D—don’t be a nosy bitch, Pablo,” she said with effort, though each syllable was punctuated with a helpless giggle.

“Meow. She’s out here name calling!” Pablo put a hand on her wrist and squeezed gently. “Whoever it is, I hope he doesn’t put as much product in his hair as Pen. I’m pretty sure you’d need a pickhammer to get through that rocky situation on his head.”

Lucy tilted her head to the side. “His hair is actually not that—”

What have I done? she thought, taking a long sip of yakmel milk. She let the fiery, salty liquid burn her esophagus as punishment for opening her stupid mouth.

Three pairs of eyes widened in unison. Lucy stared at the unfinished surface of the wooden table, squinting at the grooves with an overzealous interest. Meanwhile, Pablo, Heidi, and Amirah virtually circled around her like buzzards, a fresh morsel of gossip ready for the taking.

“You’re not speaking from… firsthand experience, are you, darling?” Pablo asked, a wicked smile on his lips.

“No, she’s not,” Amirah said quietly. Unable to help herself, she added a disbelieving, “Are you, Lucy?”

Lucy did a little shudder that one does when a buzzing fly threatens to get in one’s mouth. She took a deep breath and tried to steady her nerves.

“I’ve touched his hair,” she said, knowing full well that the birds of prey would not loosen their grip on the topic. “I was curious about the texture.” She was curious if she could grab onto it as hard as she wanted to while he thrusted into her. At the look on their faces, she shrugged. “I’m friends with Pen. I know it’s hard to believe.”

I’m telling no lies, she thought, her palms less sweaty.

Pablo leaned back and shot her a satisfied smile, but a twinkle in his eye said that he still had his suspicions. She maintained her veil of nonchalance, battling against his hawk-like sense for juicy truth.

“Well,” he said at last, “‘Friends’ don’t let friends walk around with an entire store’s worth of product in their hair. It’s not gonna do any favors for his scalp, darling.”

Two drinks and an hour or two later, a fiercely blushing Lucy took Burgess’s former seat across from Pen. She fixed him a strained smile, holding back a laugh. Pablo was giving Lucy the middle finger across the room, while Heidi cackled behind his back.

“I come bearing a message,” Lucy said, snickering up a storm. “Pablo says your hair is, um, a crime against fashion. I’m paraphrasing.”

Pen cracked a bemused smile. Not one to have his confidence shot by just anybody, he said, “I like to think of it as ahead of its time. No one else is gonna have this while I’m around, though. You know why?”

“Because you’ll space punch them if you see them with it?”

“Hah! Yes. But, also — do you have any idea how much hair gel it takes to get it like this? I’ll spare you: a lot. There isn’t enough gel to go around, and it’s all getting shipped to my door.”

Lucy giggled, shaking her head. “Ah, you’re lucky you’re so damn handsome.”

He arched an eyebrow, as if he was surprised by her compliment. “Well, thanks Skinny. That gives me a little warm feeling in my eight-pack.”

She curled up in the large cushioned chair and leaned over the armrest, eyeing him with an intensity that was abnormal for a sober Lucy in public. “You don’t have a drink.”

“Hats off to your observation skills. They are almost as good as your fighting skills.”

“Rude.” She raised her eyebrows. “Or, was that a compliment?”

“Neither. It was factual.” He inhaled one of the noodles in his dinner, making a fat slurping sound. “Alcohol is nothing but empty calories, Skinny!”

Lucy looked past his shoulder as Justice entered the dining area, taking a seat with Heidi. He put an arm around her and she leaned in, placing a tender hand on his chest. Lucy’s own chest tightened with an unfamiliar ache. She never really felt that before — the comfort to just cuddle up and publicly display affections. She almost thought Pablo would make a face at them, but he didn’t seem to mind them at all. In fact, he seemed rather serene and supportive.

At the next table, Mi-an and Unsuur were both red in the face, possibly sharing a sentence or two between them every few minutes. It was hard to tell. Their lips were barely moving. They had descended from the upstairs lounge to be among the others, but it seemed that they were in their own little, unspoken world.

Lucy took a sip of her yakmel milk, her cheeks almost as hot as her throat as the liquor went down. Pen was busy with his food, oblivious to her look of brooding. She glanced around them. Grace and Owen were tending the bar, but they were having their own conversation. No one else was seated in the parlor, and no patrons were at the bar.

“You wanna stay over tonight?” she asked quietly, leaning halfway across the table toward Pen.

He looked up from his bowl. At his eye contact, the question suddenly became too real — a blazing fire into which she was reaching a hand.

She retreated from the heat of his gaze. “Nevermind. Random thought. Forget I asked.”

With a spike of self-disgust, she looked away as she fell down a rabbit hole of self-deprecating thoughts. Her outburst was too much, too brave, too expectant. She sounded needy. And — damn it — she was. That was not acceptable for an arrangement such as theirs.

“I’m surprised you’d even ask in the first place,” Pen said at last, his voice also lowered.

A pounding swell of emotion flooded her chest, and she willed herself to put up a protective barrier, like a sandwall to the storm.

I used to do this all the time, she thought. Shut it down. Shut it off.

Lucy cleared her throat. She blinked slowly, still hinting at her inebriated state, but her smile was more measured and calm now.

“Yep,” she said, nodding. “Lapse in judgment. That’s too much, right?”

She didn’t hear his answer. Catori entered the saloon. She waved at Lucy over the back of Pen’s head, and Lucy nodded in kind.

She took another sip of her drink and fidgeted in her seat. Every time she saw Catori and Pen in the same room, it reminded her that there was — allegedly — a time when she and Pen might’ve been in bed together. The thought made her eye twitch just a little, made her stomach twist just a smidge. Lucy did not dare put a name to the feeling until now, with her inhibitions lowered.

Jealousy. A sick poison that churned her insides. What right did she have to feel that way?

“You haven’t blinked in a full minute,” Pen said, breaking her slowly enraging trance. He was smirking at her, evidently finding her expression humorous.

Lucy took a deep breath. “I got lost in my thoughts.”

He co*cked his head to the side. “You normally share your thoughts with me, however surprising…”

Her inner sandwall glitched, coming back down, then up, then down again.

“I’m thinking about why people get jealous,” Lucy said carefully.

“Oh, people are jealous of me all the time,” Pen said, shrugging. “It’s a sign of understanding that I possess something they do not. Skill, strength, good looks, notoriety, you name it! I couldn’t tell you how it feels to be on the other side, though. I’ve never been jealous a day in my life.”

“That’s not the impression I got when…” She looked to Owen, who was now in the dining room, checking in on Catori.

Pen followed her gaze. His eyes lit up with understanding. “Skinny, the day I get jealous is the day that I, the mighty Pen, have failed. Whatever impression you got was a misunderstanding on your part. Sorry to say it. I am second to no one, in life or in love.”

Love. There was that word again, uttered from his lips.

I love the way you look at me, she remembered him saying, in the safety and privacy of her sheets, with ethereal light spilling over his features. She swallowed the fluttering sensation in her chest.

“I’m headed off for the night,” Pen said, clearing his throat. “I’ve got my evening workout, now that I’ve got a little fuel in the tank.”

Lucy stood up, as if she was about to give him a kiss goodbye. She realized the action was out of place in this public area, and she awkwardly sat back down. She flashed him a smile that screamed “I don’t know how to be around you in public. Please don’t make it worse.”

He laughed quietly, his features softening. “Good night, Lucy.”

“Good night, Pen.”

About an hour of relentless gossip and hiding away near Owen and Grace, a sobered-up Lucy made her way home. The party would go on late into the night, but it’d have to go on without her. She was exhausted from the long day of final touches on the water tower, and she was looking forward to the familiar comfort of her bed, even if she was going to be alone in it.

A couple of mornings later, she giggled like a teenager as she penned her latest letter.

Nia,

My next conundrum for you to laugh at: I’m catching feelings. I don’t know how to bring this up to him. It would be neat if I could just do that thing I normally do, where I tell myself to stop feeling something, and it actually works… but I guess it doesn’t work so well when the emotions are positive. Ahh, maybe I’m not as dead inside as I thought I was… Yay me?

Your friend forever,

Lucy

As she took the letter outside, a woman with a gravity-defying stalk of hair approached her workshop. It wobbled with each step like an antennae, a bulbous bun atop a stiff ponytail. She clasped her hands together in a nervous sort of way, and her eyes were kind, but shadowed beneath.

Lucy slipped the letter in her mailbox and smiled politely at the newcomer. “Mornin’, ma’am.”

“Howdy, Lucy! I’m Trudy, the mayor of Sandrock!”

The woman’s voice had a nervous ring to it, like the jingle of shaking glass atop a platter. Lucy cranked up the warmth in her smile nonetheless. She’d heard the tales of Trudy’s stalwart efforts to help Sandrock thrive again.

“Welcome back, Mayor,” she said, offering her hand for a firm shake. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“And I, you,” Trudy said, chuckling. “You’ve done so much for our town, and I’m sorry I wasn’t here to see it. The new bridge, the new water tower… I’m so very grateful to you and Mi-an. I’m truly glad you are here.”

Some color rose to Lucy’s cheeks. She did not take compliments as smoothly as she’d hoped, and the praises of Sandrockers often resulted in some version of bashfulness.

“I’m happy to help,” she managed to say. “This town has quickly become… quite special to me. I feel at home here… more than I ever felt back in Highwind.”

It was the first time Lucy said that aloud to anyone else. It only made sense to tell it to the mayor herself. From the way Owen lit up every time she walked in the saloon, to her being pulled into the Fleeting Youth Tea Society, to the way Cooper ranted at her every time she visited the ranch. She felt like she’d lived here from the beginning.

Trudy gave her a warm, shining smile. “You are home.”

They talked for a little while about Trudy’s efforts in the Eufaula, but the mayor did not shed too many details about the different places she looked. The exhaustion in her eyes doubled up, and Lucy didn’t want to pry. In any case, she didn’t seem to be deterred by the long trek away from home. Lucy admired her for that.

In turn, Lucy told her about the recent run-in with a certain bandit, which threatened to ruin her comfort with living alone on the southern outskirts.

“I must admit, I am worried about what Logan will do next,” Trudy said with a deep sigh. “But, we can’t let him win. We’ve survived worse than him.”

Lucy nodded. “I’m certain that he’ll make a false move one of these days, and we’ll catch him.”

With a sad smile, the mayor shook her head. “He was a good man, Logan. I am sure that the goodness still lives somewhere in him. I just hope we can bring him home and he can see sense before it’s too late.” She checked her watch. “Ah, I better get going. Mayoral duties and all that. Before I forget, I wanted to extend a personal invitation to the fireside coming up this Sunday, if you’re able to make it.”

Lucy nodded. “I’ll be there. Is there anything that I can do for you in the meantime, in terms of building? I’m not sure how long you’ve been away, but perhaps there is something you find yourself needing?”

Lucy herself had been in Sandrock for almost a full year, so Trudy must’ve definitely needed some home comforts. To the builder’s surprise, the mayor made a passive request for a new desk and chair, explaining that Matilda had taken hers. Lucy furrowed her eyebrows, unable to hide her expression of disbelief. Why on earth would she take the mayor’s desk and chair?

She couldn’t imagine someone in an official position being forced to work standing in a corner for too long, so she went to work right away, the moment that Trudy bade her farewell. The machines in her workshop sang their happy, grinding-and-whirring songs, while she relished in the fact that they no longer made her shudder as often. She was finally able to enjoy her work again.

She ended up delivering the desk and chair that same evening, having worked through her typical lunch hour. The look on Trudy’s face was one of spectacular surprise.

“You really could have taken so much more time,” she said, blushing beneath the stark lights of City Hall. “I am floored by the quality, truly.”

“All in a day’s work, ma’am,” Lucy said, grinning. “Quite literally, I suppose.”

“Tell you what…” Trudy gave her a nervous smile, as if she was afraid to impose. “I’d love for you to join me and Jasmine for lunch sometime. She’s been telling me so much about you. It sounds like she looks up to you, and I promised her I’d take a day off after I get settled back here.”

Lucy accepted, feeling a swell of adoration for Jasmine. She left City Hall at a trot, nearly throwing herself back on the ground after running into Pen. He caught her just in time.

“Whoa, Skinny.”

She snickered, rubbing her nose where it had collided with his solid body. “My bad.”

In her giddiness, she had the sudden desire to peck him on the cheek, but they were not alone out there. She saw Arvio was cleaning up at his shop, and Justice was coming over the hill of Martle Square. The awkwardness of the night at the saloon pulled her back like a firm set of hands.

“R—right,” she said. “I’m headed home, so I’ll catch ya later.”

He nodded and waved her off, his gaze lingering on her for just a little longer than she deemed innocent.

It was dark. Too dark for the morning. Lucy swam in extended shadow before her eyelids finally parted to reveal — more darkness. Her ceiling. Dark wood planks with even darker grooves.

Why am I awake? she thought, crawling through a sleepy fog.

Something was moving in her house. Rustling. She had been trying to adopt Banjo and Macchiato for a month, but she was not yet successful. Therefore, the only living creature inside her home should’ve been herself.

Lucy’s heart shot up to her throat. What if… someone else was in her house?

Her eyes were wide open now, peering into the deep umber of the night, moonlight just highlighting the edges of her furniture, casting long shadows across her walls.

The rustling was followed by the sound of footsteps — boots on the wooden planks that made up her floors. Someone was walking in the kitchen. The figure stepped lightly, and the longer Lucy listened, the less certain she was of who it could possibly be, not that she had much of an idea in the first place. Her muddied brain shed one bright thought: she was not safe.

Lucy rolled over in her bed slowly, careful to reduce the sounds of her movements, and reached into the bottom shelf of her nightstand. The shelf was bordered on all sides except the one right next to her bed. It was where she kept her gun. She knew it wasn’t exactly the safest protocol, according to Justice, but she just felt better knowing her gun was by her side.

When she grabbed the gun, the metal slid against the wood. She winced. The footsteps in the other room stopped. Her heart pounding, she slipped the pistol beneath her blanket and held onto it firmly while she performed a fake toss and turn motion, letting out a soft, sleepy groan. With any luck, the person would just think she was having a bad dream.

I WISH this was a bad dream, she thought bitterly, fear knocking on her throat.

She waited, wide awake and alert, every muscle in her body tensing in different shifts. She finally took a breath as the person resumed their walk. She heard latches opening quietly, lids being shut again, and she might’ve also heard a sigh.

They were looking for something.

She had nothing of value — well, except for a stockpile of raw materials and tubs of water. But no one in their right mind would be stealing ore straight out of her house, not when it was freely available to anyone with a pickhammer and some sense out in the desert. But would a burglar care? The bandits in Sandrock were well known as a problem. Perhaps it was finally her time to be robbed. If that was the case, she wouldn’t make it easy for them. As much as she tried to give people the benefit of the doubt, the doubt ended where a home break-in began.

She contemplated getting out of her bed and following the sounds, but there was no need. The movement started getting closer to her bedroom door, which was wide open. Who needed privacy when there was no other living soul in the home? That was a naive thought she regretted now.

The person walked slowly, each step accentuated by the soft rub of leather, clink of metal, and thump of heavy boots. Her heart pounded, desperate to free itself from the entrapment of her flesh.

Lucy closed her eyes and listened as the figure passed into the room. She dared not peek while the sounds moved from the doorway, to the side of her bed, and then further away. She could smell the scent of honey barbecue mingled with a smoky char, leather, and crisp desert air.

A drawer slid open. Her eyes became slits in the dark as she opened her eyelids slightly, hoping to still appear asleep, in the worst case that the invader was looking.

Her heart could have fallen out through her back, passed through the bed, and made a wet slap against the floor, right then and there. She recognized his frame: broad, fit shoulders draped in a long cape the color of springtime mist, the tint barely visible in the moonlit darkness. A loose ponytail held his silvery white hair back from his face, his back turned towards her.

Logan the bandit.

Lucy tried to control her breathing to make it sound less controlled, pretending she was still having dreams, rather than lying down, wide awake in this living nightmare. A criminal in her home, and a lethal one, at that. One she’d already tried to shoot once… Had he come back for vengeance?

Logan closed the drawer and opened the next one. Lucy’s face got warmer. It was her underwear drawer, which he seemed to understand rather quickly. He pawed the garments inside for only a few seconds before shutting it again. She watched as he scratched his head. She would’ve laughed, had she not been fully aware what could go wrong if she made the wrong kind of sound.

She came to a decision as he started pulling open the third drawer. She’d have to, very carefully, free herself from the entrapments of her sheets, so she could position herself better in preparation for a fight. She made a display of rolling over, kicking the sheets halfway off. In this way, she could pretend that she was tossing in her sleep, still hide the pistol, and get partially out of her blankets.

Her back was faced toward him, legs fully exposed. There was a sharp intake of breath from his direction, which signaled his notice of her motions. Her stomach clenched. The world stood still. Without eyes on him, he could’ve pulled out a gun right there and ended her plan — and any foreseeable plan in her life.

She stuttered out a breath, making it slightly noisy, mouth half-open, feigning a nightmare or particularly interesting dream. The back of her legs chilled with goosebumps.

At long last, he continued moving through her room. Her heart volleyed back into her body. He paused at the wall opposite to her bed, right next to her wardrobe, where she’d placed a collage.

It was a series of photos she’d happily taken after getting a working camera relic. She built all the frames herself and arranged them, story-like, in the sequence of when they were taken. There were landscapes highlighting the beauty and harshness of Sandrock, group photos of her with her friends, like Mi-an, Owen, Grace, Heidi, the Civil Corps, and others. She even had photos of Captain, Macchiato, Banjo, Nemo, Sandy, and the sad-looking meerkat that Elsie tamed. It was the tapestry of her life here, and truth be told, it was fuller than she could’ve ever hoped it to be.

Lucy swallowed. He seemed to be doing more than rummaging through her belongings. He could’ve been gathering intelligence, learning about her life here. She cursed herself for putting everything on display. What if he were to target one of her friends? Would he do that? They were once his friends, too, weren’t they?

She breathed again when he moved on to her wardrobe. As he swung open the doors, Lucy made a split-second decision.

It was now or never. She slid out from beneath her blankets a little further. The small, metallic rattle of her pistol being freed from its hiding place revealed her movements. By the time he spun around, she had her gun aimed at him.

A black bandana, his signature mask, obscured the bottom half of his face. His eyes were reflected in the moonlight that streamed through her window. A scar broke a line across his left eyebrow. His hair, missing his hat, was shaggy and still white, some strands capturing the late night glow.

“D—don’t move,” she said. She tried to sound confident, like she knew what she was doing… Like she wasn’t sparsely dressed, and her hands weren’t shaking.

He scanned Lucy’s appearance with his piercing gaze, taking in the sight of her. She was kneeling at the edge of her bed. Her hair was disheveled from sleep, and she wore pajama shorts and a tank top, not an inkling of danger about her besides the gun in her uncertain grip.

