"Sissy... you're here..."
He stood there awkwardly, his arms hanging limp at his sides. He didn't know if he should hug her or just keep standing in the snow like a fool.
"Lemon... nny," she stammered.
Her voice was thin and cracked. She looked like she had seen a ghost, which, considering everything, she probably had.
"Why are you even here? And why do you look like you're depressed?" He asked. He tried to force a smile onto his face, but it felt stiff and fake.
He looked at her red, puffy eyes. She had been crying for a long time. It wasn't just a quick sob; it was the kind of crying that left a person hollow.
Is she like me? Does she feel like the world is just waiting for her to give up? I came here looking for a god to save me, but I found someone who looks just as broken as I am. Maybe she realized the same thing I did. That we are just trash to the Great Beastiary. That no matter how hard we run, the despair always catches up.
Sissy sniffled and wiped her nose with the back of her hand.
"I wasn't crying. My eyes just... the wind is strong today. It's the ice."
Then, without any warning, she reached out and punched him in the shoulder. It wasn't a soft tap. It actually hurt.
"Ow! Why are you even hitting me?"
She didn't say anything. She just hit him again, harder this time.
"Ouch! Seriously, why are you doing it again? I just got back!"
She hit him a third time, but then her hand stayed there. She grabbed the fabric of his shirt, bunching it up in her fist. She leaned her forehead against his chest and started shaking. When she looked up, her eyes were swimming with tears again. She looked like she was about to die from the inside out.
Oh. So she really is the same as me. She's at the end of her rope.
"What happened to you actually? Can you tell me, Sissy? I'll try to assist you with whatever your problem is. Just tell me."
Sissy let out a wet laugh. She let go of his shirt to wipe her face again.
"Who do you think you are? A savior or like a hero? You look like you crawled out of a trash heap, Lemony."
"I could probably be your hero," he said.
He felt a bit embarrassed saying it, but he meant it.
"Probably. But I would rather not."
They both laughed a bit, a small, hollow sound that was quickly swallowed by the mountain wind. It was a weird moment of peace in the middle of a graveyard.
I have to comfort her. I feel like my own soul is rotting, but I'll just have to hold my emotions back for a while. If I can make her feel even a little bit better, maybe I won't feel so useless. I can't let her see how hopeless I really am.
"Everyone is dead. The base... is also gone. Also, I have ten kids hiding under a bone and I don't know how to feed them. I'm alone."
"You aren't alone anymore. I'm here. Even if I'm useless, I'm here."
"You are pretty useless," she said, but she didn't hit him this time.
Lemony sat down in the cold snow beside her. The wind was still biting, but he didn't care. He looked at her small, trembling frame and felt a weight in his chest that had nothing to do with his broken ribs.
"Do you want someone to comfort you?" he asked.
Sissy didn't even try to play it cool this time.
She just nodded, her head hanging low, and let the tears fall into the white powder beneath them. They both turned their eyes upward. Even though this mountain felt like a waiting room for hell, the clouds had parted just enough to show a few stars. They were bright and indifferent, shining over the carnage below.
"Tell me."
Sissy wiped her eyes, but more tears just took their place.
"Do you have a father figure? Someone who... someone who actually cared?"
"No. I was sold by my parents when I was just a kid."
Sissy flinched. She looked at him with a sudden, sharp guilt.
"Oh. I didn't... I'm sorry."
"It's fine."
"My father figure died with the base," Sissy whispered. Her voice was so quiet he could barely hear it over the wind.
"For years, he was the one commanding the Leftovers, he guided everyone, and he was the heart of the base, Lemony. But before he died... he told me it was my turn. He transferred that burden to me."
She looked back toward the dark crevice where the children were hiding.
"He left me those ten kids. I don't even know what to do with them. The base is gone. The food stores are probably ash by now. There's no shelter. Not only that, but everyone else... they're just dead. There is no one left but me and those children."
