The savanna at night was a different planet.
Not metaphorically — literally different. The same grass that looked golden and ordinary under daylight turned silver-blue under the auroras, moving in slow waves that made the whole plain look like breathing. The bioluminescent grazers were scattered across the distance, their hides pulsing in slow rhythms — amber, then violet, then a green that had no name — like a constellation that had decided to lie down.
The air was cooler away from the treeline. Not cold. Just honest.
Tiger was on his back in the grass, arms behind his head, looking up. Lily was sitting cross-legged beside him, systematically picking apart a blade of grass. Lynn was on her stomach, chin on her hands, watching the grazers move.
"Truth or dare," Lily said, to the sky.
"No," Tiger said.
"That's not one of the options."
"I'm adding it."
"You can't add options to truth or dare. It's a binary game."
"Most binary games have a third option if you think about it long enough."
"Name one."
"This one. Right now."
Lily looked at him. He looked at the sky. She looked at Lynn.
"Tiger," Lynn said pleasantly. "Truth or dare."
"Truth," Tiger said.
"You're not supposed to give in that easily," Lily said.
"I picked truth. Truth is the cautious option."
"Only if you actually tell it."
Tiger said nothing.
"Okay." Lily leaned forward. "How many times have you died this cycle?"
Tiger did the arithmetic of someone who doesn't care about the answer. "Thousands. Maybe more. I stopped keeping track around the third century."
"Do you remember other cycles?"
Tiger was quiet for a moment. Actually thinking rather than deflecting.
"We can't remember anything beyond this cycle. The Disappearance erases the slate." He looked at the auroras overhead. "But there are shapes. Not memories. Just — the shape of something that happened, without the content of it. Like knowing a room existed without being able to describe anything in it." He paused. "My past version was naive. That's the clearest shape I have. I don't know what happened but I know whoever I was before didn't know enough yet."
Lily looked at him for a long moment.
"That's the most honest thing you've said in weeks," she said.
"It's not about me. It's about cycles."
"Everything's about you Tiger."
"Philosophically—"
"What was your lover's name," Lily said.
Tiger didn't miss a beat. "Aris."
"Aris," Lily repeated. Testing the weight of it.
"Yes."
"Do you remember them?"
"No." Already moving on. "Truth or dare. Lily."
Lily looked at him. The answer had come too fast. Not the speed of forgetting — the speed of someone who had already decided what to say.
She filed it.
"Dare," she said.
Tiger thought for approximately two seconds. "Take your clothes off."
The savanna held very still.
Lily stared at him.
"It's cold," she said.
"It's not that cold."
"It's cold at night. I'm not doing that."
"You picked dare."
"I picked dare expecting something reasonable."
"That is reasonable. You can't die. Temperature isn't lethal."
"That's not the point—"
"What's the point?"
Lily opened her mouth. Closed it. Looked at Lynn, who had propped herself up on one elbow and was watching with the focused attention of someone who had paid for a front-row seat.
Somewhere behind Lynn, something moved in the grass. Low to the ground. Heavy. The particular silence of something large that had learned not to announce itself. Dark muscle and flat eyes and patience — it had been circling the warmth of three bodies for the better part of an hour and now it was committed, charging fast and low through the silver grass.
Lynn burst out laughing at something Lily muttered — loud, real, the kind that makes your eyes water.
"Fine," Lily said, pulling her shirt over her head with the energy of someone filing a formal complaint. "Fine. This is a violation. I want it noted."
"Noted," Tiger said.
"You could at least look uncomfortable."
"You said you wanted it noted. I noted it."
Lynn was still laughing. The grass behind her was still. The plain stretched empty and silver in every direction. Nothing moved at all.
Lily stood, finished the process with the expression of someone performing an act of profound civic sacrifice, and spread her arms at the aurora-lit savanna. "Happy?"
"I didn't say happy."
"I'm going to catch something."
"You'll regenerate."
"That's not—" Lily sat back down heavily, crossing her arms. "You're the worst. This is the worst dare in the history of a game that has existed across multiple civilizations."
"You could have picked truth."
"I could have—" She stopped. Turned. "Truth or dare. Lynn."
Lynn had recovered, wiping the corner of her eye. She was quiet for a moment — a different kind of quiet than her usual ones. Something being weighed.
"Truth," she said.
Lily blinked.
Tiger's eyes moved to Lynn. Just slightly.
"Okay," Lily said, recalibrating. "Have you ever died? Properly. Regenerated from nothing."
Lynn tilted her head. "I've been hurt. Badly, a few times. Recovered." She paused. "I've never really — stopped. Fully. Some people go their whole lives without it. If you're careful. Or lucky." She smiled. "Or both."
"Fair." Lily nodded, accepting this the way she accepted most things — completely, immediately, without residue. Some immortals just hid. Some never met the wrong end of anything catastrophic. "Okay. How much have you lost?"
Lynn went still.
Not the polished stillness she usually managed. Something underneath it, coming up through the floor of her.
"Everything," she said. Quiet and level and absolute. "And I remember it all."
The aurora shifted overhead.
Lynn blinked.
"I mean — I've lost a lot. I—" She laughed — too bright, half a beat late, the performed one sliding back into place over something that had briefly not been performance at all. "A lot. Yes. Who hasn't, right? Long lives, lots of — yes."
Lily looked at her.
Lynn looked at the grazers.
Tiger looked at the grass where something was no longer moving.
"Truth or dare," Lily said to Lynn, softly.
Lynn looked back. The wide smile. The warm eyes arriving just slightly after they should.
"Dare," she said.