He arched an eyebrow at her quivering lips, as if gently intrigued by her actions. His hands were still at his sides, but she caught the faintest hint of movement, the trace of deeper shadows at his hips. On one side, his gun. On the other side, a dagger. His fingers flexed, as if he was deciding which weapon to pull.

“Hands up,” she said in a stronger voice, rectifying the previous order.

He raised his eyebrows and let out a breath — a quiet laugh, voiceless and almost mocking. But he obliged, raising his hands at a leisurely pace. His chest rose and fell with steady breaths, which unnerved Lucy even further.

She stood up fully, to find that she was a whole head shorter than him. If she were him, she’d be laughing beneath that mask. Perhaps he was. The smallest crinkle appeared at the corner of his eyes, and his mask shifted. But still, she advanced on him, trying to pull her nerves together.

“I gotta take you in,” she said with some effort. A ball of nervous energy ricocheted across her fingertips, down to her toes. Could she really bring him in? What the hell else was she supposed to say? What was the actual plan here?

In the slowest of movements, in the pale glow of night, Logan’s eyes narrowed, cutting out her words from her lips. He shook his head with such slowness, his hair barely moved.

“You don’t have a choice,” she said. “If you don’t let me take you in, I’ll have to…”

Tell me, have you ever killed a man before? Pen’s voice drifted back to her. Would you be willing to, if it came to that?

The bloodied, dying Geeglers passed through her mind, an ancient memory with dull pain. A quivering frown dragged down her lips as she tried to shake the image from her mind. Logan’s eyes pulled her back to the present, shining a light on her where she stood. Could she dare put out those lights forever?

Logan co*cked his head to the side, possibly wondering the same thing, waiting for her to finish that empty threat. Arms extended, she was inches from him, staring into his eyes as she fought with herself to keep moving her body — to say something, to take control of the situation. Yet, she could not bring herself to pull the trigger.

He started to lower his hands, stretching out toward her without making any sudden movements. Lucy stood rooted to the spot as his hand touched hers, blanketing it in a calloused warmth. He guided it down, taking the gun with it, until she was no longer aiming at him. Lucy’s breath became ragged. She could’ve sworn he was about to pull out his weapons next, and end it all there. She would’ve deserved it. Her inaction could have cost her her life.

But he did not let go of her hand. Instead, he sidestepped ever so slightly and reached into the wardrobe with his free hand. He retrieved a notched, brimmed hat with familiar horns and a monogram on the front. The very hat she’d left on the hook during the chaotic day when she first laid eyes on him.

“You… came for your… hat…” Saying it aloud gave her a strange sense of bemusem*nt and relief.

He squeezed her hand gently as if to confirm her theory. In all the rumors about Logan, he was ornery and rambunctious, not the silent type.

“Why aren’t you saying anything?” she asked, raising her brows.

A soft crinkle appeared at the corners of his eyes again. The fabric of his mask shifted. He let out a soft, voiceless laugh, as if to say “Why do you think I’d answer that now?”

He donned his hat, casting his face in shadow that met with the darkness of his mask. At last, he let go of her. The cold evening air swarmed her hand, biting hungrily at the warmth he left behind.

The wardrobe was just a few steps from one of Lucy’s bedroom windows. Logan walked over and unlatched it from its locked position.

As he slid it open, the sound cut into the silence between them. He swung his leg over the edge and ducked under the top half of the window, his cape spilling behind him over the ledge. Lucy noticed the pattern on it: faded and barely visible in the dark, save for what was illuminated by strands of starlight, was a border made of triangle motifs. A telltale sign of Vivi’s signature work.

Something pulled at Lucy’s heart. “Wait, Logan…”

He turned to look at her. He’d completed his escape, just about. He had turned to go, fully out of her window and on her back patio. He could’ve run if he really wanted to. But he didn’t. He stood, stooping slightly, leaning against her window frame, an inquiry in the way he co*cked his head.

“I just wanted to say…” Lucy gulped. “Elsie… She believes you’re innocent. She’s fighting like hell to clear your name. I can’t pretend to know why you’ve done the things you’ve done. I just hope you understand that there’s someone who looks up to you in this town, who still believes in you.”

She hesitated, a frown forming on her lips. Recognition of her words glinted in his eyes, sparking a fire that caused her soul to burn. But she didn’t know why. She couldn’t read his expression, not when she didn’t know him the way that others seemed to, and especially not when his features were obscured by the masks of cloth and night.

“I don’t know why I’m telling you this,” she admitted. “Maybe I’m hoping, deep down, that Elsie — for all her faults — is right this one time. You’ve gone through a lot. You have every right to feel how you feel…” She thought about his Pa, this legendary character of whom people only spoke wonderful things. Gone, in a night. “Peach, if you wanna burn it all down, I wouldn’t blame you for that wish. But… there are people here who still care about you.”

Whether it was fear or a passionate plea, Lucy thought of the pain in Elsie’s face, the numb shock in Owen’s, and the photos she’d seen in Logan’s house. The image of a young boy and his father, happy and smiling. The smile turning into the hidden, mysterious expression on this man’s face.

“You don’t know me at all. My opinion’s not worth sh*t, I bet, but… I’m sorry for what happened to you and your Pa,” she said, voice barely above a whisper. “Truly. I am. It may not mean much from a stranger, and no crime you commit will ever undo that tragedy and how awful it must have been. None of it is simple, and the townsfolk aren’t perfect people. I see them trying every day to do better for each other. Hell, I met Trudy today… She even speaks kindly of the man you were before you left town. Matilda, too. Pen even told me you were friends once...

“I know you’re hurting, Logan. It doesn’t matter if it’s been years. That hurt may never go away. You can’t go back and change what happened, but you always have a choice in how you move forward. Just… don’t forget that. There are people here who would never hurt you and never wish you harm. Whatever you plan to do next. There’s always another way.”

His gaze went down for a second, before coming back up to meet hers. For a moment, Lucy thought he was getting ready to speak, his lips parting beneath the cloth. But he must’ve reconsidered. He pulled back from the window, reached a hand up to the brim of his hat, and tipped it toward her. With that, he left.

Lucy stared after the southern outskirts as she heard his footsteps recede from her house, the bleating of a goat shortly after, then the quick clopping of hooves as he rode away.

Chapter 22: No Overnight Guests

Chapter Text

Sandrock was dark and quiet. Serene, another world entirely from the one inside Lucy’s head. She stepped quickly across the train tracks, passed by the oasis, and went up Main Street. Her calves tensed from the march, but she was numb to the ache. There was no resting. Not now.

She rubbed her forehead. A metallic sound reminded that she was still holding her pistol. A useless thing, when the one holding it couldn’t pull the trigger.

I just let a wanted criminal go, she thought, eyes darting to and fro. I even tried to talk him down. I’m so f*cked. I’m so, so f*cked.

But her heart raged against the thought. It was more complicated than that. She knew it, and everyone in the town knew it, no matter how much they side-glanced and mumbled between their feigned shock at the way he’d turned out. Sandrock wasn’t built on rainbows and Light-driven chariots. They were hardy folk — fighters — who were remarkably passive when it came to Logan.

She swallowed hard. She was going uphill, she realized, toward the church grounds. Of course, her subconscience was taking her to Pen. She bit her lip, imagining the judgment he would render on her when she got to him. She didn’t even know what time it was, but it must’ve been late enough for the Blue Moon to be closed. What time had she gone home again?

Her eyes stung with exhaustion and a stark inability to blink. She went to holster her gun as she approached the dormitory, but she found that she had no holster, no belt, and no work pants. She was still in her pajama shorts. The cold air wrapped clawed around her, coating her in goosebumps.

I’ve gone insane, she concluded. I need to talk to Pen.

But what was Pen going to say? She paused at the front door of the dormitory, breaths coming in gasps. For all her hurry, she hesitated upon knocking.

The last time they talked about Logan, they’d got into a heated argument about what she should do during the encounter. Once again, she’d gone against his arrogant recommendation to go straight to him. Well, she took a detour, but she was here now. What would he say when he found out that she let him go?

Lucy cursed under her breath and retracted her hand from the door, remembering that Pen didn’t live in the dormitory alone. If she knocked, she would surely risk waking Miguel or Burgess. She did not feel like explaining anything to either of them. Miguel would likely become enraged, while Burgess would panic.

So, she did what any sleep deprived, anxiety-ridden, yet inexplicably agile person would do: she went around the building to seek a way to Pen’s window. She did her best guess. He was up the stairs, first door across from the landing. So, his had to be the central set of large windows in the back of the building. She perched precariously against the border of the property.

Still holding onto her gun, she picked up a rock with her free hand and launched it at her target. She waited a moment, letting the silence threaten to take her in its grasp. The windows stayed dark. Her heart thumped with disappointment and earnest need. She threw another rock.

Come on, she thought, shivering. The one damn time I need you to be VIGILANT.

Something moved toward the front of the building. Lucy scrambled down from her vantage point and scurried over. The dormitory’s hallway light beamed out a long geometric print onto the cool cobblestone of the church plaza. Burgess’s silhouette cut a hole in it. Lucy sighed, disappointment and guilt joining the fray of her turbulent emotions.

He peered around with a sleepy yawn, holding up a gas lamp to aid him as the door shut behind him. Lucy approached as casually as she could, but it was a farce as long as she had a gun out. She held it behind her back, in an effort not to spook him right away.

“Psst. Burgess,” she whispered. “Over here.”

“LU—”

“Shh! Don’t wake the town.”

Burgess clamped a hand over his mouth. He tiptoed over and stared at her, brows high and eyes wide. “Was that you just now?” he asked, much more quietly. “I heard some knocking…”

“Yeah, sorry about that. I was trying to get Pen’s attention…”

The safety inspector’s lips parted in surprise. He was quiet for a second, and she could see the internal struggle play out in the way his brows knitted, relaxed, and came back together. “Um… Lucy… We’re not allowed to have overnight guests in the dormitory, you know. Rules and regs…”

Lucy rubbed her forehead, revealing her gun in the process. Oblivious to his gasp, she said, “Not like that, Burgess. I just needed to talk to him about something.”

“Lucy,” he hissed. “You’re out here… with an Old World weapon… at two o’clock in the morning?!”

Her face fell. “I— I didn’t realize the time… Sorry — about the gun, too. Needed it for protection… Can’t be too… careful out here, with all the danger, y’know.”

“I guess I can understand that. The Civil Corps officers keep guns on them, too.” Burgess raised the gas lamp closer to her. “Boy, you look really pale, Lucy. Um. I’m sorry to say I’m strictly prohibited from inviting you inside, but may I make the suggestion for you to go on home and get some shut-eye?”

She almost laughed at his unshakeable willpower when it came to rules.

“Besides,” he went on. “Pen isn’t gonna wake up.”

Lucy threw him a puzzled look. “What?”

“He’s knocked out. I mean, knocked out. Sometimes he takes a sleeping aid to, well, aid him in sleeping.”

Her heart sank. She stared at her useless gun. “I… I wouldn’t have come if I’d known that. He never told me.”

Burgess fidgeted with the gas lamp. “Well, the only people who really know are me, Miguel, and — now — you. I’ll have to confess to him later that I gave out a vital piece of info on his nighttime routine without checking with him first…”

“I could also pretend that I never heard it,” Lucy said, shrugging.

“That won’t do, my friend. I’ll still have to let him know that I got caught slippin’. By me! I caught myself slippin’.”

She sidestepped him and shot him an apologetic smile. “I’ll let you get back to sleep. Sorry again for disturbing you.”

She started down the stairs away from the church dormitory, closer to the museum side of town. It wasn’t the way she’d come up, but she couldn’t go home just yet. The look in Logan’s eyes followed her in the back of her mind. He’d have no reason to pay her another visit tonight, unless he actually wanted to discuss what she said, but she wasn’t banking on that. No, she preferred to be in town, among people who could wake up and come to her aid posthaste if she ever ended up firing a shot.

As she approached the first floor of the Research Center, the door swung open. Grace appeared at the threshold, and the moment she saw Lucy, she nearly threw herself back against the metal slab.

“L—Lucy,” the fry cook breathed. “Fancy running into you… here… at this time of night.”

Lucy chuckled nervously, a sound that was jarring to her own ears. “Kinda late to be at the Research Center, isn’t it?”

“It’s a long — wait. What’s going on?” She pointed at the gun in the builder’s hand. “Are you okay?”

Lucy took a deep breath. “I am not okay.” Her lips quivered. “I am really, really not.”

“Oh, Lucy…” Grace dashed forward and put her arms around her.

The builder’s shoulders slumped in her grasp, and she allowed herself to be hugged, though she didn’t quite feel like she could return the favor. Her arms fell limp at her sides, the only strength left in them used to keep her grip on the weapon. Her breaths were shaky, and her vision started to blur with tears.

She could hardly remember what words were said, caught in a daze of self-deprecating thoughts and mumbled non-explanations. Somewhere in that mix, Grace spoke gently to her, a soothing tone in her voice, and Lucy accepted the offer of being ushered to the apartment complex where she lived. On their way there, Grace kept her arm around her, a comforting blanket against the stark night.

They passed by the front of Ceramic Gate, which doubled as Amirah’s home. The light was on. Two shadows moved in front of a light source inside, casting large silhouettes against the windows. The shapes of Owen and Amirah, close together. Lucy and Grace exchanged knowing looks.

“We’re not the only ones out late,” Grace whispered, snickering.

It was strange how life was so normal here, in the depths of the town. What would’ve happened if she’d actually shot Logan? Surely Owen and Amirah’s night would be cut short, interrupted by the sound of death. She bet it would’ve echoed across the canyon, too.

They got to Grace’s apartment, where she set Lucy up on her retro couch. She brought out an extra pillow and blanket, and she took a seat on the coffee table while Lucy got settled.

“You wanna tell me what happened, or you wanna sleep?” Grace asked. “No pressure either way.”

“I don’t think I can sleep.” Lucy sighed. She placed the pillow on her crossed legs and set her elbows on top. “I… I think I f*cked up. Real bad.”

She told Grace everything, leaving no stone unturned when it came to her guilt and stupidity. Meanwhile, Grace brewed some herbal tea, listening without interruption. It gave the builder some comfort that she didn’t outright react to how she tried to talk Logan down.

“I couldn’t stay home,” Lucy said at last, taking the steaming teacup from her with thanks. “I don’t know why… So, I ran to see Pen.”

Grace sat next to her and gave her a look that was somewhere between pity and understanding. “That makes sense. You two are close, and he’s the Protector and all.”

Lucy nodded, color rising to her cheeks. “But he was asleep. That’s when I came back down the hill and ran into you.”

“I’m glad you did. Who knows where you could’ve ended up tonight?”

“I’m such an idiot. I can’t believe I told Logan I’d understand if he wanted to burn it all down. I wouldn’t judge Justice and Unsuur if they wanted to lock me up.”

Grace shook her head. “I’m sure they wouldn’t do that.”

“Don’t you think I’m f*cking dumb, though? I let him go. Logan. A wanted criminal, dead or alive. Public Enemy Number One.”

The fry cook looked pensive for a moment, evidently trying to choose her words carefully. “I don’t think you’re dumb at all, Lucy. I think you were in a difficult position, and you chose empathy. There’s nothing wrong with that. I still remember when you told me about the first fight with the Geeglers. You were so shaken up back then. It’s only understandable that you’d hesitate taking the man’s life.”

Lucy felt plunged into icy cold water, ashamed that inaction would be a mark of her character. “Do you think I should’ve tried to bring him in?”

“It doesn’t matter what I think you should’ve done, or what you think you should’ve done. You can’t go back in time.” She crossed her arms and studied Lucy’s face for a little while, taking in her disheveled hair and pale face. “If we’re being completely honest here, Lucy, I think you did the right thing. His life wasn’t yours to take. He deserves to go to trial for what he’s done. If he was willing to leave you alone, then that was a good thing. You don’t want to get mixed up with a guy like that.”

“I wasn’t trying to get mixed up. I just…” Lucy groaned. “Everyone acts like he’s some… monster that came from the Peripheries. They forget that he was one of us — I mean one of the Sandrockers — before all that. He was a part of all this.”

“Y’know, I don’t exactly disagree with you,” Grace said slowly. “I wasn’t there when it all went down, so I’m kinda in the same boat as you. The problem is, no one likes to talk about it. Understandable. It was a big tragedy.”

“I wish I left the damn hat in the desert.”

They stayed up for a little while longer. Talking to Grace helped Lucy’s nerves quite a bit, and Grace offered no judgments and no solutions, which Lucy greatly appreciated. She didn’t need anyone telling her what to do. She just needed a friend, and Grace provided.

They eventually circled back to the awkward run-in at the Research Center, giving Lucy some reprieve from the haunting topic of the night.

“I made a deal with Qi,” Grace explained. “I supply him with tea and Blue Moon deliveries, while he lets me use the research facilities for my school work.”

“Ohhh.” Lucy snapped a finger. “That’s a pretty good deal.”

“The thing is, he hogs the research machine like you wouldn’t believe. I spend a lot of late nights studying while he’s asleep. It’s the only way I can really focus without him constantly hovering over me, asking me when I’m done.”

Nestled back in a world of simpler things and innocent exchanges, Lucy felt her shoulders relaxing and her eyelids drooping. Grace let out a long yawn and told her to get some shut-eye, which she eventually did. The night was filled with complicated visions of the silent outlaw, sprinkled with memories of a bloodied massacre at Gecko Station, and a pistol that kept slipping out of Lucy’s hand.

Lucy left the apartment complex first thing in the morning, thanking Grace profusely for letting her spend the night. She’d come to the saloon to pick up her gun later, not wanting to grace the waking world with her unmitigated madness. The morning light was harsh, forcing her to squint as she opened the door.

She needed to get home and get cleaned up. With some measure of sleep behind her, the edge was dulled somewhat. Logan’s obscured face blurred a bit more in her memory, though the sequence of events played like a broken record. After everything she experienced in Sandrock thus far, she knew it wasn’t just going to go away overnight.

She ran into Pen at Martle Square. He was jogging at a leisurely pace, a thin coat of sweat forming on his forehead.

“Skinny Arms!” he called.

His face twisted into confusion as he assessed her appearance. Lucy’s face turned red, a quick turnaround under morning sunlight, the hot pavement, and Pen’s laser focus.

“Morning Pen,” she said awkwardly. Her voice was groggy, and she was sure that he could see right through her tank top. She gestured for him to move on. “Don’t… Don’t let me get in your way.”

“Nonsense. Jog with me, Skinny! You can try to keep up, and I can try to be understanding when you fall behind.” He started doing butt kicks in place.

Lucy managed to smile at him, his antics just a little world away from where she was — and she wished she could travel there in a heartbeat. “I— I don’t feel like jogging right now. I gotta go home and get to work.”

