Morning came the way mornings did on Regret Island — without asking.
The sun climbed the lavender sky at a pace that felt deliberate, like it had opinions about being rushed. The pollen clouds had thinned overnight, leaving the air clean and faintly sweet. The bioluminescent grazers had moved further upstream, their hides dim and ordinary in the daylight.
Tiger was awake first. He usually was — not because he slept less but because lying still with his eyes open was close enough to sleeping that the distinction stopped mattering cycles ago. He'd found a flat rock near the treeline that caught the morning light at a useful angle and sat there with his knees up, watching the savanna do nothing.
Lily was still in the grass nearby, one arm flung over her face, breathing in a way that was almost but not quite snoring. She'd fallen asleep mid-sentence the night before — something about a word for the specific color of things that used to exist — and hadn't moved since.
Tiger was on his third piece of fruit when he heard it.
Footsteps. From the treeline. Unhurried.
He looked up.
A girl walked out of the trees.
She was soaking wet — hair plastered flat, clothes waterlogged, boots leaving dark prints in the pale grass with every step. She had the look of someone who had been in water for a long time and had stopped being bothered by it somewhere during the process. Warm face. Wide eyes. The kind of smile that arrived slightly before the situation warranted it.
She saw Tiger immediately.
Tiger looked at her.
She lifted a hand in a wave that was somehow both confident and deeply uncertain.
"Hi," she said.
"Hi," Tiger said.
She stood there dripping.
"I'm—" She gestured vaguely back at the trees. "I came from over there."
"I know. I watched you walk out."
"Right." She nodded. Kept nodding slightly longer than necessary. "So. Great planet."
"Mm."
"The trees are very—" She paused, seeming to search for something. "Present."
Tiger looked at her. "Present."
"As in they're there. The trees. Very much there." She pressed her lips together. "I've seen better trees. I've also seen worse. These are solidly median trees."
"Good to know."
She took a step forward, then seemed to realize she hadn't introduced herself and stopped. "Lynn."
"Tiger."
Lynn looked around the camp. Her eyes landed on Lily's sleeping form for just a fraction too long — the way someone's eyes move when they're confirming something rather than discovering it.
"Is she—"
"Asleep."
"Should we—"
"She'll figure it out."
Lynn considered this. Then she came and sat down a few feet from him, cross-legged in the wet grass, apparently unconcerned about being any wetter than she already was.
They sat in the way strangers sit. Tiger ate his fruit. Lynn looked at the savanna.
"So do you live here or—"
"Yes."
"Right." She tucked a strand of wet hair behind her ear. "How long?"
"Four months."
"And before that?"
Tiger looked at her sideways. She was asking the way someone asks when they already have the answer and are waiting to see if you'll tell the truth.
"Around," he said.
"Right." She nodded again. "Around. Yeah. I've been around too. Lots of places. You know how it is." She laughed — slightly too early, slightly too loud. "Everywhere and nowhere. Classic situation."
Tiger didn't respond.
Lynn cleared her throat.
A long beat passed.
"So," she tried, "what do two people do on a planet with no name?"
"It has a name."
"Oh?"
"Regret Island."
Lynn blinked. Then she smiled — genuine for half a second before it folded back into the performed version. "That's. Hm. That's something."
"It grows on you."
"Does it?"
"The fruit does, anyway."
Lynn stared at him. Then she laughed — too bright, landing just slightly wrong. Like a note played in the right key but the wrong octave.
Behind them, Lily made a sound. Then another. Then she sat up, hair catastrophic, one cheek creased with grass lines, looking at the world with the specific expression of someone who'd been awake for several seconds but was keeping that information to herself.
She saw Lynn.
Lynn waved.
Lily stared.
"There's a wet person," she said, to Tiger.
"Her name's Lynn."
Lily looked at Lynn. Lynn looked at Lily. The morning sat between them.
"You're wet," Lily said.
"I am," Lynn confirmed. "The river was there and I was also there and the sequence of events that followed was somewhat inevitable."
