Dawn on Regret Island arrived the way it always did — without ceremony. The auroras faded first, then the grazer lights dimmed to ordinary, then the lavender sky lightened from the east in slow degrees until the savanna was just the savanna again, gold and unhurried and pretending nothing had happened.
The three of them were still in the grass.
Lily had put her clothes back on at some point during the night without announcing it, which Tiger found privately correct. Lynn had fallen asleep briefly and then woken up pretending she hadn't. Tiger hadn't slept at all, which was usual.
"You still owe a dare," Lily said, to the brightening sky.
Lynn sat up. "I was hoping you forgot."
"I never forget dares. It's a moral position."
"It's a character flaw."
"Those are often the same thing." Lily stood, stretched, and looked at the treeline. "Come on. I know where we're going."
The cave behind the waterfall wasn't large. Just wide enough for three people to sit without their shoulders touching, deep enough that the back wall stayed dry, with a ceiling low enough to make standing feel presumptuous. The waterfall came down in front of the entrance like a curtain — translucent, constant, turning the light inside soft and moving and slightly unreal.
The sound was everything. Not loud exactly — just total. It filled every corner of the space so completely that silence became impossible and conversation became necessary by contrast.
They sat in a rough triangle facing each other.
Lynn looked at the waterfall curtain. "This is intimate."
"That's the point," Lily said pleasantly. "Dare. You accepted it. Tell me what you know about us. Tiger and me. Everything."
Lynn smiled. "That's a broad dare."
"I'm a broad person."
"I've only known you four days."
"Then four days worth. Go."
Lynn looked at her hands. Looked at Tiger. Looked at the waterfall.
"I could just describe what I've observed," she said carefully.
"That's what knowing someone is," Tiger said. He was sitting with his back against the cave wall, one knee up, watching her with the particular quality of someone who had been waiting for this conversation without knowing they were waiting for it.
Lynn was quiet for a moment.
Then she started with Lily.
"You name things. Anything that stays still long enough gets a name and a rule attached to it." She tilted her head. "You're loud because quiet feels like surrender to you. You find things beautiful specifically because the universe didn't intend for you to.. you treat beauty like a competition you're winning. You're the most genuinely alive person in any room you're in." She paused. "And you're kinder than you let people see because you think kindness makes you legible and you'd rather be interesting than legible."
The waterfall filled the silence.
Lily looked at her for a long moment.
"Accurate," she said. "But you don't know what my interior life is. So slightly wrong. You're working from the outside." She tilted her head. "Limited knowledge. Which is fine. Means we don't have to worry about you." She waved a hand. "Carry on. Tiger."
Lynn looked at Tiger.
Tiger looked back at her with the expression of someone who had decided to be very still.
"Tiger is... " Lynn stopped. Started again. "Tiger is gentle. Genuinely. Underneath all the — this." She gestured at him generally. "He's the kind of person who noticed which way the grazers moved before anyone asked him to. Who remembers what fruit you ate and offers more without commenting on it." She paused, and something shifted slightly in her voice — a frequency change, barely perceptible. "He wanted, once.. very deeply. to build something. A world where people didn't have to be hurt by things larger than themselves. Where the things with power used it carefully." She said it simply, the way you say something you watched happen from very far away. "That was important to him. The most important thing."
Tiger was very still.
"I never had that goal," he said.
Lynn looked at him.
"I don't know where you got that. I'm not... that's not something I've ever wanted." His voice was flat but not dismissive. Genuinely confused. Something in the description had landed adjacent to a shape he couldn't name and it sat wrong in a way he couldn't place. "You're describing someone else."
Lynn opened her mouth.
"Tiger is also," she said, pivoting with the smooth desperation of someone changing lanes at speed, "very handsome. Objectively. He was very popular. With girls. Historically." She nodded with the confidence of someone hoping confidence would carry it. "Very sought after. Many admirers. Across several — locations."
The waterfall kept going.
Lily turned to look at Tiger.
Tiger looked at Lynn for one long moment. Then at Lily. Then at the waterfall curtain. Then he stood, ducked under the low ceiling, and walked through the waterfall without breaking stride, disappearing into the white noise and the morning beyond.
Lily watched him go.
Then she turned back to Lynn with the full attention of someone who had just witnessed something delightful.
"Him," she said. "Handsome. Where."
Lynn pointed vaguely at the waterfall. "I stand by it."
"You absolutely made that up."
"I... partially made that up."
"Which part was real?"
"The gentle part," Lynn said, quietly.
Lily looked at her. Something in Lynn's expression had gone briefly unguarded — not the performed warmth, not the wide smile arriving half a second late. Just something direct and unfiltered sitting on her face for a moment before she noticed it and didn't quite manage to put the mask back on completely.
Lily reached over and patted Lynn's shoulder. Then her arm. Then checked her jacket pocket for reasons that were unclear.
"You know what," Lily said, patting Lynn's other shoulder, "you don't know enough about us to be dangerous. Limited knowledge. No spy could work with what you've got." She patted Lynn's head lightly, conclusively. "We're safe. Beautiful planet, good company, zero espionage risk. I'm satisfied."
Lynn sat very still under this assessment.
"Thank you," she said carefully.
"Don't mention it."
Lynn looked at the waterfall.
Behind Lily, Tiger ducked back through the curtain, water running off his jacket, and sat back down against the cave wall in the same position he'd left. He'd heard the last part — caught the tail end of Lily's voice through the water.
He looked at Lynn over Lily's shoulder.
Lynn looked back at him.
He said nothing.
Sat down.
The waterfall kept its total surrounding sound. The cave stayed small and close and lit in that soft moving light.