“Then you should jog home! Work those legs!”

A swell of guilt hit her at the way his eyes twinkled in the morning light. Burgess must not have told him about her visit in the middle of the night.

“I’ll catch up with you later,” Lucy said quietly, turning to leave.

Pen stopped and switched to a walking pace, joining her in her trajectory. “Hey, I didn’t even call you weak. Why are you pouting?”

She let out a soft chuckle. “I’m not mad. Really. I just, um…”

“Lucy,” Pen said, dropping his voice. “You know you can talk to me about anything.”

It was true. They waded in the dark waters of evil, good, and human nature together. A little mental spiral would be fine dinner conversation for them. They stopped just short of the Commerce Guild. Lucy eyed the door, then she was drawn immediately to the poster next to it. Whoever had drawn Logan had captured the fire in his eyes rather well. And, of course, she was the reason the posters were still up.

She sighed, meeting Pen’s gaze at last. “I know. Um, let’s talk about it at my workshop? I gotta pick up a commission first.”

Inside the Commerce Guild, the air was thick, tension pulling on Yan’s face so hard that Lucy was sure his muscles would rip apart sooner or later. He greeted them both with an all-too welcoming hello, and she could feel him staring daggers behind their backs as Pen joined her by the commission board. They must’ve looked rather suspicious, a pajama-clad Lucy and a slightly sweaty Pen.

“That’s right, Newbie. Up and at ‘em early, just like it oughta be. I tell ya, you’re one of theee… workers!”

She was sure he was attempting to say “hardest” or “best,” but he couldn’t actually bring himself to enunciate those words.

“Commissioner!” Pen cried in his haughty way. “Up and at ‘em early, throwing your wobbly legs up on the desk, I see. You should join me for a workout one of these days. I could use a punching bag.”

“I — uh… I’ll think about it. Maybe when my back gets better. Or…” He muttered some unintelligible excuses, possibly something about a pet turtle that Lucy knew didn’t exist.

She smirked at the board, hiding her amusem*nt at Yan’s floundering. She picked out a commission for Owen, one for Hugo, and another request for Ernest. There was nothing like evading the source of her stress by piling on work.

As they went back outside, Grace was taking up her morning post of welcoming guests at the front door. She shot Lucy a knowing look and waved at the both of them, her professional greeting in full bloom.

The sand kicked up behind their steps, leaving behind a little dust trail. Pen stretched his arms as they walked.

“You’re quiet,” she said at last, as they prepared to cross the train tracks.

“So are you.”

“I have reasons.”

“I’m waiting to hear them.” He smirked. “I’m patient like that.”

Lucy sighed, doubling back on her willingness to share. Against her better judgment, she wanted to give him a reason to ignore her distress. “You, of all people, aren’t gonna like this.”

They stopped just outside her workshop gate, where Pen crossed his arms. “Suit yourself, Skinny,” he drawled. “Let the record state that ol’ Pen was ready and willing to lend his muscular shoulder for you to cry on.”

If nothing else, he was entirely too capable of pushing the right buttons. She opened the lid on the events of the previous night: the break-in, the gun-pointing, and the lack of gun-shooting. As she spoke, she was like a frantic high speed train, barreling down a one-way track to Confession Town.

“I know what you’re gonna say,” she said after taking a heavy breath. “You’re gonna give me some sh*t about not taking him down, or not running to you. Well, I ran to you. You were asleep. Not your fault — just pointing out that I’ve checked that box already.”

She pushed through the gate, and he followed. She’d run out of things to say. It was the waiting game, now, and every second that Pen looked downright contemplative was one that she’d spend with her nerves over-firing, sending electric signals to the tips of her fingers.

As she got ready to pull petrified wood from her storage, Pen stepped forward and put his hand on hers, stopping her.

“I’ll take care of that,” he said. “I could use the warmup anyway, since I’m taking a break from my jog.”

His expression was impassive, like a veil had been dragged between them. She nodded silently and backed away, allowing him to carry a sizeable piece to her processor.

“So, what do you think about what I said?” she asked tentatively. Seeing him respond so calmly, when he had not acted like this the day of the tower incident, was unnerving.

“It’s interesting…” He co*cked his head.

Lucy’s shoulders tensed. “Interesting” was not how she would’ve put it. “How so?” she asked.

“Your inability to pull the trigger, when you… seemed so certain.” He gave her an appraising look.

Guilt. Heavy like an anchor. Lucy swallowed it. “I know. I was afraid you were going to bring that up. You were right. I’ve never killed a man before. I didn’t expect it to be so hard. Even more than that, he was looking right at me. I froze.”

Pen took a deep breath and looked off in the distance, a thought taking him far away from her for a moment. When he returned, he gave her a soft smile. “It’s understandable to be conflicted, Lucy. Taking a life is no easy task.”

“Task?” She tutted softly. “I guess I don’t see it as my task. It was a decision — one that I couldn’t make. A part of me is thinking that this is all so much more complicated than any of us think. Logan’s case, specifically.”

“Be careful, Lucy.” He shook his head. “In my long career of besting the bastards that seek to destroy the delicate, doubt is the first step on a long, winding road of deceit.”

“What the hell does that even mean? Are you just trying to speak with alliteration?”

“Yes, but it also means that you should be alert. He may have intended to sew a seed of doubt into that builder-y head of yours. Stay on your toes!”

“From what Elsie told me, he’s unlikely to be that conniving…”

“Oh, her.” Pen rolled his eyes. “You know, she attempted to interrogate me the other day about my knowledge of bombs. As if I need the aid of explosives to open up a can of whoop-ass.”

“Ah, yeah. That… That’s true.” Lucy swallowed her insider knowledge of the situation. “That Elsie…”

“Anyway, this has all got me thinking — something that I don’t do often. We ought to revisit the details of our situation.”

She paused over the processor, the saw whirring in anticipation, until she shut it off. The morning sun traced the faintest hint of lavender in his hair, faded into deep brown and purple.

“The other night, you asked me to stay over.” His gaze softened. “I should have agreed. I could have been here to protect you.”

Her lips parted in surprise. “It wasn’t even the same night. I was drunk. I don’t—”

“—I know you don’t feel that you need me to, but my duty remains the same regardless of how you feel. You should’ve pushed me harder.”

“What?” She scowled. “Don’t put that back on me. I’m not gonna beg you.”

“Not at all.” He frowned, creases forming on the corners of his lips. “I failed you last night, and it was a lapse in judgment that I will not repeat. If you ever ask me again, I will stay.”

At first, Lucy’s heart fluttered, but a sting of bitterness chewed quickly into the feeling. It wasn’t an offer out of wanting to stay with her. It was an offer out of responsibility to her. Obligation. Something she hated, ringing at the door of her temporary happiness.

“Thanks,” she said in a measured voice, willing herself to smile kindly. “I’ll think about it. For now, we’ll… leave that door open, yeah?”

“Of course.”

She sighed, examining the grooves of the petrified wood in front of them. “You might not have been able to help, anyway. Burgess told me that you take a sleeping aid sometimes.”

If her knowledge was going to be revealed, she’d have rather done it on her own terms.

To her surprise, Pen did not seem taken aback. He merely nodded. “It’s important to get a full night’s sleep, uninterrupted, so that I can maximize my gains. Recovery is tantamount to muscly-ness. Yes, I may have the occasional insomnia, but make no mistake: that does not make me weak. It merely makes me more naturally alert, ready to go at any moment. Now that I know Logan has dared to accost you in your own home… Oh, boy.” He made a gesture of wringing someone’s neck.

Lucy found herself snickering. He didn’t need to put on this whole show of protector-ness for her comfort, but perhaps it was more for his own consolation.

She reached out and gently squeezed his shoulder. “It’s nice to know that you have my back… in your own way.”

“Always.”

Pen took her hand, lifted it slowly to his lips, and kissed it. The warmth sent a wave down her arm and through her body. She could have melted there on the spot. Her previous reservations sailed right over the fence, just like a plank of wood kicked back from the table saw.

“You’re welcome to stay tonight — if you want…” She glanced around, her voice getting quiet. “It might be nice to not be alone, after everything that went down.”

He gave her that signature, small smile, his blue eyes swimming with affection. “You don’t need to make excuses. I’ll stay, on one condition.”

Lucy raised her brows. “What?”

“You’ll finally let me train you.” At the look on her face, he chuckled. “Come on, Skinny. I’ll hand it to you. You’ve been getting better and better at the whole fighting thing, but if you just let me show you a move or two, you’ll be — I don’t know — at least on the way to being almost as good as me. It’ll help boost your confidence if you ever need to show someone a thing or two!”

She considered the point for a moment. She did need some confidence. If she didn’t rely on weapons, she would be less scared of mortally wounding someone. Finally, she shot him a skeptical look. “No space punches, alright?”

“No space punches. C’mon… It’ll be like foreplay! We’ll probably work up a sweat, and if you can land a punch on me, let’s just say that I’ll be that much more riled up to get things going.”

“You’re insane.”

“Insanely hot.”

She groaned, hating her inner desire to laugh and blush at his response. “Really, the things I’ve done for dick…”

“That’s a yes!” He punched the air. “Oh, this is gonna be great.”

Pen returned to her workshop that evening with a suitcase. Things rattled from within the box as he set it down.

“You’re not… moving in, are you?” Lucy asked with a nervous laugh.

“Not at all. These are my supplements! I take some right before bed and first thing in the morning.” He clapped his hands together. “Let’s go, Skinny! Training begins now!”

Begrudgingly, she followed him outside. For over an hour, they sparred. The evening spring air was chilly at first, stiffening Lucy’s limbs. But after warming up, they were nice and limber.

“You’ve been working on your techniques,” Pen said, an impressed smile on his lips. He gestured for her to approach him again.

She stepped carefully, feeling the fluid motions of her body cutting the air. She aimed for his torso, and he dodged just in time. She sidestepped him and landed a hit on his upper back.

“Great, Skinny! You’re doing great!”

Lucy chuckled. “You’re also working on your techniques — of being a teacher. How’s Burgess doing with his training?”

“Oh, I’m teaching him to play dead at this point.” Pen shrugged.

They performed their sparring dance a few more times, and the final sequence ended with Pen grabbing her by the wrist and pulling her to the ground. Against the sand, he kneeled on top of her, his eyes shadowed from the moon and starlight above. He smiled softly as she struggled against him.

“I think that’s enough for tonight,” he said quietly.

Covered in sweat, though she felt a flutter in the way he looked at her, she balked at the idea of engaging in sexual activity that same night.

“I’m exhausted,” she admitted as he helped her stand up.

“I’m warmed up,” he chuckled. “Time to do my evening workout! You mind if I use your living room?”

“Go ahead,” she said. “I’ll make dinner, if my arms are still working…”

Lucy was nervous the entire time she cooked. She kept wondering what it meant that he was staying the night, then she’d turn around and argue with herself that it meant nothing. Nothing for their pseudo-romantic situation, anyway. Pen was interested in keeping her safe, which was great. It ended there: he was just very serious about his job.

Pen’s evening workout involved a distracting series of one-armed push-ups, triangle push-ups, sit-ups, and bench pressing the robot couch. She happened to poke her head into the room to see him gripping the thing by the eye stalks. He was sweaty once again by the time dinner was served. And, shirtless, of course.

Lucy ate her meal while taking not-so-subtle glances at his glistening pecs, freshly pumped from the workout. She cursed herself. There was no way this could be a regular thing. She’d never get anything done.

After dinner, Pen took out his stockpile of supplements and the biggest protein shaker Lucy had ever laid eyes on. He drank the nutritional sludge with a long sip and cartoonish gulps along the way. While he did so, she inspected the supplements with curiosity. She spun each one and skimmed over the ingredients, but she noticed the largest one didn’t have a list.

“What’s in this one?” she asked, pointing to the Knight-X Protein and Dietary Supplement. “Everything has a nutrition label except for this.”

“That’s kinda self-explanatory, don’t you think?” Pen shrugged. “Protein! And dietary supplements.”

Lucy rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”

“It’s custom made for me,” he said. “I get it shipped out from Atara. The strongest man in the world needs the strongest stuff to keep it going.”

“Ah. Is that why it’s called Knight-X? Did you pick the name?”

Pen winked at her. “You got it.”

They wrapped up for the night and climbed into bed together. Pen took up more than half of it due to his sheer bulk. It wasn’t his first time in her sheets, but something about this felt far more intimate than ever before.

“Hope you don’t mind,” he said, pulling off his clothes, “I like to sleep naked.”

Lucy shook her head silently, her cheeks flushed. He pulled her into his arms and held her close.

“You feel tense,” he said gently, his voice radiating through her body.

She buried her face in his chest. “This is new, and… I’m still coming down from the craziness last night. I know we said we’d… do things…”

She could hear his heart beat. A steady rhythm. Calming, even. He hushed her gently, stroking her hair. “We can just sleep tonight.” He kissed the top of her head. “Don’t worry about the other stuff.”

Her heart swelled at his words. She laced an arm through his, passing a hand over the muscles of his back. She nodded silently, a tug of gratitude and something softer, unspeakable, in the back of her mind.

“Thank you,” she whispered, her vowels elongating in the comfort of his embrace. She breathed him in, taking the scent of his body and indulging in the way it felt so familiar and new at the same time. His arms blanketed her, wrapping her up in a firm, reassuring cocoon of protection.

It took Lucy some time to fall asleep. Though she found comfort in his presence, she was not used to it. Her subconscious had yet to fully accept the existence of someone else in her bed. Sometimes, she woke up and felt a surge of terror at this massive silhouette beside her, but she always remembered who it was before making a scene.

At some point in the night, Pen’s back was turned toward her, and she scooted closer and wrapped her arm around his waist. He grabbed her hand, still asleep, a soft hum on his lips as he pulled her in even tighter. She giggled silently to herself, feeling like a small diving jetpack on his body.

Morning light spilled over both of them, lying separately in their own contorted shapes. Pen must not have taken his sleeping medication. As Lucy stirred, flipped over to her side, and looked at him, he opened a bleary eye. A soft, quiet smile drifted onto both their lips, passing some secret message with hidden meanings between them. Lucy’s heart floated against the flow of gravity.

Pen yawned and flopped onto his stomach, pulling his pillow as he continued gazing at her. He reached over and pushed some hair out of her face, his fingers gentle on her skin.

“You’re a sight to behold,” he said, his voice husky and deepened by slumber.

Lucy’s chest tightened. She clutched the blankets closer to her body, her cheeks rosy in the soft glow of dawn. She could not find her voice, but if she had it in her grasp, she would have spoken similar poetry back to him.

She would’ve told him that she loved the way the light shone on the sharpness of his cheeks, the curve of his jawline. She loved the waves of lavender hinted in the dark strands of purple hair and the way the shaggy, unstyled waves slipped past his ears. She hoped, more than anything at that moment, that she would get to wake up next to him again.

Chapter 23: Confidential

Chapter Text

Lucy pushed through the iron gates of the cemetery and announced her presence, wishing a good morning to Fang, X, and Mort. She produced a small chunk of lapis lazuli and handed it to X, who snatched it up in his beak with an appreciative caw.

“Shiny! Gimme gimme gimme! Put it away!” He tossed it into Fang’s awaiting hand.

Lucy nodded at the doctor with a smile, who returned the greeting in kind.

“Ah, you’ve come once again,” Mort said. He stood at the central monument, leaning on his walking stick. “You are too kind, like Dr. Fang here.”

Lucy grabbed a spare broom from the side of Mort’s house and went to work, joining the doctor’s weekly sweeping. Fang clenched his jaw slightly when he passed over the grave of Sarnai, a 30-year old woman whose epitaph noted her as a “songbird” whose “voice sings among the clouds.” She could guess what it meant, but one day, she hoped Fang would feel safe enough to tell her himself.

As she worked, she re-read the epitaphs with a solemn weight in her chest. Sarnai, Theodore, Rhonda, Zvonimir… Heartbreaking words from those who were left behind. Memories sprinkled like sand in the wind.

“Mort, I have a question about these.” She gestured toward the headstones for Tang, Miya, Aakil, and Lin-lin. “They were so young… What happened to them?”

“Ah…” Mort’s lips twitched beneath his mustache. “The year was 74. Back then, there was a school a ways down the road. They were on their way home, when the amber claw came…”

“A sandstorm?”

“Indeed.”

Lucy swallowed hard. She thought of Gordana, the little girl from the Breach whose face was still obscured in her mind. Here were equally unknown faces of young children lost to the harsh realities of the world.

“Their bodies were never recovered,” Mort went on, “but their fates were sealed all the same. That was… four years before the last photo taken of Martle. You remember bringing that to me, yes?”

Lucy nodded. She recalled the woman not far from her own age, looking into the camera with a solemn expression, as if she knew this would be the last time that any lens would capture her.

“That day, those of us who remained swore that we would do everything we could to not let their losses be for nothing. A vow that sent Martle further out into the desert, Spring 78. A vow I still cherish to this day.”

Lucy held the broom aloft in her hands, watching it all happen in her mind’s eye, a silent, translucent film over the graves.

Tang, 68-74. Smile because we knew her at all.

Miya, 67-74. Budded to bloom in the light.

Aakil, 67-74. His was a man’s courage.

Lin- lin , 68-74. Energy like the sun.

“The school was destroyed as well?” Lucy asked, her voice soft and somber.

“Yes. Ms. Bliss, the teacher, got out just in time, with the aid of Howlett and Hugo…” He nodded toward Howlett’s gravestone.

Howlett, 43-96. A true hero. Savior of the broken, weakened, and damned. No monster ever got the better of him.

“In some ways, we were lucky… Ms. Bliss let them out early that day.” He walked over and pulled a spiderweb off of Aakil’s name. “We could have lost them all. Owen, Justice, Logan, Heidi…”

Lucy’s heart sank. This whole time, it felt like an ancient story, before the dawn of things near and dear to her. She didn’t realize that her friends lived through that storm. If the others had made it, she wondered how different Sandrock would be. Would Martle still be here, perhaps?

“Anyway, don’t let an old man talk your ear off of tragedies past… I have far too much of that to share.”

“I like hearing your stories,” Lucy said quietly. “Even if they aren’t the happiest, they are important. It feels like I am honoring their memory when I listen.”

She placed a gentle hand on Mort’s shoulder. She had half a mind to spill the details of her current project. A partially built protective suit was sitting in her workshop, one of four commissioned in secret by City Hall. Zeke, Trudy, Mi-an, and Lucy intended to study the algae from some ruins Trudy had discovered. While Lucy was excited about the endeavor, she had to remind herself that this was not the first — and it was hardly the tenth — attempt at remedying Sandrock’s struggles.

“I… have hope that things will get better,” she ended up saying.