Lemony listened to every word.
He felt the gravity of her words, the absolute crushing weight of responsibility that had been dumped on a girl who was barely holding herself together. He knew he had to say something. He had to be the person she needed right now, even if he felt like he was made of glass.
"When I was a kid," Lemony began, staring at a distant star, "my parents sold me to a merchant. Do you know what they got for me? A box of lemons. That's why my name is Lemony. I was named after the trauma that ruined my life. I had to live with that for years. Every person who met me, who knew my story, called me that just to remind me. They bullied me because they knew I was worth less than a crate of fruit."
He looked at his hands, the scarred knuckles and the broken fingers.
"But that was just the start. I was a slave. I worked until my bones ached for years. I've been a slave since the beginning. I still live with those scars. What you're feeling right now, the loss and the fear... those are just new scars. Fresh scars."
He turned to her and forced his face into a bright, confident smile. He even struck a pose, trying to look like those heroes in the old stories.
"But even so, with everything that happened to me, I still have hope for the future!"
That is the biggest lie I have ever told.
My soul is screaming to just lay down in the snow and never wake up. But I have to hold it in. I have to be strong for her, or she'll drown.
"But our experiences are different, right?"
"I... I guess," he stammered.
"But we understand each other because of these scars. I'm asking you to try and understand me too. Have hope. Think that tomorrow will be the best day of your life, even if today was the worst."
"Have hope?" Sissy looked at him, her eyes glassy and searching.
"To become the heart... I have to be hopeful, right?"
"You do," Lemony said, nodding.
Sissy looked at his smiling face, and for the first time, the crying stopped. She just stared at him, trying to find the strength he was pretending to have.
He is right. I have to be hopeful. How can I take care of the future if I can't even imagine one? Hope is all we have left in this hole.
Sissy took a deep, shuddering breath and looked Lemony in the eye.
"I am going to be hopeful," she said.
Lemony didn't let her off that easy. He kept that fake, heroic smile plastered on his face.
"Repeat it again. Stronger this time."
"I am going to be hopeful!" Sissy shouted.
The sound echoed off the bone pillars and faded into the wind. She wiped the last of the moisture from her cheeks and stood up a bit straighter.
"Thank you, Lemony. I mean it. I'll do everything to fix this. I have to free these ten kids. If I can't even do that much, then I'm not the heart of anything."
Lemony nodded, his smile lingering. He had done it. He had fixed her. He had taken the shattered pieces of her spirit and glued them back together with a lie. But as the silence returned, his own thoughts started to claw at him again.
I saved her, but who is going to save me? I'm going back to that void. I'm going to be tortured for eternity. I can almost feel the heat of the torture already. It's going to hurt forever.
They both sat there in the snow, staring up at the distant, cold stars. The silence stretched out between them until Sissy spoke up, her voice sounding different. More observant.
"Hey, Lemony."
"What?"
"I can feel the sadness inside you," she said softly.
"It's like a heavy fog coming off your skin. I think you might be even more lonely than I am right now. If you want, I can comfort you. It's okay."
Lemony let out a forced, sharp laugh.
"No, no, no. You've got it all wrong. I'm actually really joyful right now. I just helped a friend, didn't I? I'm not sad even a bit."
He tried to keep the pose up, but even the way he sat looked broken. The Pale-Mantle Manul was curled slightly inward, his shoulders trembling just a fraction. He looked like the loneliest creature in the entire abyss.
"No, you're lying to me," Sissy said. She didn't sound angry, just certain.
"I'm not lying. I'm fine."
"I'm not asking you to tell me if you're sad," Sissy said, moving a little closer to him.
"It's for you to realize it yourself. But I want you to let it out. If you have a weight inside you that you want to disappear, just let it go. You don't have to carry it while you're sitting here with me."
Lemony grit his teeth, his eyes fixated on a patch of grey ice.
