The waterfall was exactly what Tiger said it was.
Nice rocks.
"You said nice rocks," Lily said, standing at the edge of the pool the waterfall fed, hands on her hips, looking at the cascade of white water tumbling over a shelf of pale stone into clear blue-green below. Mist caught the light and scattered it in small rainbows. The sound was constant and clean and large.
"They are nice," Tiger said.
"Tiger."
"What."
"This is beautiful."
"The rocks are nice."
Lily turned to Lynn. "He does this."
Lynn was standing slightly behind them, wringing water from her sleeve for no clear reason since she was still entirely wet from the morning. She looked at the waterfall, then at Tiger, then back at the waterfall.
"It is very nice," Lynn offered.
"Thank you," Tiger said.
"She's agreeing with me," Lily said.
"She's agreeing with the rocks," Tiger said.
Lynn opened her mouth. Looked at the waterfall. Looked at them. "I think what the waterfall represents is—" She stopped. "Actually never mind."
Lily turned fully to look at her. "No. Finish."
"I've lost it."
"You keep losing things."
"I keep finding new things to lose." Lynn said this like it was a reasonable defense, which somehow made it funnier than if she'd tried to be funny.
Lily stared at her for a second. Then looked back at the waterfall.
"Okay. New game. One word for the waterfall. Just one. Has to mean something about how it makes you feel."
"Loud," Tiger said immediately.
"That's a description not a—" Lily waved her hand. "It has to mean something."
"Loud," Tiger said again.
"I'm going to walk into the waterfall."
"That's allowed."
Lynn raised her hand slightly. "I have one."
They both looked at her.
"Cathartic," Lynn said, with the confidence of someone certain of the definition.
Lily stared at her.
Tiger looked at the waterfall.
"Cathartic," Lily repeated.
"It means—"
"I know what it means." Lily tilted her head. "It's just. Very correct. Too correct. Like you opened a dictionary and pointed."
Lynn lowered her hand slightly. "Is that bad."
"It's not bad. It's just—" Lily squinted at her. "You're playing the game wrong."
"There are rules?"
"There are no rules. That's the rule."
Lynn thought about this. "That's contradictory."
"Everything is contradictory."
"Then cathartic should be fine."
"It should be," Lily agreed. "And yet."
Lynn looked at Tiger for support.
Tiger was crouching at the edge of the pool, trailing a hand in the water. "She's right," he said, without looking up. "Cathartic is correct. The game isn't about being correct."
"What's the game about?"
"Being slightly wrong in the right direction."
Lynn considered this for a long moment. Looked at the waterfall. Looked at her wet sleeve.
"Loud," she said finally.
Tiger glanced at her sideways.
Lily burst out laughing.
"That's mine," Tiger said.
"It's the right answer," Lynn said.
"It's my wrong answer."
"We can share it."
Tiger looked at the water. Something close to a smile. "Fine."
Lily was still laughing, one hand on her knee. "You gave up and stole his answer."
"Strategically converged," Lynn corrected.
"That's just giving up with paperwork."
Lynn pointed at her. "You said that about denial last night."
Lily stopped laughing. Stared at her.
"How do you know that?"
A beat. Just slightly too long.
"You seem like someone who would say that," Lynn said carefully. "It fits."
Lily held the stare for one more second. Then let it go the way she let most things go — completely, immediately, with no apparent residue.
"Fair," she said.
Tiger didn't look up from the water.
They found a flat shelf of rock behind the mist line — not quite under the waterfall, not quite out of it — where the sound was loud enough to fill every gap in conversation and the stone was warm from morning sun trapped in the rock face. They sat in a rough line, feet dangling over the pool.
Lynn between them.
Lily on her left. Tiger on her right.
"New game," Lily said. "Describe the person next to you in one word. Lynn you go first since you're between us."
Lynn looked left at Lily. "Loud."
"That's Tiger's word."
"It fits you too."
"I'll allow it." Lily nodded. "Tiger's turn."
Tiger looked at Lynn for approximately one second. "Wet."
Lynn looked down at herself. "That's a condition not a characteristic."
"It's been six hours."
"The river was—"
"You're still wet."
"I dry slowly."
"Mm."
Lynn looked at Lily for support.
Lily was grinning. "He's not wrong."
"I have other characteristics."
"Name one," Tiger said.
Lynn opened her mouth. Closed it. "I'm—" She gestured vaguely at herself. "This."
"Wet," Tiger said.
Lynn made a sound that wasn't quite a word.
Lily laughed — then pointed at Tiger. "My turn. One word for Tiger."
"Simple," Tiger said immediately.
Lily looked at him. "I was going to say complicated."
"You'd be wrong."
"Would I." Lily leaned forward, past Lynn, looking at him with the focused attention she usually reserved for things that confused her in interesting ways. "Tiger. You have been lying on this planet for four months doing nothing. You tried to bait an Ender into erasing you. You fell asleep in a star because you were tired but you don't have a word for what kind of tired. You eat fruit that tastes like an emotion and you think that's normal." She sat back. "That's not simple."
"It is from the inside," Tiger said.
Lynn nodded slowly. "He does seem simple."
Lily pointed at her. "You've known him for one morning."
"He seems straightforward."
"He seems straightforward because he's very good at seeming straightforward." Lily looked at Tiger. "Explain yourself."
Tiger looked at the waterfall for a moment. Then, with the careful measured tone of someone laying out something they have thought about extensively:
"I want very little. I don't chase things. I don't build things. I don't try to make the universe mean something it doesn't mean. When something happens I let it happen. When something ends I let it end. I eat fruit. I sit by rivers. I watch pollen move. There is no hidden architecture. There is no deeper layer. What you see is a person who decided at some point that wanting less was easier than wanting more and has not revisited that decision since because revisiting decisions is itself a form of wanting." He paused. "That's simple. That's the simplest thing I can imagine."
The waterfall filled the silence.
Lily looked at him for a long moment.
"You just used forty-seven words to explain why you're simple," she said.
"Explanation isn't complexity."
"It is when the explanation is that careful."
"I was being thorough."
"Simple people aren't thorough about their simplicity, Tiger. They just say I don't know and move on."
Tiger looked at the water. "I don't know," he said. "Moving on."
"Too late."
Lynn had been looking between them with the expression of someone watching a match they didn't know they'd bought tickets to. She raised her hand slightly. "I thought the explanation was convincing."
Lily turned to her. "That's because you're not listening to what he didn't say."
"What didn't he say?"
"Everything that made him decide." Lily turned back to the waterfall. "Simple people don't decide to be simple. They just are. Tiger decided. That's the whole thing."
Tiger said nothing.
The waterfall said everything else.
Lynn looked at Tiger sideways. He was watching the water with the particular expression she recognised from very far away — the one that looked like nothing because it was working very hard at looking like nothing.
She looked away before he could feel her looking.
"Loud," she said, to no one in particular.
"Still my word," Tiger said.
"Still sharing it," Lynn said.
Lily smiled at the waterfall.
The mist caught the light. The rocks were nice. The three of them sat in the warm stone and the white noise and the particular comfort of a silence nobody needed to fill.