“Ah, that tireless optimism of yours…” The corners of Mort’s eyes crinkled with a smile. “It reminds me of someone I knew long, long ago. I’m sure the two of you would have gotten along…”

Lucy nodded, picturing the solemn woman again. Martle. Her passion was the pioneering force of this town. Time and relentless troubles had drawn deep creases in her face, visible even in the faded picture, but that fire never went out.

She wondered if her fate would be the same, in some way. Would she keep building and building, repairing and fulfilling new ideas, only to watch the town slowly turn to ash? Or, would she endure, alongside the others, just enough to watch the sun rise over a glistening, living jewel in the desert?

It was uncomfortable in the suit, but Lucy preferred feeling stuffy over inhaling potentially toxic air in the ship. Her bottom ached. Still reeling from being wholly launched by Zeke onto the landing, she did her best to shake off the vertigo. She and Mi-an ripped apart the entry door to the tune of pickhammers on crying metal. Trudy led the way in, gun drawn. Lucy followed suit.

Inside, a greenish mist permeated the space. Sickly stains lined some edges of the hallways. Old World machinery abound, it was hard to tell what most of the switches did. The labels had been damaged over time. The haywire AIs here were larger and stronger than ones she’d encountered before, but Lucy was no longer a stranger to the takedown of mechanical monsters.

Only two things made her nervous: any damage done to their protective suits, and the unsettling singing she heard on occasion. At first, she thought it was her imagination. Childlike voices chanted nonsensically somewhere nearby.

“What — or who — do you think is singing?” Mi-an asked at one point.

Trudy shook her head. “I’m only catching snippets, but it sounds like it’s coming from further inside.”

Lucy shuddered. “Whatever it is, I don’t like it…”

They bulldozed a large Hercules 2000, shooting through its barricade and wreaking havoc on its circuitry. While Trudy tried to get her bearings and Mi-an dug up some shining gemstones buried in sand, Lucy moseyed over to a workstation. An old desk and some cabinets sat forlorn in a corner. A plastic, laminated document sat on top of the table, shining faintly through a blanket of dust.

“Geegle and You!” read the title on the front.

“Trudy, Mi-an, look at this,” she said, waving them over. “Geegle Corp. Doesn’t that sound like the lizard people from Gecko Station?”

Trudy hummed in interest. “They do seem to operate in some sort of corporate hierarchy…”

“Do you think they came from here?”

“I suppose it’s a possibility.” The mayor frowned. “That would explain why they’re largely concentrated in the Eufaula.”

Lucy picked up the document and flipped through the pages. “This looks like a training manual.” She read some passages aloud.

You’ll be joining our Biological Research Lab. This is where the animals of the future are made.

Ever dreamed of a rat with the decision making capabilities of a college student?

A kangaroo specifically designed to box?

Anything you dream, we can do.

Lucy was stunned. “They — they created the crazy-ass boxing mutants out in the dunes! S—sorry about my language, Mayor.”

Trudy was caught between a laugh and a gasp. “No apologies necessary! Oh, my. All along, we figured they must’ve come from the Peripheries.”

Lucy rubbed her forehead, only to realize glass was in the way. “Well, I wish I could ask this one talking kangaroo out there, but all he wanted to do was fight.”

“Yowza,” said Mi-an, looking puzzled. “So, the Geeglers created the boxing jacks… But who created the Geeglers? I wonder what else they’ve made. Rats with the decision making capabilities of a college student? We haven’t seen those anywhere.”

Lucy shrugged and tucked away the document in her pack.

“There’s still plenty to explore,” Trudy said, nodding. “We haven’t had many adventure parties since… Well, it’s been a long time. Come on, ladies.”

Soon, they found the source of the singing that caused a creepy-crawly feeling over Lucy’s skin. They were… horrific. Near-human-sized, bipedal creatures in the rough shape of fleshy stars. An eyeball sat, bulbous and bulging, toward the top center of their bodies. A malformed mouth sat underneath, uttering the disturbing, babbling song.

Mi-an pointed to a rough sketch that she found sticking out of a locker. “Aww… they’re called a ‘starby.’ They’re kinda cute, don’tcha think?”

Lucy shot her a quizzical look over the corpse of one she just stabbed to death. “I severely disagree. They’re the thing of nightmares, Mi-an.”

She looked down. The body reeked of a pungent, salty odor, like it was once an actual starfish living at the bottom of a toxic sea. Nausea lapped against like toxic waves in her stomach.

Sandponies were far more reasonable. Despite expressive faces and fins curving around their heads like mohawks, these monsters had not crawled out of a fever dream. They were only scary for a different reason: their caustic, projectile vomit.

As they climbed up to the next level via a makeshift ladder, Lucy realized that part of her protective suit had been burned away, leaving the last layer of fabric clinging to dear life over her forearm. She could see her skin poking through.

“sh*t,” she muttered.

She needed to find something to fix it, lest the next time she failed to dodge a sandpony attack lead to her last breath. They entered a sizeable room with documents scattered across the area.

“Whoa, look at all these logs,” Mi-an said, pointing to a neat stack of documents bound together.

Trudy chuckled. “Well, in a certain sense, you could say they were logs before they became books—”

“No, ship logs! Looks like they were carrying a bunch of materials and subjects for biological experiments. This goes with the training document you found, Lucy. Creepy.”

As Trudy and Mi-an took an access key and pushed forward to the next room, Lucy hung back. She rummaged through various crates and cupboards, searching for anything she could use to wrap her arm. She managed to pull out an old, tattered looking captain’s uniform that must’ve been ragged while still in use.

While she ripped off a large piece to make a patch, she spied the actual captain’s log.

Early Spring, Day 5, Common Era 279

…there’s talk that the Common Wealth and the Republic are gonna come to blows over the proliferation of Living AI usage in the military or somethin ’ like that…

Lucy’s stomach lurched. Another potential witness to the Day of Calamity. Of course. It’d only make sense. She picked up the thick stack of papers, etched with some sort of mechanical inking device, not someone’s handwriting, and slipped it in her pack. The sound of gunfire urged her onward.

She collected two more documents during their search for the algae source. One appeared to be a letter to a lover, and the other looked like a child’s drawing of a star — or starby, perhaps.

It took a couple of hours before they encountered the entity known as “The Caretaker.” It crushed a starby with one of its long tentacled arms. Its vat-shaped head rattled, sloshing liquid inside as it registered the presence of the three humans.

“We— we come in peace?” Mi-an said slowly.

The machine whirred and splayed out its mechanical tentacles. “PROTECT. THE. SPECIMEN.”

“You’ve gotta be squiddin’ me,” Trudy said, aiming her gun. “Be careful, girls!”

As Justice would’ve said, diplomacy failed yet again. The mayor and two builders dodged and ducked their way out of the battery of long-armed attacks. Lucy fired off several shots at its glass head, hoping the fluid inside would be caustic enough to melt the rest of the mechanisms. The glass was tough, but she eventually got cracks to form.

The ringing of metal against metal, the clanging of their oxygen tanks as they were forced to roll under sweeping attacks, and the hissing of poisonous spray filled the air. Sweat dripped down Lucy’s forehead, past her eyebrows, and stung her eyes. She ducked behind some crates, shoved her arm into her suit, and wiped her brow.

The action loosened up the damaged sleeve. Her makeshift patch slid off, but there was no time to fix it again. A long shadow appeared overhead. She dove away as it came crashing down.

She jammed her arm back through the sleeve. A gaping hole had formed in the chaos. There was no more hiding it.

“My suit is damaged,” she shouted over the fray.

The machine wobbled dangerously as damage ticked quickly away at its life source.

“WHAT?!” Trudy cried, panic rising in her voice. “YOU HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE!”

Mi-an hacked off two of its arms, wires and electricity shooting out like fireworks. “Lucy, find the exit and GO!”

One more shot left Trudy’s gun. The creature’s glass head shattered, spilling toxic liquid over its own body.

Lucy could smell it. The fumes from the machinery — the gas that hovered in the air like a cloud of death. It’d probably been there all along, but the realization finally nestled in her evasive mind. She sprinted to the far end of the room, ripping out her pickhammer.

She worked feverishly against the first thing that resembled a door. Her ears filled with ringing, a numb and prickly sensation all at once. It opened to a different room, no escape in sight.

Something crashed and shattered. Someone shouted. Willing herself to not look back, Lucy ran over to the next metal slab, then another, panic beading down her neck and jumping up her throat. None of the doors led to the safe, breathable air of the barren desert.

“BACKUP. SYSTEMS. FAILURE. SHUTTING. DOWN.”

She threw her back against the wall held the damaged sleeve against her body, trying to form a seal over it in the meantime. Facing the room again, she wasn’t sure if she was crazy, or if things started to look less green.

It was quiet, too, save the sound of her own panicked, gasping breaths.

“Whew! That was a close one,” Mi-an said.

She and Trudy rushed over to Lucy and inspected the damaged suit.

“Are you alright?” Trudy asked, her voice wobbly with nerves. “It seems the gas is dissipating… Perhaps it was expelled as a defense mechanism meant to deter intruders…?”

“Like a real squid!” Mi-an tried to help Lucy seal up the arm of the suit, but the damage was complete. They didnt have the equipment to sew it up.

Lucy chuckled, aware that laughter could be a sign of her questionable health. “Is it really dissipating?”

“It really is. You hear that?” Trudy pointed up and around. “The vents are kicking in.”

She could hear it, now that her ears were no longer ringing in frantic pitches. The misty, putrid green-yellow that hung in the air was sucked out of the room in due time.

Trudy helped Lucy stand. “We’ll get you to Dr. Fang’s clinic once we return to town. Just to be safe.”

Lucy shook her head. “I actually don’t feel… Ow.” Her head pulsed, and the room pulsed with it as she got to a standing position. “Yeah, okay.”

The mayor wrung her hands. “I—I don’t want you to stay in here long, even with it clearing up...”

“It’ll be quicker if I just help,” Lucy said, nodding toward the mysterious machines at the far end of the room.

“O—okay… If you think that’s best…”

Lucy focused on her work, trying to bury the implications of inhaling unknowable noxious fumes, worsened by Mi-an constantly shooting her nervous glances. It had only been a few minutes, after all. A few breaths. A bare whiff.

But, what if the fumes were odorless before? Could she have been breathing it in, ever since the sandpony incident?

Nope, don’t think about it, she scolded herself. This machine is almost — aaand there we go!

The parts were disassembled. Lucy and Mi-an shot each other smiles through their helmet glass. Mi-an looked a little fuzzy. So did her suit. And… so did the rest of the room.

“We make a damn good team,” Lucy said, hoping her cheery words were enough to make herself feel better.

“Hey, you… you don’t look so great…” Mi-an’s expression shifted from satisfaction to deep concern.

“I’ve found the exit!” Trudy called. “Come on!”

Zeke was still outside, the sun beating down overhead. The mayor and builders doffed their protective suits, now in the presence of trustworthy desert air. With some rope and makeshift hauling solutions, they carefully lowered the equipment down to Zeke’s arms. They secured a climbing rope onto the landing and took themselves down next.

Trudy and Mi-an descended first. While Lucy waited for her turn, she fought back the blend of nausea and vertigo gripping her throat. Looking down from the vantage point of the ship was not a good feeling, but the sensation seemed to be happening to her rather than originating from her.

I really don’t feel good, she thought.

“C’mon, Lucy,” Mi-an called up. “You got this!” She turned to the others and said something Lucy couldn’t quite catch. Trudy’s face turned pale, and Zeke shook his head.

In Lucy’s mind, an old memory resurfaced. One that she’d locked away a long time ago. The child was running as fast as her stubby legs could carry her. She wanted to be the first to launch off a grassy hill, the bunny slope for Highwind’s young gliders. The winds were treacherous, but the child was brave.

“If I’d known, I wouldn’t have…” she heard Trudy say. Mi-an must’ve shared Lucy’s fear of heights, which meant she was taking too long.

Lucy growled and grabbed the rope. Despite the wobble in her stomach, she began her descent. It was still early spring, but the Eufaula was a harsh place in any season. No clouds in the sky provided cover for her as sunrays beat down on the back of her neck and doubled the layer of sweat on her skin. The lump in her throat hardened, floating up and down with each swing of her arms. She tensed her core, but she started shaking.

In her memory, the child sailed off the edge of the cliff. The harness loosened. The straps whipped in the wind. Her cries of joy turned to screams of terror as she fell.

Lucy must’ve still been a dozen feet up from the ground when she slipped. To the chorus of Trudy, Mi-an, and Zeke crying out, she managed to steady herself again, her palms now burning from sliding down the coarse fibers.

The child awoke in the hospital bed, sobbing in agony as the medicine crawled through her flesh, breaking her and fixing her all over again. A thousand snakes biting her veins. A hundred rocks knocking against her bones.

When she felt solid ground beneath her, all the sweat and nausea and lightheadedness took her by the temples and rotated her psyche just enough to be off kilter.

“Lucy, take my hand,” Zeke said, reaching up against the outcrop where the rope stopped.

Lucy winced and turned, her breath catching in her throat as she reached a clammy hand into the bright, reflective beige that was endless sand. A massive, calloused hand grasped hers. She felt herself pulled, almost yanked, downward and into the safety of somewhere below.

The journey back to town passed in a haze of Lucy’s memories, sunlight, and darkness. They hauled the equipment alongside the yakmel they brought. She held onto Waddles, listening to the rattle of equipment against the wooden wagon. It sounded a little like that glider breaking, like her bones rattling.

But… there was a different tune to it. It chimed in such a way that brought hope to her little bedridden heart. She was dizzy and sick, but she was here, now. Riding a yakmel under the desert sun.

She pawed her bag for the water bottle she’d brought with her and took a slow sip.

I’m just tired, she told herself. That’s all it is.

She knew better than to lie to herself, but her sensibilities were gone with the light that flickered on and off with each blink. Was it the sun? Was it the hospital light? Was it the blazing fire of a flaming sword, or the red blood of a hundred bodies?

Her eyes drooped. Waddles veered off. The phantom glider took a jutting fall. The blades stopped spinning on crushed flesh and bones. Lucy’s consciousness waned, and she slipped from the saddle.

Fang eyed her closely as the world came back into view. His lips thinned in recognition of her awakening. The clinic lights weren’t as bad as the sunlight bouncing off the monolith of desert sand, but they pierced her brain nonetheless, illuminating the last ghostly visage of a younger version of herself. She blinked slowly, trying to ascertain what wrong she’d done this time.

A sharp stinging sensation called to her from her forearm, wrapped in bandages and dressed in ointment. It seeped slightly through the cloth, pooling like a shadow against her skin.

“What happened to me?” she asked, her voice hoarse.

Fang pointed to her head. “Inhaled… poison.”

That awful, familiar feeling of nausea again. “Oh…”

“Brief… exposure… You will recover.”

She moved her arm and felt the dried, aching flesh beneath try to flex with the motions. She groaned in pain as a thousand little pinpricks hit her anew.

Fang nodded to her arm. “Acid…”

Lucy grimaced. “f*cking sandponies.”

“Mm.” Fang turned to some documents on his workstation and retrieved a sheaf of paper. She read through it, squinting a bit at his handwriting. As she read through the laundry list of problems she’d undergone, she noticed that Fang had a series of test tubes with blood in it.

“Will this cause any long-term damage?” she asked with a wary gaze on the equipment.

“…” He shook his head. “Unlikely. I have… developed medicine… for the acid. For the poison, you are almost healed. You will rest here tonight.”

Lucy couldn’t argue with the doctor, something she learned from her previous forays into danger around Sandrock. He took this opportunity to apply a new, experimental potion to help treat her acid wound. So far, the results were great — and itchy. As the pain medication wore off, she started to feel soreness creeping up in aching waves.

In the evening, the clinic door opened, and Mi-an and Unsuur appeared.

“Lucy!” Mi-an trotted up to her bed, depositing a to-go container of Highwind fried rice on her hospital table. “I’m sorry I couldn’t come earlier. I was helping to unload some… stuff… at the moisture farm.”

Lucy shook her head, smiling with watery-eyed gratitude. “No way… Thank you for even thinking of me in the first place. How are things going there?”

Her coworker side-glanced Fang and Unsuur. “I’ll tell ya later.”

Unsuur waved. “Hi, Lucy. Hi, doc.”

“Hi, Unsuur.”

“Mm.”

“Hi, birdie!”

“Hi, X.”

“We also brought you your pack,” said Mi-an, nodding at Unsuur. “You dropped it when you, uh, fell off the yakmel.”

Unsuur handed it to Lucy, who took it with a smile of gratitude, though she winced at the pain in her arm and back muscles.

“By the way, Pen asked if I’d seen you around,” he said. “I hadn’t, so I said no, but now that I have seen you, should I tell him?”

Lucy turned pink. “No, that’s fine. I don’t want to worry him.”

“I think he’d be more worried not knowing where you are.”

“That’s… probably fair,” she mumbled.

Fang and X retired for the evening, leaving the three to have dinner together. Small talk drifted over to the upcoming Showdown at High Noon. Registrations would open the following week, and the competition would take place two weeks from then. Lucy wondered if she should ask Pen to partner up.

Mi-an and Unsuur excused themselves quickly after dinner, both to get back to their work duties. She smiled fondly after them as she noticed them awkwardly struggle with who was going to get through the door first.

Left alone in darkness, Lucy sighed. Sleep was far away, with the the itching in her forearm, pain everywhere else, and slipping memories of rough nights in hospital beds. She switched on a small desk lamp on her bedside table and pulled out her bag, fishing for the documents from the ruins.

She retrieved the captain’s log first and skimmed through the earlier entries. The unnamed captain used some sort of device that transcribed his speech to the paper. She found the passage that originally caught her eye. It mentioned a potential war, which would’ve been the first one in over a hundred years. The ship had just left port, and they were shipping supplies and “another batch of blue algae” to the Geegle Corps’ Under Lab 7.

“Under Lab 7…” She frowned. It must’ve been another Old World structure buried under the sand.

As she kept reading, the entries became further and fewer between. One day turned to five, then a month, then years. Lucy’s heart sank, settling deep into the pit between her chest and her stomach.

He started with a full crew, dwindling quickly after the Day of Calamity. The ocean floor came up, forcing the ship out of water and onto dry land. A small group went in search for the nearest city to get help.

Some months later, he was the last person on the ship. The only company he had were AIs on board, including Pauly the Caretaker — the very AI that Lucy, Trudy, and Mi-an fought.

Lucy tried to imagine how he must’ve felt. The dread that cornered him. The captain understood that only death awaited him outside. He’d made a promise to his late wife Liz: he would live and grow old for the both of them.

That’s f*cking heartbreaking, she thought, a cold plunge in her chest.

An emptiness that started from the captain emanated through the ship. He was the last one living on board. The emptiness grew and pushed out to the outside, the swirling vortex of darkness and void that hungrily awaited his flesh, should he have opened the door. He felt like the last human left in the world.