"I am not going to cry, Sissy. I'm a man. I'm a survivor."
"You deserve it," she whispered.
"You deserve to cry and let go of all that poison you've been drinking. You deserve to feel something other than pain for once."
Deserve to cry? No. I have to hold everything in. If I break now, I'll never be able to put myself back together. I can't cry like this. I can't. I can't!
But the wall he had built was already cracking. A single, hot tear escaped his eye and carved a path through the dirt and dried blood on his cheek. Then another followed.
"See? You're crying."
"No. It's just... it's the wind. The wind is hitting my eyes."
But he couldn't stop it anymore. The tears started falling faster, dripping onto the snow like heavy rain. His breath became hard, catching in his throat as the sobbing took over. He stopped trying to look like a hero. He stopped trying to look strong. He just collapsed into himself, looking like an innocent, terrified child who had finally realized he was lost.
He sat there in the frozen dark, a small, beaten manul, finally letting the weight of an eternity of torture and a lifetime of slavery pour out of his eyes.
I don't deserve to cry!
Lemony's mind screamed the words, but his eyes wouldn't listen.
I deserve to feel this weight until I die. I don't want to be a hero, and I don't want to be a savior. I'm just a mistake that was sold for a box of fruit!
"Sissy... I don't deserve any of this," he choked out.
He began aggressively wiping his eyes with his sleeve, the fabric scratching against his raw skin. He felt pathetic. Every sob felt like a betrayal of the strength he was supposed to have.
"Who are you to say you don't deserve an emotion? You're just the same as me, remember? You told me we were the same. We resonated with each other. If I deserve to hope, you deserve to hurt."
Do I actually deserve to let it go?
He stared at the frozen ground. He had spent his entire life convincing himself that his only value was in his utility. If he wasn't working, he was worthless.
If he wasn't suffering, he wasn't paying his debt to a world that didn't want him. He had told himself that the pain was his only constant, the only thing that proved he was real.
He felt that if he stopped carrying the grief, there would be nothing left of him but an empty shell. To cry was to admit he was human, and being human was a luxury he couldn't afford.
Then he remembered the void.
He remembered the cold mechanical eyes of the being that wanted to strip him of his soul. He had fought so hard there. He had begged for one more chance. He had told that entity he wanted to live.
Is this what she means? That living isn't just breathing, but actually feeling the rot instead of hiding it?
I want to die more.
I want to die.
I want to die!
The words were a lie even as he spoke them.
"I want to live," he finally said. It was barely a breath, but it was the truest thing he had said all day.
Sissy smiled, her own eyes shimmering.
"See? You do deserve it."
She reached out and pulled the crying cat into a hug. It was an awkward, tight embrace, but Lemony didn't pull away. He buried his face in her shoulder and let the rest of the tears come.
They were two sides of the same coin.
Sissy had been forced to become the heart of a dying sanctuary, and Lemony had been forced to become a survivor in a world that wanted him dead.
They both carried the weight of people who weren't there anymore. They both looked at the stars and saw a beauty they weren't sure they were allowed to touch.
In that moment, they weren't a scout and a slave. They were just two creatures holding onto each other so they wouldn't fall into the abyss.
I want to defeat Malphas, Lemony thought, his mind clearing as the sobbing slowed. But I don't want to do it for a deed. I don't want to do it for the Beastiary. I want to do it so she can see the outside world.
"Sissy... Please, just please, let's escape this place together. I want to do it with you."
Sissy wiped a stray tear from his cheek and nodded.
"We will. We should. Now, stand up. You have to do what you came here to do. You'll find a way to help these kids, and I'll be right behind you."
Lemony stood up. His legs were still shaky, but the hollow feeling in his chest had been replaced by a cold, sharp focus. He turned back toward the path that led to the dark heart of the mountain, where the ancient beast waited. He wiped the last of the moisture from his face with a bloody knuckle.
"I want to defeat Malphas. And I want to live..."