"You swam upstream?"
"I walked, mostly. The swimming was optional."
Lily blinked. Then she smiled — the real one, all teeth. "I like her."
Lynn's expression flickered with something fast and complicated that she covered immediately with a wide smile. "I like you too."
"You don't know me yet."
"Working assumption."
"Bold."
"I'm a bold person." Lynn straightened. "Generally. As a rule. Boldness is my—" She gestured. "Thing."
"Your thing," Lily repeated.
"One of them."
"What are the others?"
Lynn opened her mouth. "I'm also very—" She paused. "Good at—" Another pause. She looked at the sky. Looked back. "Swimming, apparently."
Lily stared at her for a full second.
Then she burst out laughing.
Lynn laughed too — nervous, overlapping, the kind that comes out when you're not sure if you're in on the joke. Which made Lily laugh harder.
Tiger watched this with the mild interest of someone observing weather.
"Okay," Lily said, recovering, wiping her eye. "What else do you do, Lynn."
"I—" Lynn straightened, rallying. "I tell jokes."
"Tell one."
Lynn blinked. "Right now?"
"Right now."
Lynn thought for approximately three seconds. Then, with complete sincerity: "Why don't scientists trust atoms?"
The morning held very still.
"Because," Lynn continued, "they make up everything."
Lily stared at her.
Tiger ate his fruit.
"That joke," Lily said carefully, "is older than several star systems."
"It's a classic."
"It's not a classic. A classic implies it was good once."
"It was good once."
"When?"
Lynn considered. "Probably before your time."
Lily pointed at her. "I was there when language was invented."
"So was I," Lynn said. A half second too fast. Then she blinked and added, more carefully, "I mean — metaphorically. Subjectively. I've been around a while."
Lily squinted at her. Not suspicious. Just the look of someone cataloguing a person carefully.
"Fair enough." She stood, stretching until her spine popped. "Have you eaten? Tiger has fruit."
"Tiger has fruit," Tiger confirmed, without looking up.
"What kind?" Lynn asked.
"The kind that tastes like regret," Lily said. "But the good kind."
Lynn looked at the fruit in Tiger's hand. Then at the river. Then at the distant grazers flickering like living lanterns in the morning light.
She opened her mouth to say something, got halfway through the breath required to say it, and then visibly lost the thread entirely.
Lily watched this happen in real time.
"Were you going somewhere with that?"
"I was," Lynn said. "I've lost it."
"Was it interesting?"
Lynn thought about it honestly. "Probably not."
"Okay." Lily handed her a piece of fruit. "Start over."
Lynn took it. Looked at it. Looked at Lily — who was already looking at something else, already moving on, already making room without making a performance of making room.
Something in Lynn's expression shifted. Just slightly. Like something held at a particular angle had finally found a surface to rest on.
She bit into the fruit.
Then she looked at Tiger. "It really does taste like regret."
"Told you," Tiger said.
"Why does your fruit taste like an emotion."
"It doesn't. The emotion tastes like the fruit. Get the order right."
Lynn stared at him. Then she laughed — and it was different from the other ones. No performance, no careful calibration. Just a real sound escaping before she'd decided to let it out, the way Lily's laughs did, the way things do when they're not being managed.
She looked slightly surprised by it herself.
Lily noticed. Smiled sideways at her fruit and said nothing.
Tiger looked at Lynn. Just for a second. The same flat, patient look of someone not yet asking the question but already holding it carefully.
He looked back at the river.
They ate in the loose triangle of people who don't know each other's edges yet, the savanna wide and golden around them, the river doing its low constant thing. Lynn tried once more to insert herself into a conversation, got two sentences in, stumbled, stopped.
Lily handed her more fruit.
Lynn took it.
"Regret Island," she said, mostly to herself, looking out at all of it — the grass, the water, the pale lavender sky.
She said it like she was filing it somewhere safe.
Somewhere she intended to keep it.
Tiger heard that. He didn't say anything about it.
He never did.