Lucy devoured the words, as much as they made her lips quiver and her heart ache. Ten years passed. He accepted his fate, his only friends being Pauly and the other AIs.

Hope glimmered from a later entry.

The ship computer simulated that the weather outside would stay this way for a long time, several hundred years in fact. But you know what that means, right? There will be a day the sun will shine again!

Tears dared to well up in her eyes. She wanted to reach back there, into the lost waves of time, and let him know that the sun would shine again. That the sun was relentless in how it shined. But she couldn’t. That life and that hope, possibly, was long gone.

The last entry occurred twenty-eight years after the first. Lucy gulped, her fingers tracing the words on the page. Twenty-eight years in solitude.

I’m dying. I know because I have this cough that’s getting worse. I figure this is my final turn at this console logging in a Captain’s Log.

Cough, cough, cough!

Pauly knows about it too, he’s been way too nice to me lately. Cough! I don’t know how he’ll be when I’m gone, and I’m sorry about that. It’s been an honor to serve with him and all the other crew and AI on this ship. I’ll miss him...

Cough, cough!

I think I also finally understood what Liz wanted of me. Sometime life throws you curveballs... and graviton bombs, but if you don’t give up, eventually you’ll find the joy and satisfaction that you’re looking for. You just have to have patience and never stop looking.

Cough!

If anyone reads this in the future, good luck! Cough! I hope you enjoy the sun!

Lizzy, here I come. I know you’ll be waiting for me at the gate...

Signing off.

Lucy sniffled. A deep, aching sense of emptiness filled her, yet a little fragment of hope and longing wrapped around it like the fiery sun eclipsed by the moon.

If anyone reads this in the future, good luck! I hope you enjoy the sun!

Still with so much hope, after twenty-eight years of waiting to see his wife again. If there was an afterlife. Lucy couldn’t say whether there was, but for their sake, she would’ve dared to dream it. She thought of Mort, whose speeches often veered off the side of hopeless. From the town’s lack of prospects to the long, long years since Martle left Sandrock. Yet, he still clung to their values, their vow to never let the children’s sacrifice go in vain. He was ever looking to the horizon, to the one he loved.

Love…

Creeping on the edges of her heart, whispering in her ear, and tugging at her dreams unbidden. Here she was, reading a message from beyond by a lone soul who endured the cataclysm that ripped his world apart… and it was making her think of love.

How powerful it was, how it carried and bolstered him through the endless night. He knew the sun would not rise. Not for him. Yet, he still bade his life and his world a fond farewell, latching onto the distant promise — the faintest whisper of a golden hope, driven by love.

Lucy reached for the next document, like she’d jumped on a train moving of its own accord. Her heart dipped again, bobbing in the ocean ripped from this world. It was a love letter, of sorts, one upon the eve of the Calamity. It was written by one of the remaining crew members on the ship, when the captain was not yet the last living soul on board. Another love pulled apart by a tragedy that sat like a shadow in the dark corners of this world.

Maria,

I hope you’re alright on the Moon. It’s been so long, but not for a moment have I forgotten your face. Every time I close my eyes, I still see that smile I fell in love with.

We’ve lost communication. It started with the lights, the shocks, then the ground came up. Our ship somehow ended up on dry land. No way of moving, no means to call for help. We don’t know where we are, or what has happened. The only thing I wish, is that I may someday return to you.

I don’t know how long I can hold out in here, I’m terrified of what happened to our world. I’m terrified of what might have happened to you. I want to find a way to reach you...

I hope this message reaches you somehow, but I fear I’m writing in vain. If I don’t hear back in a week’s time, I think I’ll try to reach you, somehow.

I love you.

Teboho

Lucy’s chest tightened. She imagined being the one to sit at that desk, the one to harbor the desperate need to know whether the one she loved was still out there, alive and well. Picturing their face with perfect detail and memory, but watching it slip from her grasp. The despair that could come in such a time and place where that knowledge would never be guaranteed. The yearning… the hollow loneliness. Nothing was guaranteed back then, but neither was it in this life.

She contemplated the fragments of life, love, and loss in her lap, her fingers trembling. Her eyes stung, and she wiped her tears away silently. She read and re-read the words written by these souls, honoring their pain and letting it nestle in her own heart, until her vision blurred with waves of tears. She was dragged in by the pain, letting its teeth sink into her skin, as if it was a ritual to absolve the dead of their hollow dreams.

She cursed herself. She was the child again, weeping in a hospital bed, restrained and let loose all at once in the tide of all sensation. Love, and loss. What happened to her? How was she cut open, so raw, from mere words left to the obscurity of history?

Her shoulders slumped, and she ran her shaking hands across her cheeks again. Here, the words of people long lost crept under her skin, itching like the wound on her forearm, clawing at her soul.

What was it like to love someone the way the captain did? To hold them in your arms and promise them, as they lay weak and dying, that you would grow old for them? You would cast away your own misery and the lack of desire to go on, so that, through you, the love you found could continue to live. Like a freshly bloomed rose in a glass jar, fighting against a winter storm, waiting until the next autumn came. Just so it could know what it was like to be in bloom beneath the sunlight of all the seasons.

What about the other two? Separated by such distance, deepened by such catastrophe. Did they ever find each other again? Of course they didn’t. The world burned that day, and it burned for hundreds of years to come. His love died with him, in the room of the ship where he wrote out his final thoughts of her.

Lucy wept in silence, grieving loves she never had, but knowing and feeling them all the same.

This was the state in which Pen found her as he came through the clinic door.

Her tears shone like little orbs, glowing on her rosy cheeks but turned golden by the lamplight. She sniffled, meeting his eyes with her watery gaze. A sting of embarrassment ran through her core, but she could not run from him here. She wanted to say something, but her voice caught in her throat, unwilling to come to the surface.

He was holding a takeout box from the Blue Moon. The “Skinny Arms” on his lips died in his throat as soon as he saw her. Wordlessly, he crossed the clinic in long strides and dropped the box on the nearest chair. He stooped down over her bed and pulled her gently into his arms, careful not to disturb the bandages.

As if shielding her from the frost of winter, his warmth enveloped her. His hand found the back of her hair and stroked gently, while she rested her head in the crook of his neck and shoulder. She breathed him in, the scent of his musk mingled with the salty air of her tears. She could feel the steady pulse of his jugular signaling his beating heart. She slipped a hand beneath his armor and clutched the cloth of his shirt, as if to clutch his heart in that way. The other hand found a place on his back and squeezed. She let herself give in to the feeling, sobbing wholly in his arms.

The ache of the world that existed once existed still, for they were one in the same, etched onto tear-splashed pages of lives long gone, loves long lost.

He held her for a while like this. However uncomfortable it could’ve been for him, he did not show it. It was his warmth that bolstered against the ache in her chest, the hollow cries that echoed behind her ribs.

“Lucy,” he murmured, his voice humming low and gentle like a lullaby.

It was almost as if he was saying it to himself, a sound too precious for the world to hear. But when he uttered her name, a great weight was lifted on wings from the depths of her sorrow. She held onto that feeling, letting it carry her upward, floating just above the fatal waters of the Old World.

The crinkle of paper awakened both their senses. He pulled back from her slightly, a question in his concern-carved face. Her tears eased up slightly, enough for her to take a full breath or two. She gestured at the documents, which he picked up with a wary gaze.

“Letters from the Old World,” Lucy explained through spurts of gasping and catching her breath. “They… just… made me sad."

What was she going to say? They made her fall in love and broke her heart? That she could envision herself as the author of each? But, it seemed, the protector understood what she meant. He’d seen her like this before, with the diary of a young girl lost to darkness in the Breach.

Pen nodded solemnly. “Y’know, Skinny Arms, this is why I don’t read.”

She snickered, and he smiled at the effect of his lighthearted quip. She felt a swell of gratitude for all that he was, mingling with the grief of all that was lost. She clung onto that feeling, riding the wave that lifted in his blue eyes.

“I—” She was on the very cusp of understanding, but she couldn’t quite get there. “I’m glad you came."

He smiled softly, then he pulled up a sheet of paper that Lucy hadn’t gotten to yet.

“What’s this one?” Pen asked.

She swallowed, wiping the last remnants of tears from swollen eyes. “I think it’s a child’s drawing."

He arched an eyebrow as he held it up to the light. “Where did you say you found this?"

Lucy hesitated. The mission was a secret. He couldn’t know, as much as she’d love to share it with him. No one could know the dangers they put themselves through, unless the algae experiment was a success. Then, and only then, would they hope that the town would be overcome with excitement rather than fear.

“Found it in the desert,” she said weakly. Not a full lie.

Pen hummed in acknowledgment, a little tension lining the side of his neck. She scanned the side profile of his features, his jawline and his brow line, studying the way he looked in the lighting. It was as if she could hardly believe he was here with her, here to comfort her in this moment of weakness.

He set down the drawing and met her gaze. His blue eyes hooked into hers, and his features softened under the lamplight. He took her trembling hand, bolstering it with his strong but gentle grasp. With his other hand, he reached out and pulled loose threads of hair from her face, stroking her cheek tenderly in the process.

“I’m glad you’re safe,” Pen said quietly.

He kissed her, applying soft pressure on her lips, like he was afraid to hurt her. She pushed back against him, giving him a quiet reassurance that she welcomed his touch. He put his arms around her again and took a seat on the bed, causing a soft creak and shift in the mattress. For a moment, they were the only ones that existed in the universe. No darkness and no light. Just the warmth of his touch, the feeling of his lips on hers. He pulled away before the passion could take hold, leaving only tenderness between them. He planted another kiss on her forehead and held her again in his arms again.

Lucy melted into him. It was there. It was in this sensation that floated ever so gently in her chest, that tugged at her fingertips, that caused a tender sigh to escape her lips. That feeling that she understood, that connected her to the pain of strangers long past. When she pictured herself at the desk, writing a letter to a lover, she knew whose face she envisioned in her invented memory. The face she committed to memory every time he gazed upon her with affectionate eyes and soft smiles. The cord that connected her to the past figures was ephemeral, but there was a shared experience at the root of it all: love.

She breathed in that knowledge — that love — at last. She let it wash over her, from the warmth of his arms and into her soul, recoloring her world in shades she never knew existed.

Chapter 24: All Knotted Up

Chapter Text

Sunlight pierced the domed glass ceiling, but it wasn’t as harsh as Mi-an’s shriek. Lucy opened bleary eyes to the image of a disapproving Fang as her coworker burst into the clinic.

“Hi! Sorry. Is — is Lucy okay to be discharged, Dr. Fang?” Mi-an adjusted her goggles. “We have… something very important that needs our attention. Mornin’ Lucy!”

Lucy waved back. She was doing mental math at a snail’s pace. Did she fall asleep in Pen’s arms? Did he stay with her as she drifted off?

Fang looked from Mi-an to Lucy to his notes. X squawked merrily, now that the patient was awake. Lucy winced as the doctor peeled back her bandages to assess the state of her arm, while her coworker took a grimacing peek. The skin there was a little scaly and shiny, but far better than what it must’ve been before.

Fang grabbed a small squeeze tube with a fragrant, green gel. “Take this. Apply to arm… as needed…”

He handed her a folded note with his scribbled instructions and nodded, letting her know that she was good to go.

“Thanks for everything,” Lucy said.

She grabbed her things and followed Mi-an, who brandished a letter wildly as they went.

“I got a letter from Zeke this morning,” Mi-an said. “He has results! He wants us to go to the moisture farm as soon as possible. This is so exciting!”

Lucy fought back some lightheadedness due to going from zero to Mi-an’s speed in a matter of seconds.

“That is exciting,” she said, though she was a bit distracted. She shot a quick glance over her shoulder, checking for a sign of Pen up on the church grounds, but he wasn’t there.

When they crossed the threshold of Zeke’s domain, she spotted the now-reassembled machines they’d salvaged from the shipwreck ruins. With a sting of guilt, she realized Mi-an must’ve put them together on her own. Once again, Lucy was woefully useless in the world of the moisture farm.

Zeke and Trudy waved them down. Qi was there, too, standing off to the side. He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and gave a nonchalant nod to the both of them.

“Morning, everyone,” Lucy called as she caught her breath. “Qi? What’re you doing here?”

“That’s what I was just about to ask him,” Trudy said, laughing nervously.

The director joined the semicircle forming by the machines. “Why am I here? Zeke was faced with this very, very provocative problem, and I couldn’t let my dear old pal monopolize the merriment, so I—”

“Qi ran out of food,” Zeke said, “so he came over to the farm while I was unloading the parts. Now… he’s still here.”

“Now, now, you say potato, I say solanum tuberosum.” Qi cleared his throat. “No reason to dwell on the useless details. Point is, we’ve solved your problem, Mayor. Maybe.”

“M—my problem?” Trudy raised her brows.

“We?” Zeke furrowed his.

What followed was a jargon-laced discussion, in both Qi’s fashion and Zeke’s, regarding the age-old fight against desertification. Lucy recalled some terms from Nia’s letters, namely something about top soil, biocrust, and nutrients. She zoned out a little, banking on the excitement and passion in their voices to carry her to the point.

…cyanobacteria…geomorphological…algae soup…

A diagram appeared in front of her face. She stirred back to life. Now, this was something she could get on board with. She’d need to build a hydroponic incubator, something that would help synthesize and grow algae to be incorporated into biocrust.

“Awesome,” she said, grinning.

“Trudy, this might be our best shot,” said Zeke. “Frankly, if this doesn’t work, we might as well give up. The desert wins. We’ve just about tried everything.”

Trudy clasped her hands together with a determined look on her face. “Let’s do it. We’ve got nothin’ to lose.”

Lucy was far more awake and excited when she left the moisture farm. She and Mi-an compared notes on the diagrams, identifying different things they would both need for their respective hydroponic incubators. Lucy needed to return to the now-abandoned Gecko Station ruins — something that didn’t stress her out as much as it used to. It might’ve been a good excuse to ask Pen out on a diving adventure.

A diving date? she thought. Oh, boy.

The feelings from the night before weren’t just some fantasy borne from excessive medication. She was no stranger to being alone with Pen for hours, but now the thought gave her a tremor of apprehension. This type of love was uncharted territory. The person she’d love to discuss the implications with also happened to be the person she had the feelings for.

She parted ways with Mi-an in Martle Square, the latter making an immediate dash to increase her workload even more. Lucy had similar intentions, but she found herself at the general store instead. She didn’t need to purchase anything there. Arvio was absent from his usual perch. Yet, her eyes fell on the heart knots, in a bit of a daze.

Is this what I need to do? she thought, feeling rather dumb. Do I confess and give him one?

She shook her head, which must’ve looked worrisome to any passersby. A little placard rested by the collection of ruby and rose trinkets.

Red rope is tied together to form a knot, representing two interwoven fates.

She followed the intricate loops with her gaze, picturing the weaving process in her mind. The sun rose higher in the sky, small webs of white gold breaking through the open side of the porch. The valleys of each heart dipped deeper, the hills shining brighter.

Interwoven fates. But, Lucy didn’t believe in fate. She preferred some semblance of choice. Decisions over time carved an immutable path to the present. From the moment that she met Pen and scowled at him for the first time, to the many times she ended up in his arms, to the previous night, when things felt a little warmer. A little softer.

She could’ve refused his combat lesson, rather than flare up in her desperation to prove herself. He could have chosen not to bring her sandgear — just like he’d left Mi-an to the elements. She could have gone to the Breach without him. He could have not held her when she cried.

Those were the black and white facts. What about things less explicit? The softness in his smile that blunted the edges of her own heart. The way it felt when he touched her. A comforting, but electric sensation at once.

She could pretend all she wanted that she was elevated in some intellectual way, but emotions were primal beasts from the dawn of humanity. A little flutter here, and a little pulse there. That was enough to unravel her semblance of control. At least, when it came to him.

She chuckled to herself, cementing the image of a crazed woman. Yes, these were things she would’ve loved to talk to Pen about. He would’ve had ideas. If she was brave, she could go ask to hear them now. Hell, she could even seek out Qi’s thoughts, if he was in the right kind of mood, and if she phrased the questions in a scientific way.

“Lucy?”

She jumped.“Owen!”

He approached the center of the square from the stairs by Construction Junction. He must’ve visited Amirah overnight.

“It’s good to see you out. Heard you got hurt… again.” He tilted his head to the side. “But… you’re good now?”

“I, uh…” She nodded, wondering if he saw her laughing to herself. “I’m good.”

She glanced up the steeper set of stairs to the church. She half-expected Pen to arrive next.

“You… shopping for heart knots?” Owen asked slowly, following her gaze and looking back to where she’d been staring. “Nice.”

“Actually, I’m not.”

She blinked at him as if seeing him for the first time. How could she forget Owen? One of her first and closest friends here — one with such a heart for conversation, and one who was very much in love. His very presence was a promise of an insightful and listening ear.

“You got time to deal with me and my bullsh*t for a sec?” she asked. “If you’re headed down to the saloon, I’ll come with.”

Her stomach growled. She surely could use breakfast.

“Of course,” he said, chuckling. “You know you’re always welcome at the saloon.”

The pair set off the short walk, while Lucy’s face betrayed the back-and-forth thoughts that plagued her mind. Owen gave her some peace and quiet, not asking any questions until they were safe within the saloon doors. Lucy settled into one of the seats at the bar. The saloon was quiet, a quiet harbor for her impending word vomit.

“I’ll fix you some breakfast,” he said. “Grace is working on a school project, so it’s just me right now. Wanna join me in the kitchen?”

She followed him behind the swinging door. Everything smelled heavenly. A small smile graced her lips. She had half a mind to throw on an apron and get to cooking herself.

“That right there is why I love being in here,” Owen said, nodding to her expression. He secured his apron and rolled up his sleeves. “Talk to me, Lucy.”

She told Owen everything she was thinking. There was something terrifying and cathartic at once, letting words fly out of her mouth, unchecked and unfiltered. It was like her lungs were taking in oxygen for the first time in days. At some point, Owen offered her a glass of cold water, which she accepted with gratitude.

She explained her feelings for Pen, and Owen listened with a non-judgmental ear. He poured himself a glass of summer sand tea and sipped thoughtfully while working on chopping vegetables for the omelet. A look of concentration and joy in the motions mingled with the concerned look of a friend.

“So, that’s when you found me,” she said at last. “I was staring at those heart knots, thinking that I had to give him one.”

Owen sighed as he cracked eggs into a glass bowl. “Lucy, I’m sorry you feel obligated like that. If you wanna give him one, that’s one thing. If you feel like you have to… Well, matters of the heart shouldn’t feel forced. That’s my two cents.”

She watched a bead of glass drip down, onto the surface of the kitchen island. Even though it was steel, a trickle of anxiety ran down the back of her neck. She asked for a napkin and placed it beneath the cup, letting it absorb the liquid.

“If you take a way what you should or shouldn’t do, what do you want?” Owen asked gently. “You, Lucy, right now. Forget everyone else. What do you want?”

