Over the next few hours Theora made a little heap of flowers right next to her attire, and the entire time, Treeka was watching, intently, with her cold half-frowning, half-curious gaze.

“I’m obscuring most of the light,” she eventually pointed out. “They won’t dry in the shadow of my canopy. I don’t have water around to keep them fresh for you, either.”

Theora looked up, poppy in hand. “It’s alright. I will store them in my attire later, to preserve them in time, so they won’t wilt as quickly.”

She gave a small smile, and then froze.

To preserve them in time.

Her gaze went to her interdimensional attire as it still lay there on the ground where Dema had entered it.

How long had she been in there by now? The time-dilation device was still stored away inside. But also — the dilation device was in her clothing, and the Shade was also in her clothing — that said, the dilation device was no longer inside the Shade, the way it used to be. So… if Dema was inside the Shade right now… How fast was time passing for her?

Dema couldn’t possibly have gotten stuck there, right?

“What’s got you worried?” Treeka asked.

“It’s just— I remembered something. My clothing is… Dema might be…”

Just as Theora got up to check and make sure, Dema got puked out of the coat, and tumbled over the grass. She was panting heavily, and sweating.

“Damn!” she said. “That was fun.”

“I was starting to get worried.”

“Oh?” Dema went. “Was I gone too long? I made sure to leave quickly.”

“No, that’s—”

Theora halted.

Leave quickly?

She let out a sigh. That’s right — it was that way around. Theora kept mixing it up. The active setting of the device made it so time went slower inside the cloak compared to outside. That was the entire point of storing things in there. In other words, very little time had passed for Dema, even though it was hours for Theora and Treeka.

“I’m glad you are alright,” Theora said and went to her attire and put the flowers and drawings in.

‘Alright’ being a carefully chosen word there. After coming back out, Dema had lost a lot of mana of what little she’d regenerated since donating all of it to the Observatory to make up for Theora blowing up parts of it.

“You look a bit exhausted,” Theora went on.

“Yeah,” Dema said, sighing. She plopped down on the meadow right next to Treeka. “Gotta take a break.”

They ended up spending almost two weeks with Treeka. The vast amount of different kinds of flowers turned out to be a larger treasure trove than Theora could have imagined; it was like a dictionary. The magic inside the flowers made their meaning richer, and made it so no two flowers were entirely the same. Nuances — synonyms, subtext, words between the petals — were overflowing from each one, and Treeka made a point of growing more flowers to make Theora happy. For example, she created a type of hyacinth with an illusionary quality that changed depending on the angle one looked at it, and that meant Theora could extract meaning from it like a kaleidoscope by arranging it on a bouquet in different angles.

Dema, on the other hand, slept a lot to regenerate her mana, and then went back into the interdimensional attire. The remaining time, she theorised mana flow with Treeka, or she whispered to the dryad behind cupped hands.

However, the day came when Theora had fully catalogued the flowers, and when Dema had little new to talk about to Treeka, and when even Treeka was, though stubbornly denying it, apparently starting to feel tired from extended social exposition.

On their final evening, Dema came out of interdimensional attire, exhausted as usual, because she was spending too much mana. She could barely get up, and panted heavily.

Of course, Dema was doing that on purpose, at least to some extent, because straining herself in that way allowed her to level-up Skills that she otherwise wouldn’t get to invest in, but it was still not a very comfortable sight.

She dragged herself along the ground, and into Theora’s lap.

“There we go,” Dema said, “Best place.”

Treeka, still sitting in the same spot she had sat in for the entire time, frowned. “You said this was the final day,” she said. “I asked you to stay for two years. That’s nowhere near over. But, Bun Bun mentioned you were in a hurry, right?”

Dema scrunched up her face. “Yeah…” She scratched her head. “Kinda. We gotta meet back up with our girls, and also there’s another person li’l rabbit has to rescue, and we only have, like, two-hundred years left for that. Gotta hurry. There’s many pieces left, y’know?”

“We don’t really know if it’s a person,” Theora supplied, but nodded. “Still, we were on our way to Hallmark, to send a letter to our companions. To meet back up, and then collect the remains of Time. However, on our way to Hallmark, I was still considering some detours, so I can’t claim we are in that much of a hurry.”

“What detours?” Treeka asked. “Are you still planning on making those?”

“Maybe.” Theora hummed, thoughtfully. “We might go fetch some lava. And I would like to revisit Sounddoom Valley.” Months had passed since Isobel and Theora had tried to help revitalise the place; Theora was curious if it had recovered at least a little.

“Oh, yeah,” Dema added. “If we go past the volcano again, I wanna take another mud bath.” Dema’s eyes glittered with shy mischief. “Gonna go in with me this time, Bun Bun?”

Theora blinked. Go in with Dema? As in, together?

“Come on!” Dema giggled. “No need to be shy, the other two ain’t here!”

“I’m not shy,” Theora claimed, eyes darting to Treeka in embarrassment.

“Pretty sure you are!”

“I don’t think that’s true.” To prove it, Theora added in a low mumble, “We can take a mud bath, if you want to.”

Dema laughed.

“So what you are saying,” Treeka went, “Is that the sooner I’ll let you go, the sooner you’ll meet up with your companions, who could help me.”

Theora was very unhappy with that framing, and tilted her head into a pout. Ultimately, it was impossible to claim that this wasn’t the truth — yes, they still planned on going to see the lava, and yes, they wanted to take a look at Sounddoom Valley, but ultimately, the sooner they left here, the sooner they’d be back. So, she relented into a nod.

That nod made Treeka very unhappy. To her, this must have been feeling like they were trying to run off. Trying to leave behind the slightly demanding and assertive person who’d tried to entrap them.