Lucy gulped. “Y’know, that’s harder to answer than you’d think. No one… has ever really asked me that.”

“I’m asking you now.” He gave her a look that was somewhere between sympathy and actual curiosity.

Her thoughts scattered, like the yolks of the eggs melding with the whites as they were whisked to oblivion.

“I don’t… want… to mess things up.” She spoke slowly, as if she was relearning how to speak. The intimacy with Pen was still so new. What if it slipped out of her grasp the moment she said the words?

“Lucy…” She could hear it in the quiet, voiceless sigh that followed. She was still not answering the question. She looked up at the ceiling. The wooden beams above overshadowed her. She tried to cut some meaning into them, a mental axe sliding against the grain.

She faced him again, co*cking her head to the side. “How would you answer that question?”

Owen smiled as he turned on the stove. He gestured around them. “This is what I always wanted. I’ve got the saloon, my story nights, good company… The only thing really missing is…” His expression took on a dreamy softness. “A wife. Maybe some kids. I’ve always wanted a lil’ child to call my own... one to love and cherish, and maybe even help out at the saloon one day. I know it’s too soon to be thinking about that for Amirah, but if the stars align for us, then that’ll be incredible. I see her in my future. I want her in my future.”

“You’re such a hopeless romantic. I respect it.”

“Hopeful romantic,” Owen said, winking.

She looked back down at the napkin, as a pleasant sizzle filled the air. Onions and bell peppers danced on the frying pan. A wet, shadowy ring surrounded the base of her glass. To find her answer to what she wanted, she had to take several steps back.

“I don’t think I told you this,” she said, “but I was in a bad accident when I was a kid. It was my fault. I was dumb. But… from that moment on, my life was a cycle of not being trusted enough to do anything, then being considered a failure if I didn’t take action. I grew up constantly being reprimanded or judged, making one mistake after another. Over time, I started to think it was all a true mark of my character.”

Owen poured the eggs over the mixture. “That’s no way to live, Lucy.”

“You’re right. After becoming a builder, coming here was the best decision I’ve made for myself.” She laughed shortly. “Come to think of it, every scary decision made me stronger, even if I got hurt in the process. Breaking up with my ex, leaving my life in Highwind and whatever life I would’ve had in Lucien, running with the Civil Corps, going on adventures when I shouldn’t have. And, who could forget? Fighting the Geeglers and all that. Actually, I put myself in harm’s way often. In a way, I’m trying to prove myself to myself.”

She took a sip of water, staring off into the vision in her mind of the desert. Meanwhile, Owen folded the omelet over itself, creating the signature shape. Lucy’s stomach growled in anticipation.

“Sandrock has been eye-opening for me,” she continued. “The Eufaula is… unforgiving, humbling, and inspiring at the same time. I’ve come close to death a couple times here.”

She fidgeted with the napkin, tearing off a little piece of soggy paper. She thought about the graveyard, the lives lost, and Mort’s stories. The letters from the shipwreck. The stark, jagged landscaped laced with moonlight and fiery sunsets. A myriad of energy and serenity that she hoped to absorb.

“I want… to help build this place back up,” she said finally, meeting Owen’s gentle blue gaze. “I want to be relentless and unafraid, just like the people who live here.”

He smiled sadly. “I think you’ll find that there are plenty of us who are afraid, but we are relentless. I’ve been around the world, and there’s nothin’ quite like the Sandrocker spirit. You’ve already got some of it, too, Lucy. Don’t you forget it.”

Lucy hummed thoughtfully. She pulled out a plate into which Owen deposited the perfectly cooked omelet, browned on the outsides with just a hint of crispiness. He fixed himself another while Lucy began to eat.

“When it comes to Pen, though, it’s not so much a ‘want’ as it is an enjoyment of being around him.” She took a bite, gave him an emphatic thumbs up, and swallowed. “Remember when I said he has this unemotional way of looking at things? Some people might think it makes him heartless, but I love that about him. It makes me feel like I can tell him anything and have him understand me.”

Owen nodded. “You feel safe with him.”

“I do.” She cleared her throat. “I feel safe with you, too. I’m not in love with you, though.”

They shared a laugh, and per their tradition, they clinked their nonalcoholic beverages together. For a moment, their eyes met. A small wonder bloomed in the back of Lucy’s mind. Had she been a little more daring before, that could have changed the whole landscape of her predicament. She could’ve been having a completely different kind of talk with Owen. But, she shut that down before it could ever set sail. He was planning a future with Amirah. The different avenue of decisions was set, and she neither grieved nor celebrated the loss of a potential romance with him. How strange it all was.

“So, you gonna talk to him about it?” Owen asked, digging into his own dish.

Lucy nodded. “I think, at bare minimum, if he doesn’t feel the same way, my conscience will be clear. Pretty selfish, right?”

“If he doesn’t know how blunt you can be by now, then he’s in for a wild ride.”

She snorted. “Oh, he knows. Yup, I’m just gonna throw my love at him and let him deal with it.”

The sun hit her right in the face as she left the saloon. As her pupils adjusted to the outdoors, she spotted Pen making his way down the hill. Her heart did a frantic dance, like it needed to go to the bathroom.

Small town, she thought. Absolutely tiny, microscopic town.

“Skinny Arms,” Pen called with his typical bravado reserved for the public. “Cleared from the clinic, I see.”

At once, her skin remembered the warmth of his arms. His embrace at the moment of her most dire tears the night before. She fought back the unwelcome urge to be bashful.

“Yep, this morning,” she said, a little too loudly.

She fidgeted with the pack on her shoulder, which still held the documents from the shipwreck ruins. The ability to form words slinked back through the saloon doors, as she noticed how the afternoon light shone in his hair, revealing a trace of lavender in some strands.

“Wanna watch me train today?” Pen asked. “You can sit on my back while I do some push-ups. That’ll be fun.”

“I’d — love to, actually, but…” She caught the glare of Logan’s poster across the way, then reality kicked back in. She had a perfect excuse to recoil and regroup with her feelings. “I ought to get to work. I have to make a… a thing. City hall commission.”

The mission was still a secret until she and Mi-an installed the incubators and proved the algae’s potential. Perhaps she could take some time to really think about how she’d broach the topic.

“Ah, another project for the mayor.” He rolled his eyes. “I’m surprised she managed to break through her unique powers of indecisiveness to commission something from you.”

Lucy narrowed her gaze. “Hey, Trudy’s really nice.”

“I know, I know. I told myself I wasn’t going to make fun, but there I went.” He wagged a finger at her. “You heard nothing, Skinny.”

“I heard everything,” she shot back with a smirk. “You’re lucky I already know that you’re a rude bitch.”

“Ouch!”

“It’s true.”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t. So, where are we off to, today?”

Lucy stared blankly. “Huh?”

“You said you gotta work on this project. Usually you ask me to come along if you’re going to the ruins.” He arched an eyebrow. “Or, are you mad at me because I have an opinion on the mayor?”

There goes Plan A, she thought. Plan B: f*ck it.

“I guess I could use the help. I have to go diving for some things at Gecko Station. I have a whole list.” Instead of pulling out the concentrated algae apparatus diagram, she counted on her fingers. “I should have enough iron. I need more chromium, two compact motors, some fiber mesh… Yeah. Alright. You can come, if you wanna.”

He followed her to her workshop, where they got her equipment, wagon, and mount ready for the dive. He leaned casually against her fence while she went inside to freshen up and change. It allowed her to have a miniature panic attack in each room of her house. Her bravery with Owen flattened out like one of Elsie’s whoopie cushions.

It’s too soon, she thought at one point.

Nope, no time like the present, she argued back at another.

By the time they got seated on Waddles and headed off to Gecko Station, Lucy was a bundle of nerves. Pen’s hands resumed their regular place on her waist, though they were more snugly seated against one another. Her courage flickered, faltered, and raged again.

She leaned back against him on occasion, testing the waters of what it felt like to enjoy his presence with no self-made boundaries. He only welcomed it, looping his arms beneath hers and holding her as close as possible without driving Waddles in the wrong direction. The clopping of hooves was no match for the beating of her heart in her ears.

It was mid-afternoon when they arrived in the depths of the now-abandoned ruins, where a massive network of haywire electric fences created a hazardous situation for mining. Lucy relied on her jetpack to fly through the space, searching for ways to cut the electricity without hurting either of them, while Pen insisted on leaping to and fro.

While they worked, Lucy kept shooting poorly disguised glances at him, trying to carve out a sense of how he felt about her. She couldn’t help but wonder if Pen was starting to fall for her in the same way. Except for the yakmel ride, they hadn’t been anywhere close to intimate with each other that day, even though he was usually quite physical. Despite his enthusiasm for joining her, it felt like he was holding back.

“So… Random question.” She swung her pickhammer at a chromium deposit, while Pen juggled two pieces of ore. “What is your problem with Trudy?”

He chuckled. “I didn’t say I had one.”

“You implied it.”

“I made an observation. If I had a problem with her, you’d know it. I haven’t punched her, yet.”

Lucy rolled her eyes. “Right. Like you do to all your problems.”

“Only the ones that are punchable.”

“Well, I think Trudy is nice.” She wiped her brow with her forearm, a thin layer of sweat building.

“Nice doesn’t make an effective leader,” Pen said.

“What do you think she could do better, then?”

He stopped juggling and hummed thoughtfully. “Well, there’s always the Logan situation. I could be out there, hunting the cretin nonstop, until I bring him to heel. Instead, she insists that I come back to town on a regular basis and ‘report back’ and whatnot.”

Working through a large pile of hard-packed sand, she considered his words. When it came to the bandit, there were times Pen sounded obsessed, more than anyone else. Justice, as the head of the Civil Corps and an actual old friend of Logan, didn’t seem to hold as much enmity toward him, despite having plenty of reasons.

“What happens after we catch Logan?” she asked, recalling the man’s glare.

“With any luck, I’ll be reassigned elsewhere.”

With any luck, she echoed in her mind, stung by the statement.

She found one of the compact motors she needed. She focused on the motions of carving out chunks of caked earth. Pen approached to assist, and she hoped he couldn’t tell her hands were shaking slightly.

“Is he the only reason you’re here?” she asked, trying to sound nonchalant. “You’re just gonna up and leave after that?”

“I go where duty calls.” Pen held the motor still, while she picked at the earth around it. “I arrived here around five or six years ago to help bolster the woefully underwhelming Civil Corps. I will stay as long as I’m needed, but who’s to say when that will be? Personally, I can’t wait to leave. This place is a real drag. Shipping costs are ridiculous to get my supplements and hair gel from Atara, but that’s what I get for coming to the middle of nowhere. At least the Peripheries would have something close to challenging when it comes to a fight.”

Pen carried the now-freed motor to their growing pile of gathered resources. Lucy looked over her shoulder as he walked away. He had no desire to stay in this town, whereas she all but proclaimed her undying loyalty to Sandrock just hours ago. The weight in her chest bobbed with the current, as she tried to gauge how she felt about this.

On one hand, it was great news. Whatever they were now, there was no guarantee that it could continue. There was something freeing in that. On the other hand, if she leaned into her feelings for him, she would be putting herself at risk of getting hurt.

Apparently, that’s something I do willingly, she thought.

Pen returned with a curious look on his face. “Why all the questions, Skinny? Writing my biography? Make sure you dedicate at least one chapter to my biceps. Two, if we’re being real. One for each. I won’t read it, but I trust you to include an epic poem or two.”

“Absolutely not. A paragraph, max.” She snickered softly. “But, y’know, I have realized that I don’t know much about you. We talk about everything under the sun, except for you.”

She lowered her scanner and checked for fiber mesh, then she signaled to Pen that she was moving deeper into a maze of fallen electric fences. She managed to cut the electricity to half of them, but some still sizzled and glowed with life. Her heart picked up its pace, reacting to the buzz of electricity and the trajectory of their conversation. She was getting closer to the heart of the matter, just as she was getting closer to some much needed fiber mesh and another compact motor. Her scanner promised some treasures hidden beneath this mess.

“Really?” Pen let out a cheerful laugh as he catapulted down to where she’d landed. “I think you know me better than most of the people I’ve known for my whole life.”

Lucy looked up at him, stunned. “I don’t believe that for a second.”

Crackling lights from above shone in his eyes. “Give it a shot. What do you know about me, Lucy? Go ahead. I won’t laugh if you get something wrong.”

She sighed, but she figured it was a good time to gauge how connected they really were. She would be treading, not diving into, the water.

“You were trained as a knight, and you’re a member of the Church of the Light. So… I’m guessing you spent a lot of time in Meidi.” She frowned. “You haven’t told me much about your childhood other than how gifted you were for ‘breaking spines,’ as you say. I just learned that you came to Sandrock five or six years ago. And, apparently, you don’t like it here. You can’t wait to leave.”

“Boring,” Pen groaned. “Anyone can tell you these things.”

“Your favorite dish is anything with protein as the main feature, especially chicken with Seesai dipping sauce. Your favorite color is space punched red. You like your furniture breakable.”

He giggled. “That’s a good one, but still boring. You know more about me than that.”

It felt like they were sparring for a second, and he was telling her to try hitting him one more time. She extracted fiber mesh from the sand, dusting it off and handing it to him.

“I don’t,” she said, getting annoyed.

Pen placed a hand beneath her chin and lifted it so she faced him. His eyes were gentle despite the erratic lighting, and there was that soft, mysterious smile on his face. “Tell me about who I really am, Lucy.”

Her skin sprang to life at his touch.

“You… are… loud, obnoxious, and over the top,” she said slowly, shedding her frustrations and venturing deeper into the abyss. “I think you do that on purpose to keep people away. You don’t want them to see the real you, and you assume the feeling is mutual.”

A glimmer of acknowledgment passed in his eyes. “And what is the real me?”

“Conflicted,” she said quietly. “You think people are born evil, that the primal need to survive will always win over the needs of others. Yet, you go directly against that ‘nature’ when you act as a protector. If you truly embraced all that is evil, you’d just… let it go.”

Pen let out a soft laugh.

She met his gaze again, hooked this time, her grip on the pickhammer slackening. “By the way, don’t think I didn’t notice: you asked ‘What is the real me?’ and not ‘Who is…?’”

“That was on purpose.”

She nodded. “Everything you do is on purpose. You’re calculated.” She glanced up at the electric fences that still had charges. She hovered on the words for a bit, then she let them go with a sigh. “Something terrible happened to you in your life — different from the hurt that you’ve caused. It was done to you. It drives everything you do, at the root of it all, for better or for worse.”

He clenched his jaw, and there was a small twitch in his eyebrow. Lucy couldn’t stop now. Just like when she gave Logan her ridiculous speech, attempting to reach his better senses, this was something she just needed to say.

“I see it in the way you look sad sometimes… There’s a darkness there that you can’t hide. I don’t even know if you’re trying to hide it. It — it makes me…” She couldn’t tell him, yet, that it hurt her when she saw it. “There’s a pain there, but it’s one that you choose to hold onto.”

Her mind stirred with a blend of excitement and agony: the thrill over her own revelations finally voiced, and ache over the unspoken pain that bled through Pen’s everyday life. As ever, he was impassive, save the flickering glint in his eye. Was it pride? Was it the fear of being known for who — ‘what’ — he really was?

“Somehow, it’s all tied to your public persona. In some ways, this ‘protector’ facade is all you have. You talk about having admirers and all that, but even if that’s true, it’s meaningless for you. There’s no joy in being admired, as much as you pretend to seek attention. The fact that you know you’ll do absolutely everything in your power to fulfill what’s required of you: that is all that matters to you.”

In saying these words, she silently concluded that she was nothing more than a single aspect of his life here.

“Almost perfect,” Pen said, smirking. “There’s another… entity… that matters to me, too.”

Her heart stuttered, and she fought back a shiver. It was as if he reached into her mind and extracted that exact thought, silk in his hands.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“I think you know the answer to that, Lucy.” He smiled softly. Then, like a switch, he bounced back into his bravado. “See? You know me better than anyone. Which is fine by me, because I don’t like ninety-nine percent of people. You’re the one percent that I like.”

She laughed softly, struggling to return to normalcy after emptying all her suppositions onto the ground before them.

“You sound like Director Qi,” she said.

“That is probably the only thing he and I have in common.”

His gaze lingered on her lips. He looked to be in a battle with himself. Lucy thought it strange. Ever since their first kiss, he had not once stopped to ponder whether he should kiss her again. He’d always taken what he wanted, and she was happy to let him. Before she could beg the question, he stepped back and gave her a once-over with dramatic flair.

“My turn,” he said, grinning. “You’re stubborn.”

“Hey!” She furrowed her eyebrows.

“You call me calculating, but so are you. It’s not because you’re trying to find the best outcome, but because you’re afraid of the worst one.”

Lucy’s lips parted in surprise. Her words to Owen floated back to her: I don’t want to mess things up.

“You’re afraid to hurt people, even if they deserve it.”

“No one deserves to be hurt.”

Pen co*cked his head to the side. “Sometimes, they do. And, when they do, you wouldn’t want to be the one to dole out punishment. Therefore, you could never be fit as a protector.”

“Obviously,” she said, crossing her arms. “Not in the way that you see it.”

His voice lost some of its edge, almost a sad melody to it. “You want the best for others. You work — and overwork — with no regard for your own well-being. You’re generous and caring. You think you can fix everything around you, even things that aren’t broken.”

She felt a tug in her heart. The last statement was said with gravitas, shining a light on his pain. Whatever his fears, she didn’t even think about trying to change who he was.

“You love to make others laugh.” Pen scoffed. “Even worse, you love to make them see the light in themselves.”

“Even worse?” She screwed up her face in confusion. “How is that bad?”

He shook his head softly and came back to her, his warm hand placed on her cheek. He stroked gently, as if lamenting the most precious parts of her. “You have a good heart, Lucy. It’s a precious… fragile thing.”

He said it with the tiniest hint of a tremor, as if words alone could break her.

A sense of daring heated up the blood in her veins. She was warm all over. Comforted by his assurances, but indignant that the word “fragile” would be used to describe any part of her. Regardless of the truth, she would fight it, tooth and nail.

Half lost in the ruins and voltage, she made her decision, placing the next paving stone on the path to her inevitable end. It was time to probe into the man’s heart, seek a little more of what she was hoping to find, treat him like a topic to be turned over with conversation.

“Speaking of hearts, have you ever been in love?” she asked, the words causing a cold ripple in her stomach. The mere mention of the word was enough to cause her to hesitate, but it was done.

Pen pulled his hand away slowly, as if the question itself called attention to what he was doing. The affection receded behind his eyes.

“I don’t know,” he said calmly. “You understand, Skinny Arms, such is the duty of a knight that I cannot allow myself to become distracted by such… trivial matters. I’ve had many lovers, but… being in love?” He started to laugh.

She raised her eyebrows. “Are you able to… shut down your emotions, at will?”

He shrugged. “Something like that.”

“Some would call that being a psychopath,” she said nonchalantly, echoing Qi’s assessment.

“Ah, we’re using the big words now? I’m a sociopath, thank you very much. I have feelings — which you so astutely pointed out, Lucy. I just don’t relate so much to others. It’s kinda like how I don’t understand people who don’t hit the gym at least three times a week. I mean, what’s the deal with that? Are they trying to have their muscles atrophy?”

Lucy snickered, some levity giving wings to heavy topics.

Pen gave her an appraising look. “You don’t seem very concerned with the whole sociopath thing.”

“You’d think it’d surprise me, but it doesn’t. It actually makes sense. And, you’re still human.”

He feigned offense. “Ew. There you go again, reminding me of my humanity.”

She returned to the task at hand, bolstered by their heart-to-heart, dancing in the familiar waters of philosophy and darkness. Working on the next chromium deposit, she noted the static in the air from being much closer to the web of live energy above. The tiny hairs on her arms raised up.

She could have balked at the idea of his admission a little bit more, but she was transfixed by a newfound solution to her dilemma. If he could not feel the same way that she felt about him, then it was all the more freeing to let those words fly. Straight through the air, into his ear, and back out the other one. She’d be alleviated from the pressed feeling in her chest, and they could carry on their merry way as they were. Nothing — literally nothing — would have to change, save the recognition that she felt something for him beyond lust.

What did that say about her? That she was willing to shout her feelings to a blank wall, to a void.

Fear of commitment, she answered herself, swinging hard with her pickhammer. I’m all kinds of f*cked up, aren’t I?

Her contemplation took them through almost the end of the dive. The next hour ticked by. It did not go unnoticed that the pair had something unsaid between them. It lingered in the air with the dust. Something had already changed.

On their way to the exit, they managed to uncover another compact motor, the last item she needed for her commission. Every time he got close enough that she could feel his warmth radiating from his body, she was reminded of how she felt for him.

She treated herself like a poor imitation of an AI machine, calculating all the ways that this could go. He could reject her, he could laugh in her face, or he could love her back. They were all equally daunting.

The logical side of her was tired, now, sick of running the endless loop of maybes. Her heart was waking up, ready to tangle with all the fiery passion in the world. The part of her that screamed “Just f*cking say it.” It was also the part of her that demanded to know why Pen had not kissed her on the lips since the previous night.

Her conversation with Owen played back. She felt safe with Pen. Whatever feelings she harbored for him, she knew that he would take care to respect them. That certainty was something she couldn’t talk herself out of.

“Alright, f*ck it,” she blurted out, halfway through uncovering the motor.

Pen was stooped over the other side of it, holding it steady while she wreaked havoc on the earth around it. He looked at her, curiosity in his face.

“I got something to say to you,” she said, standing upright.

He chuckled. “I didn’t even do anything to warrant this attitude.”

Lucy softened up and laughed, realizing how upset she sounded. Then, she started pacing. She was acutely aware that she, once again, looked a bit crazed. Only this time, she had a clear objective and a pickhammer.

“I’ve been thinking about our situation. Nothing has to change. I want that to be firmly understood. I expect nothing from you. In the spirit of transparency, however, there’s something you should know.”

“Sounds ominous,” he said, bemused as he eyed her pickhammer.

“It is,” she said, suddenly laughing. “Be very afraid, Pen. I think I’m falling in love with you.”

There. She said it. Her consciousness left her body for a fleeting second, but that single second lasted as long as the Age of Darkness. As soon as the words left her lips, her laughter stopped, her cheeks set on fire, and her chest froze. Her heart was the only thing moving in the massive, buzzing room. It had been so full of life, until the words left her lips.

Pen’s gaze fell right back on her. He, too, stood upright. One eyebrow raised, followed by the other. His lips parted, absent of everything that brought her joy — smirking, smiling, laughter. His eyes bore none of the electricity that sat dozens of feet away from them. Not even the sadness that occasionally lurked like an ancient beast in the waters of his irises.

“It doesn’t have to lead anywhere,” she said quickly. “I just needed you to know that. I’m not sure why, now, but… I’d rather you know, than keep it to myself…”

Something was wrong here. A curtain shut between them. Pen turned aside for a moment. Lucy watched him, not quite understanding. He might as well have been in another dimension, another place and time. A stranger.

After a painful silence, he spoke.

“I’m surprised.”

For all the loops of possibilities she’d run through, Lucy was — and could only ever be — human. She did not account for that response. She forced herself to blink when she felt her eyes sting, if only to maintain the semblance of life.

Surprised…

The word itself did not belong in this conversation. She could’ve been the only person to ever make the Protector of Sandrock say those words, but she did not want to claim that victory. Not in this way. The word sat like dust in the air, stale and unwanted. Her heart, like a primal beast caught unawares, scuttled backward, burrowing itself deep in her chest.

Chapter 25: Penchant for Unerring Truth

Chapter Text

It was as if all the words ever used, Old World or current, had been erased from history. Linguistics itself no longer existed. That was how speechless Lucy was. If Pen was surprised by her feelings, then he didn’t know her at all. She didn’t know him, either.

She returned to work on the motor. It was much easier to deal with something tangible, like digging this damned thing from the earth. It was the key to getting out of here, which was a major bonus. No quiver on her lips could dissuade her from swinging, swinging, and swinging again. Pen returned to his place, holding the motor steady. She could feel his eyes on her. Something that often made her feel desirable and bashful at once, but now it made her face burn with unwanted focus.

“Skinny Arms… Lucy.”

She stopped for a second, the sound of her name on his lips awakening some entity within her that still beat. Then, back to swinging.

“I was under the impression that you — that we…”

Oh, good. The disease of speechlessness hit him. It was contagious, and Lucy was patient zero.

It’s time for damage control, her mind argued.

Ask him if he feels the same! her heart thumped, thrashing against its fleshy cage.

You’ve said enough, her tongue concluded, plastered firmly against the roof of her mouth, refusing to budge, like a treacherous slug monster guarding the tunnel to understanding. Her jaws clenched shut, locking arms in a corporeal protest against the feelings that no longer deserved to steer the ship.

She stepped back from the now-freed motor. Without her signaling, Pen moved in to pick it up. Lucy could feel her hands shake while he carried it to the stockpile. She followed him in stony silence.

She tried to take a deep breath, but she could hardly fill her lungs enough. Her vision blurred with tears. She needed to get this stuff back to her workshop, then she needed to examine the diagram. It didn’t matter what time it was. Work was the only thing for her now. Work would never make her ache like this.

Pen manned the cart as she walked stiffly beside him. Silence pressed between them, flooding the space with all the possibilities dead in the water. At the exit, she went to push the door open with her pickhammer. A hand closed around her wrist with a gentle pressure. She struggled against it. To her surprise, he let her go, but the pickhammer flew and clattered loudly on the ground.

“Lucy, talk to me,” Pen said. It was almost a command, but weak. More of a plea. In any case, it was still foreign to her ears.

Stomach acid bubbled. Her throat closed up. Her chest tightened. Then, she fought. She fought hard to open everything up. His eyes were on her, sapphires in the sea of sand, electricity, and the abandoned remnants of the Old World. All things dead laid buried here in the sand, but they were yet two creatures about to return to the living world.

“Please forget what I said,” she managed to utter. Her voice waged a war against the picket line of teeth and tongue. “It was a mistake.”

“It was not.” His voice was even. Measured, just like it was when he said he was surprised. “You’re upset.”

Obviously, she thought.

“I’m fine,” she said.

Pen made a soft tutting sound. “You’re lying to me, straight to my face.”

“Yes.”

It was comical how easy it was to say that. An unearthly chuckle rumbled in her chest. Pen stooped down and took her face in his. She hated how she melted in his hands. She hated how easy it was for him to make her feel weak.

“I was truly surprised, Lucy.” He pivoted so he could capture her gaze, despite how it so desired to evade him. “You have always been so clear about what you didn’t want between us.”

“This doesn’t change what I do or don’t want,” Lucy said with some effort. Her lips quivered still. “It’s just how I feel. It doesn’t matter, though.”

He pulled away, leaving her skin cold. “Why wouldn’t it?”

Lucy stared into nothingness, pulling on the tail of a familiar, yet slumbering creature in the back of her mind, one that would chew away her feelings until there was nothing left.

“The thing is,” she said slowly, her own voice taking on a measured cadence, “you are not the only one who can shut down. I can, too. I might not be as practiced as you, but I admit… it’s something I… am a little proud of.”

She never said that she was proud of it before. She always told herself it was something to be ashamed of. She bade the version of herself with the good, fragile heart — according to Pen — to turn away and leave this space, leave it empty and barren so winter could take hold. Half-truths and projections were the balm for this moment. Nothing else mattered but the husk of her sanity.

Pen looked at her with skepticism, as if measuring her up, prodding silently at the claim.

“So, this feeling of love,” she continued. “I’m sure it will go away, in time.”

Truth be told, she’d never gone this far before pulling herself back. She wasn’t sure if this part of her still functioned. Something broken was pieced back together, stitched like one of Vivi’s hand-sewn dresses, over her time in Sandrock. She’d seen such radiance in a dark room, felt such reckless joy. Much of it was standing there in front of her, a look of quiet thought etched in his face.

She’d hoped that it would bring him some relief. Anything to bring them two steps back, if she couldn’t wipe the slate entirely. She’d rather stifle her own heart than make his quake. It was a complication that could uncomplicate itself, surely. A knot that could be untangled over time.

But nothing good happened.

Pen furrowed his brows. Then, there it was: that sorrow, the deep lurking beast of emotion swimming in the impassive gaze of the protector. The sliver of a frown tugged on the corner of his lip, twisting his features.

Her words hurt him. She knew it now, and that it ripped her false pretenses out of the sky. Nothing but lies she fed herself, faster than she’d ever done, a starving loneliness that only sank deeper into the void. She’d fallen prey to the curses of others long ago. She was never a monster. She was never as broken and unloving as they said she was. Rather, Pen saw her heart: shaking and fragile.

When she realized what she’d done, it was too late. Her jaws clamped again, refusing her the opportunity to right a terrible wrong. Even her thoughts stuttered, choking out the air from her lungs.

“Will it?” Pen whispered. Two words, with all the severity of a knife to her gut.

He stood a pace back from her, straightened up tall, his height like a looming shadow. The cold image of a trained knight with all the nobility and none of the heart. When he spoke again, his voice was all too measured.

“Alright. You ready to go, Skinny? I’m gonna actually need to do my workout tonight. I’m beginning to see this wasn’t enough of a challenge for me.”

Lucy’s heart dropped. It might as well have fallen to the deepest, most forlorn depths of Gecko Station, out of reach and never to be found again. For a terrible, twisting moment, she considered that the surprise he felt had been a good thing. Maybe he’d been waiting to know if she felt that way for a long time, and he was getting ready to share his feelings right back to her. But she made a knee-jerk reaction and she ran for it. Now, she ruined it.

“Pen, I—” Her courage faltered. The look on his face cut deeper into the wound she’d already carved herself. There was no fixing this. She’d already said enough, made him feel that her love for him was disposable, trivial, and fleeting. “Okay. I… I think this is enough for now.”

“I think so, too.”

He might as well have spelled the end of what they were. The nebulous, confused, bramble thicket of their non-relationship. The days of laughter and conversation, passion and delirious bliss.

After the large metal doors swung shut behind them, silence met silence. Stars dotted the sky. The moon was massive and bright, though its light seemed to stop short of Lucy’s skin. On the ride back, they sat together as they always had on the yakmel. Pen had his hands around her waist, and he held her steady, but Lucy had the sensation that his touch was far away, hidden from her on the other side of things unsaid. His fingers brushed the fabric of her clothes, the junction where her shirt was tucked into her jeans, but it didn’t quite feel like they were really there.

Lucy waited until she got home to give in to the tears. They said good night as friends would, with faraway and fleeting glances. She closed the door behind her, her chest so heavy, it felt like someone wrapped chains around her ribcage.

She took a seat on the robot couch, feeling the comfortable cushions to the harsh edge of the seats beneath. The cold metal echoed with the warmth and joy of their first night of intimacy. A hollow sound. Something that seemed far up a mountain path, far from where she’d fallen. She rested her elbows on her thighs, then her face in her hands. The stinging tears came slowly. It took a minute to sink through all the feelings to fall far enough past her layers of self-deceit and ruin.

What was she hoping to gain from telling him that she was falling in love with him? Had she hoped for a listening ear? A shoulder to cry on, to lament the death of an innocent tryst? She knew the answer. She was nothing if not painfully aware of how she felt, once she peeled back the velvet curtain of her own plush lies.

She wanted him to love her back. She really, truly hoped that he would smile and return the words. After all, she’d lost count of all the times he’d said the word “love” when they were skin to skin, locked in an intimate dance of passion and want.

I love the way you look at me.

I love the way you feel.

Lucy sniffled. It was within reach, she thought. That whole conversation in Gecko Station felt like it was leading up to it. They were paving those stones together. Everything they shared, the things they saw in one another. Were those not the echoes of a blooming love? Was he reeling away in disdain of her weak emotions? How could the one person who was so close to being his equal fall prey to something like love?

Then, she had to go and make it worse.

It will go away.

How could she promise that? How could she want that?

This tortured sequence of thoughts encircled her like birds of prey, pecking at her sanity for the next few days. She clung to the one thing that she had control over: her work. The swinging of her pickhammer and her axe, the programming of her equipment, the measuring and re-measuring. She assembled the algae apparatus in no time at all, but nothing about the happily bubbling green fluid made her feel any joy.

She stopped going to the Blue Moon. She couldn’t face Owen, knowing that he’d likely want news of her romantic endeavors. She was overworking on commissions, maxing out her workload the second a slot became available. She showed up on people’s doorsteps at odd hours of the morning and night to deliver complicated commissions in little to no time. Then, she’d run off sometimes without accepting payment, in a hurry to start on the next job.

Every night, she went to bed and stared up at the dark ceiling for a long time before falling asleep. She’d think about the last time Pen was there with her. His scent lingered on her sheets. She could roll over and envision the way he looked at her in the morning.

You’re a sight to behold, he had said.

And those words were enough to caress her soul, make her smile and kick her feet like a bashful newcomer to the world of love and adoration.

At some point, a scribbled letter was stuffed into the mailbox, on its way to Highwind along with Lucy’s tears.

Nia,

What’s the f*cking point of my knack for honesty when all it does is get me hurt? I told him I’m falling in love with him. He said he was surprised. And it all went to sh*t from there. I freaked out and shut down. Feelings are f*cking dumb. I don’t need them. I don’t want them.

Your friend forever who just wishes she could get a f*cking hug,

Lucy

When she encountered Pen in town, it was like they had never shared those precious moments. Every look, every whisper was buried deeper than the lowest level of Paradise Lost. They were strangers again. He didn’t quite look her in the eye, and he referred to her only by “Skinny Arms” and not her name. He gave her a wide berth, she noticed, not venturing to get in her way whatsoever. He wasn’t even that polite when they were actual, veritable strangers.

Lucy hated it. She missed him getting in the way. She missed his arms around her. She missed him pulling her into dark alleyways for stolen kisses, and all the tiny, nearly imperceptible winks that he’d throw at her. She missed the innuendos, the immature giggling when they made stupid jokes together. Worst of all, she missed their talks. The long, drawn out conversations that meandered for hours in every direction, lacing through the untamed lands of philosophy and the established cities of fact. Laying out the universe on a map and pointing out all the intricacies.

Somehow she circled all the way back, spiraling again and again, until she landed on the singular, immutable fact: this was all her fault. She said the forbidden words, then she gave him no time to reply. She doubled down and failed to repair the damage. She failed again by refusing to bring it up when she saw him in town.

She clung to the one, depressing thought that gave her a twisted sense of relief: maybe Logan would get caught, and Pen’s job would be done soon. He would leave, and she wouldn’t have to run into him in town anymore. Maybe the ache of loneliness would be assuaged by his permanent absence. She wouldn’t have to feel the magnets being pulled apart every time they sidestepped one another.

The fireside meeting arrived, one in which Trudy would announce the algae breakthrough. Lucy should’ve been proud, but she looked and felt anything but. Her eyes were red and puffy. She wore an old t-shirt with a cactus on it and a skirt that hadn’t seen the light of day since the previous summer. She’d been too busy working, and when she wasn’t working, she was crying. There was no room for laundry in that cycle.

Matilda and Trudy’s speeches were static to her ears. She pretended to listen intently, a vague, plastic smile on her lips as she tried not to look at Pen. He was hovering somewhere on the edge of the crowd. She could feel his eyes on her, once again, a crawling feeling on her hot cheeks.

Miguel’s voice rose above the crowd. Lucy realized there was an upset in progress.

“I’ll just come out and say what everyone’s thinking,” the pastor was saying. “We can’t stop you from continuing to put your own life in harm’s way or neglecting your official duties, Trudy, but taking both builders? Sandrock would be ruined twice over already without them!”

Lucy’s ears perked up. She looked at him with a discerning gaze.

“Also, to base our future on the potential of a corrupted technology, are you mad?! Making such a rash decision was irresponsible, and unfitting of the office of mayor.”

Trudy’s lips quivered. She grasped her hands together and stuttered something unintelligible. Venom rose in Lucy’s chest, her nerves alight with a fire she hadn’t felt in days.

“Oh, please,” she said hotly. “It was hardly a rash decision, and at least she — we are trying to do something for the good of this town.”

The crowd’s murmurs cut out like a record ripped from a music player. Her courage fluctuated with eyes on her. Miguel looked up at Lucy with a simmering anger that flushed his skin red. She stared back at him, not daring to back away. She had more choice words for him, but she knew it’d be out of line. Her self-control was wafer thin, though. She almost wanted him to sneer at her.

Trudy found her voice. “Thank you, Lucy. I hope everyone can understand that we had the best of intentions, but Miguel is right. I’m sorry. I should’ve told everyone…”

The builder backed down, pacified by the mayor’s own timidness.

Miguel wheeled back to face Trudy. “Ah, yes. What a fine display of hindsight from our dear leader. How about some foresight for once, hm?”

Lucy growled low, but Matilda cut in, her honey-sweet voice coating everyone in a plea of peace.

“Pastor, please. Can we let her finish? Trudy didn’t gather us here just to serve us another helping of bad news. And in the end, here we all are, safe and sound, so let’s show a bit of respect, shall we?”

The fireside continued and concluded without much more argument or fanfare. Lucy went back to half-listening, shooting a narrow glance at the back of Miguel’s head every once in a while. He wasn’t really the object of her ire, and she knew it, but it felt nice to point it somewhere.

Some Sandrockers were skeptical, rightfully so, and others were more optimistic about the endeavor to plant trees out in the Eufaula. Lucy was going to do her part. She’d already decided she’d participate, but now, a little extra motivation might’ve been burning out of spite.