And Theora wasn’t sure what she could do about that. It was true that they were going to come back with Bell and Iso, to help out, but…

Dema sighed. “Can’t walk anyway,” she said, still panting. Her remaining mana was a pitiful drop. She really needed to rest. “If we’re gonna go, Bun Bun’s gotta carry me.”

“This again.” Theora huffed. “I want to believe that you could walk on your own.”

“Why, if you knew what I was doing in there, you’d gladly pick me up!”

Treeka nodded. “I think the demon is right about that.”

This was so mean. They were conspiring so much. “But it’s a secret,” Theora complained.

“Yeah,” Dema said. “Big time. Not gonna tell a word!”

“So I’m supposed to just believe you.”

Dema nodded, looking up at Theora with expectantly glowing amber eyes. Then, Treeka said, “Yes. She’s not going to leave me on her own. You’ll have to carry her away from me.”

“I will carry her,” Theora said. “Don’t think I won’t.”

“Why, yes, do that, then,” Treeka said. “Take her away.” Her words weren’t hostile, but her frown was still there.

They did have to leave. They did have to leave, and they’d return with the others to help.

“Fine.” Theora fetched her attire and put it back on, then knelt down to pick up Dema, who immediately snuggled close and wrapped a few strands of blood around them, tying them both together.

“There,” Dema said. “That way carrying me won’t be as exhausting.”

With a sincere look at Treeka, Theora added, “We will be back.” She thought as best she could if there was something else she could possibly add, something to give her words meaning, but she couldn’t. So, she closed with, “See you soon.”

Treeka shrugged. “I know we won’t.”

These words hurt. Theora thought about making a bouquet of flowers explaining how much she meant it. She wanted to brew tea to make Treeka understand. But Treeka already understood — Treeka probably knew Theora meant every word, it just didn’t matter to her, because she thought that once Theora and Dema were far away; once they had other worries and new things to be excited about, they’d forget about Treeka like everyone else had. This was not a matter of belief, not even a matter of trust.

The only thing that mattered was to eventually return and prove Treeka wrong by helping her out. These promises would remain empty until filled.

And so, Theora wiped a tear out of her eyes, turned around, and stepped down the meadow. Dema was still half-delirious; she’d exerted herself far too much, just the way she always did. Theora would really need to reiterate to Dema how bad of a habit that was, and make sure to reassert the 60 percent rule she’d not dared to remind Dema of while she’d been fixing Theora’s mistakes.

By the time they were back in the forest, Dema had fallen asleep. It was fine — back in Hallmark, Theora had been exhausted and empty and busy at all times; she hadn’t had the capacity to fully protect Dema, but now, she was strong enough. She’d reassembled herself mostly after blowing up the sky in To Hell With the Author, she’d slept a lot during winter, and the System could throw at Dema whatever it wanted and it would bounce off like those heroes who’d tried to seal Theora so long ago.

Theora hopped down a little rock, and Dema moaned a bit in surprise, opening her eyes, still tired.

“Whoops,” she said. “Drifted off.”

Theora looked away. “Carrying you would never exhaust me.”

Dema’s eyebrows shot up.

“Because you are a very light person,” Theora added quickly. “I probably weigh twice as much as you.”

“Sure,” Dema said mirthfully. “Let that be the reason.”

“It definitely is the reason.”

“Mhm! Must be.”

“Yes,” Theora said, and hugged Dema a little closer. Hopefully one day she’d be able to protect and hug Treeka too.

For a while, they slowly made their way through the forest. It was quiet except for the muffled steps Theora made, and the shuffling of Dema’s clothes against hers.

“I have a question.” Theora took a breath. She’d been meaning to ask for a while, but wasn’t sure whether she should, around Treeka. “Dema. What made you feel nostalgic?”

Dema looked up in mild surprise, and tilted her head against Theora’s chest. “Hm?” she asked, sleep-drunk.

“When you picked up her presence, you said that it made you nostalgic. Why?”

“Ah,” Dema let out. “Why, ’cause it felt lonely?”

“It felt lonely?”

Dema nodded. “Lonely presence.”

That didn’t really make a lot of sense. How could a presence feel lonely? At least, that was Theora’s first thought, but the more she dissected the idea, the less implausible it felt. Theora was able to sense aggressive intent in other people. She could feel when they were about to activate combat Skills; that was how she’d beaten the Devil of Truth, after all. So apparently, Dema could feel loneliness?

“But why did it make you feel nostalgic? Do you mean — do you mean it reminded you of being in the Cube of Solitude?”

“Same as you,” Dema murmured. “Same as you. Back when we met, you felt kinda lonely. Dunno. Was my first scheme, you know? I thought if I wanted to come along, you might say yes. Cause you felt lonely. Big success.”

“I see,” Theora said.

“Isobel too.” Dema shrugged. “Kinda… Was a really really small presence, in the rock. Should have been impossible to feel, but suddenly, there it was, just barely enough.”

“A lonely presence in the rock,” Theora echoed. That made sense. Isobel had lost everyone she knew, buried beneath, all dead and alone, for millions of years.

“Bell too,” Dema added. “Knew she was gonna die when she attacked me. Very lonely.”

Dema had befriended Skuld, who was likely the last survivor of her kind. Dema had gone and made sure they would pick up Fiantanne, so Fiantanne wouldn’t be left without companions after they’d altered Lostina’s plotline.

“So that’s why,” Theora said quietly, and her heart hurt.

Dema nodded, her horn grazing against the folds in the clothing.

“We’ll come back for her,” Theora said. “We’ll come back and make sure she never has to feel lonely again.”