As she turned to leave, Owen caught her eye.

“Lucy, you comin’ down to the saloon? It’s been a while…” He peered at her with his piercing, yet gentle gaze.

She shook her head. “I got work to do.”

“It’s eight o’clock in the evening…”

The crowd around them shifted like sand, trickling down the hill to regroup alongside tunes, food, and drink.

Owen sighed. “I’m worried about you, Lucy. Just… Be kind to yourself. You, of all people, deserve your love and attention.”

She felt a shiver as he placed a gentle hand on her shoulder and squeezed. The blend of his voice, his tender words, and the reassuring touch of a friend was enough to make her eyes glisten with more than starlight. He gave her a last, soft smile and joined the crowd, promising omelets to fill hungry bellies after a tense meeting.

Lucy’s feet carried her away from the crowd, and she willed herself not to look behind her in search of Pen. He probably sided with Miguel’s line of thinking, being members of the church and all. With a sting of bitterness, she realized that was another drop in the bucket of reasons why her love for him was foolish. She’d never been and never would be a follower of the Church of the Light.

As she passed by the oasis, she decided she wouldn’t go directly home after all. She turned at the boardwalk for a slow stroll. The breeze was even cooler here, and it felt good against her tired skin. On one side, she enjoyed the view of vegetation, however sparse, and the deep blue waters of the small lake. Owen had once told her that an old, forlorn nickname for Sandrock was the “Sapphire of the Eufaula.” On the other side, abandoned buildings and homes laid the foundational background of the remaining shops and businesses. Fragments of sheet metal and old tires laid out like landscape features of their own.

Footsteps sounded behind her, cushioned but heavy. She did not turn. She figured the person would announce themselves soon enough. It didn’t matter if it was a Sandrocker or Logan the bandit. She didn’t quite care at this moment.

Lucy put her hands in her pockets and kept going, peering occasionally at the boarded up facades that no longer graced the oasis with open doors and smiling faces. She could hear the raucous conversation in the Blue Moon occasionally in the quiet night air, a tide rising whenever someone opened one of the doors.

The scent of spice and barbecue honey drifted across the water. The starlight was just shy of being reflected on the surface, watery pinpricks drowned out by the moon.

The footsteps behind Lucy seemed to match her cadence. She shivered. That distinct feeling of being watched ran over the back of her neck.

She stopped just past the bench where she once sat with Pen, buzzing with the thought of something new and electrifying. That winter sunset felt far away. She turned slowly to take in the full view of the lake, as well as the silhouette of whoever was following her. She recognized it immediately. Her breath didn’t quite make it all the way to her lungs.

“Lucy…”

Pen’s voice was soft, like his hands on her waist. Low, like her heart. She missed the way he said her name. Her heart ached at the sound of it.

“Are you following me?” She tried to sound casual — snarky, even.

She heard him chuckle. Her chest tightened at the sound. She missed that, too. The deep, confident sound that gave her satisfaction when she drew it out.

“I thought a ne’er-do-well was lurking in the shadows here. And here she is.”

“Here I am.” She let out a soft laugh, a shadow of receding joy.

A quiet moment passed between them, filled only with the soft, barely-there rush of the oasis waters lapping against the shore.

“Quite a show you put on back there,” he said. “Going against Miguel, whose convictions are more concrete than the ruins that surround us.”

She scoffed. “He had me help him do some gardening around the church once. Free labor, I guess. He gave me a well-practiced lecture… or sermon, if you prefer. In the end, he asked me to consider this: ‘Are you a flower, or a weed?’”

She could almost hear the smirk on his lips. He asked, “What did you answer?”

“I didn’t.” She focused her gaze on the ripple of water, a fresh breeze skimming the surface. “I don’t think he would’ve appreciated what I thought of his… convictions, as you say.”

Rather than take a seat at the bench just a few steps away, she lowered herself to the ground and swung her legs over the ledge, letting them dangle by the chilly stone foundation beneath. Pen followed suit and sat near her. Not quite by her side, but close enough that she could feel the warmth from his body, a feeling she missed dearly.

“Let me guess,” said the protector with his nonchalant drawl. “You’re neither flower nor weed. You find his dichotomy an unfair assessment on nature itself.”

Lucy nodded, her chest tightening as he spoke with such eloquence and accuracy. He knew her so well.

She nodded. “Even some weeds will flower…”

“Ever the neutral response, Skinny Arms.”

His nickname for her, caught in the wind and drowned in a swell of her emotions. Silence again. A thoughtful one, laced in brief poetry. A painful one, hearing the quiet in his voice and feeling the ache in her body.

“I think it’s time we talked about the other day,” Pen said at last.

“Okay. What’s up?”

Her neck tensed. Her eyes stung, as if to tell her that she shouldn’t sound so nonchalant. She should weep, and she should run. But, she stayed there, legs dangled over the edge, running the nails of her thumbs against her forefingers. Her eyes were dry, for now. Her body was tired. The cool evening breathed a numbness onto her skin, pushing back against the warmth radiating from Pen.

“You took a risk,” he said slowly. “And it was a brave choice, to say those words to me after everything we discussed.”

“I… wanted to be transparent,” Lucy said, a broken record. “I’d been wondering about these feelings for a long time.”

“How long?” His voice was more gentle than usual, genuine curiosity in the question.

“Since… the day of the water tower incident.” She swallowed. “When we were having sex, it felt more… intimate than the previous times.” Terrified of silence, she kept talking. “I started looking forward to seeing you more. I miss you when you’re not around. Maybe it started even further back, when I got, uh… jealous. Thankfully, I’m pretty sure I got that under control.”

Pen made a startled sound. “Jealous of…?”

Lucy turned brick red, and she was grateful for the cover of the night. “I heard a rumor at the Winter Solstice festival that you hooked up with Catori.”

“Hah! The truth is far less titillating,” he said, still chuckling. “I’ll have you know, she propositioned ol’ Pen, but she passed out before anything happened. I dropped her off at the inn and went home.”

For a moment, she forgot about her own feelings. She pictured the woman, as distraught and forsaken as the day of the make-up sandrunning competition, waking up alone in the Blue Moon’s inn.

“Poor Catori,” she said, frowning.

“Empathy for the competition, Skinny? You really are something else.”

She gave a mirthless laugh. “Competition for what? I just want people to be happy, regardless of the… scenario.”

She looked down at her hands. She’d been intertwining her fingers, fidgeting incessantly.

“Anyway,” she said, sighing. “I think those letters from the shipwreck ruins made it clear for me.”

“Right. You said you found them in the desert, but… it appears you have told more than your fair share of fibs, Lucy.”

She narrowed her gaze at the large tree in the oasis, still refusing to look at him. In her opinion, it was a minor thing. “I technically wasn’t lying. The shipwreck ruins are in the desert.”

“Using any technicality to your advantage. Maybe you could’ve been a protector. But, back to the matter at hand. What about the last thing you said? That all this — your feelings — will go away? If that is true, then are you truly in love with me? If your feelings can just be whisked away at a moment’s notice, it must not be very strong. Yet, you seem to be genuinely distressed.”

Lucy’s initial reaction was to be hurt, that he was digging into her feelings, after she’d lay them out bare for him. It was hard enough for her to speak on it, but to analyze herself the way that they would analyze any other topic was uncomfortable. But, then she considered the real question at the heart of his words. If she knew him at all, the real question was buried in there: “Are you truly in love with me?”

She looked up at the sky, running out of places she could place her gaze before she’d eventually have to look at Pen.

“I was trying to say just about anything to make you feel better, whether it was true or not.” She licked her lips. “For that, I’m sorry. It was disingenuous. From the moment I said it, I… panicked. Tried to salvage the situation. I didn’t want to ruin what we had, but it was already too late for that, the second I used the word ‘love.’ I can’t take it back, though. I am in love with you. It’s taken me some time to come to terms with it. Telling you was difficult, but I am glad I went through with it.”

“You think what we have is ruined?” he asked calmly, a depth in his voice that almost pulled her closer.

Lucy shrugged. “I don’t know, but if it is, I will live with it. I won’t… be able to change how I feel, not without a lot of time and effort, but it is what it is.” Finally, she was honest with herself. Some weight was lifted from her core and up through her shoulders. “I think — I think that’s all I really have to say.”

The ball was in his court. She was spent. She could feel the puffiness in her eyes and the tingle of anxiety running all through her fingertips, but it was all static to her now.

Pen’s chuckle was a sweet, rumbling sound. “When I met you, there was something undoubtedly special about you. Your… fire and your stubbornness. The audacity that you challenged me in combat. Hah, I mean, look at me!”

She did not look at him. She knew he was flexing, and she did not want to find humor in his antics. A little sigh followed, and she knew he was disappointed. He kicked his legs a little, which she noticed out of her peripheral vision. He could touch the ground in a simple hop, where her fall would be a little more daunting.

“Everything I said in the ruins remains true,” Pen went on. “You are an incomprehensible ball of generosity and caring. Truly, I don’t understand it.”

Lucy glared at a nearby yakthorn bush. “If you’re trying to make me feel better, you’re doing a sh*tty job.”

“What I’m trying to say, Skinny — Lucy — is that I found it surprising that you’re in love with me, specifically, of all people.”

She shot a glance in his direction, just shy of his hulking figure. “You’re in love with yourself. Wouldn’t that make it easier for you to understand?”

“There’s that wit again.” His hand slid closer to hers. “Y’know, you’re right. And, maybe… just maybe… I have finally found someone who truly loves me as much as I do!”

Despite her nerves, Lucy laughed. “Great for you. Maybe one day I’ll do the same.”

“One day?”

Her heart bobbed in the liquid state of her emotions. “Well, you don’t feel the same way.” She smiled sadly. “It’s okay, really.”

She meant it. Just as she couldn’t magically change how she felt, she could never hope to convince someone else that they felt one way or another about her.

Pen sighed. “How can I tell you how I feel if you won’t look me in the eye?”

The tree rustled gently in the night. Lucy took a deep breath, sinking in the rolling landscape that faded away to jagged mountains to the south. The sound of water softly against the oasis statue and the shore.

Finally, she turned to him, more easily than she’d thought. Her eyes were dancing across the night, waiting to come back to the place that made them shine the most.

“I’m listening,” she said softly, embedding in her words a promise that she wouldn’t shield herself away, no matter how out of bounds his next words would be.

Pen’s eyes shimmered like the nearby lake. “I was never certain I’d been in love because I was never sure if anyone loved me. Not in a way that matters.” He scanned her face with a soft gaze. “Admirers, fans — they all flock to marvel at the wonder that is me, and while I enjoy the attention, I know it’s never more than skin deep. It gets old, after a while.” He tilted his head to the side, a sparkle in his eyes chasing away the shadow. “But, with you… I never tire of you staring lovingly at my perfectly carved form.”

A flicker of a smirk curved on his lips, and Lucy snorted. “You’re ridiculous.”

“I am! Ridiculously handsome, yes! And, yet, when you look at me, I feel something move inside of me.” He laughed quietly. “Deeper than my pecs.”

Though her lips curled in a frown, she bit the inside of her cheek to keep herself from a snarky remark. It did appear that he was trying to express a genuine thought.

“I should have anticipated this,” he said, as if reprimanding himself. “I admit I took advantage of my duties, using them as excuses to see you more often. I should’ve known when I found myself wondering if you were safe, in the middle of that first sandstorm. Or… when I saw you cry for the first time, and I wished I could go back in time and sucker punch the entire Age of Darkness for you, so that you’d never shed a tear about it again.”

A current lifted Lucy’s heart, sending it back toward its home in her chest, beating rhythmically to the melody of Pen’s voice. His expression in the Breach — a hint of shadow, a look of faraway disdain — came back to her. She’d thought, perhaps, he was uncomfortable with her naivete. She hadn’t stopped to think that he really cared that she was hurting.

“Even more,” he went on, “when you sat by my bedside. I gave you every reason to turn away from my weakened state. My most shameful day. Worse than any day covered in blood was the day that I could not raise a hand to shield the weak… or to shield you, for you should know that I do not count you among them. When I was rendered useless, you cared for me still.”

She recalled how, for the first time, he told her that he loved something about her. It was the thing that she was most proud of: how she tried her best to look after others, when given the opportunity. Fresh tears sprang into her eyes. She blinked slowly, blurring the lines between what lingered in her vision, the reflective water of the lake, and Pen’s shining gaze. Hues of relentless blue in every shade cloaked her in the night’s cool caress.

His features were so soft, so tender now, his voice barely above a whisper, yet still steady and bolstered by his apparent need to tell her these truths. “Even when you told me all that you see in me — the wonderful things beyond my muscles, beyond my chiseled jawline, the scars that have made me, and the darkness I’ve endured and dealt upon others…”

He reached out and placed a warm hand on her cheek, caressing her gently as he wiped stray tears from staining her rosy skin.

“If that’s what love means… To feel this way, to see someone in this light, then I should’ve told you long ago that I’ve loved you. I simply didn’t understand what that was. In a way, you’ve had a once in a lifetime opportunity to teach me something, Skinny!”

Lucy’s heart shivered, a little dance of joy that burst like fireworks in her body. Her emotions went haywire, catapulted by Pen’s impassioned speech. Tears spilled out as she covered her face, laughing. Meanwhile, the protector beamed at her. All the warmth of a summer bonfire was in his gaze, as if he saw nothing and no one else in the world.

A terrible joke bubbled up on her lips. In her giggling fit, she managed to choke out, “I’m— I’m surprised.”

His smile only widened. “If you don’t believe me, I can shout it from the rooftops.” He pointed at the abandoned buildings on the boardwalk and to the church beyond. “I’ll leap all over this damn town and tell everybody: I love Skinny Arms!”

Lucy’s hands flew out to his shoulders. She patted him gently, shaking her head. “P—please don’t,” she said through gasping breaths. “Don’t be obnoxious.”

“Too late,” he said, chuckling as he leaned in, his eyes on her lips.

Lighter than a feather, her heart floated and grew wings, spreading through her arms, down to her fingertips. She cupped his face in her hands and pulled him in for a kiss. Their lips touched with a soft smack. Lucy was still all giggles, unable to keep it down. His words were a sledgehammer to the incomplete wall she’d started building up around herself. With each kiss, the dust settled further, the debris cleared from the remnants of her hazy past few days.

“I love you,” she whispered, leaning her forehead on his. Saying it now was as easy as breathing.

“And I love you, Lucy.” The shadow of sorrow appeared again in his eyes as he pulled slightly back from her. “But… I’ve been bound by duty not to let emotions get in my way…” He raised an eyebrow, almost as uncertain as she’d been when she first confessed days ago. “I fear — yes, it’s a true fear, that you have taken hostage of my mind at times. I don’t know what to make of it.”

She looked around them. The occasional chatter from the Blue Moon floated over on the wind. They were insulated here. Not a soul was in sight. It was her own little pocket of serenity, with nothing but her, Pen, and a beautiful desert night.

“I understand,” she said slowly, little drops of reality coming down like small particles of dust. “I don’t know what to make of it, either. I know you have no intention of staying in Sandrock long-term. I don’t intend to convince you otherwise.”

“See what I mean? You baffle me with your willingness to understand.”

Lucy shrugged. “I am at a crossroads in my life. Some flexibilities apply. All of this is to say… Don’t feel pressured to be in a relationship with me. I meant it before: nothing has to change between us. Besides the obvious love thing.”

Pen sighed and pushed a stray lock of hair out of her face. “Worrying about the future is the death of our choices in this moment. Nothing is forced. I want to enjoy whatever time we have together. If that means that we’re ‘a thing,’ then a thing we shall be. I have no sights set on anyone else, if that’s of any concern. Well, except when I look in a mirror.”

Lucy snickered. “Sounds like the only competition I have is you.” She leaned into his caress, feeling his calloused fingers gently graze her skin, and her eyes grew wide as she took in the vision of him. The way that he looked at her. There was something vulnerable about it, the softness in the edges of his face, the way he passed his warm hand over her skin, as if he was afraid she’d disappear on the spot if he removed his hand.

“There you go again,” he said quietly. “Looking at me like that. It makes me determined to be the protector of your dreams.”

He leaned in and kissed her, softly at first, then with such passion that she nearly fell off the ledge from how she turned to putty at his touch. For some time, all that she heard was the sound of their lips traveling across each other’s, their tongues sliding and exploring. She placed a hand behind his neck and gripped his hair, as if she was afraid the moment would disappear with the breeze.

Pen pulled Lucy closer to him, enveloping her in his embrace and his scent, the growing strength of their bond. She felt his hands traveling over the small of her back, gripping her waist. Deprived of what could have been over the past few days, their bodies pushed them to make up for it. It was all-consuming. The sound of his breath, the feel of his lips and tongue, the fortress of his body around hers against the night.

The heat between them rose, a fire in the evening air. Lucy felt a pulse in her lower belly as she heard Pen breathing harder, her own breaths coming in gasps between their fervent kisses. She wanted more of this, more of him. She grazed his bottom lip with her teeth, eliciting a telling response in the way he shifted his weight against her, overtaking her body with his. A reward for a daring move.

He placed a hand atop her knee, while he trailed kisses from her lips, down her jawline, to her neck. They were exposed to the open air, revealed to the sky above them, as his hand slid up her thigh, applying some pressure to her soft skin. A wicked, quiet laugh grew from his chest as he slipped past the edge of her skirt.

Lucy's breath hitched, his fingers coming close to the space between her legs.

“Pen,” she whispered, half-moaning as he kissed her greedily on her neck, tasting a sensitive spot that made her arch her back.

“Lucy,” he hummed back. “If I can’t shout my love for you on the rooftops…” His fingers inched closer. “I can always make you scream for me right here by the lake.”

“We… can’t… do that…” Her voice was barely a whisper, her body intoxicated by his motions.

She closed her eyes as his fingers teased the uppermost parts of her inner thighs, just one more maneuver from where she wanted it the most. She writhed on the spot, thinking of what it’d be like if he just slipped his fingers a little closer.

“No, we can’t,” he said, his voice low. He shook his head with a devilish smile. “We can’t do that at all.”

He licked a wet swirl over her jugular and planted his teeth against her skin. She bit her lip to fight back a cry of pleasure and pain.

Lucy met his gaze, eyes half-closed and shining with need. She gave him a pleading nod. She could feel her wetness pooling on the ledge, his fingers close, but not close enough.

“Touch me,” she whispered, her lips glistening in the moonlight. “Please.”

“Are you sure?” he asked, arching an eyebrow.

Lucy nodded and kissed him, trembling from anticipation. “Yes. Please…” She shifted her hips, giving him better access. “We’ll just have to be very…”

Pen slipped a finger beneath the hem of her panties, causing her to gasp.

“Very,” he continued for her. “…Quiet.”