LIOR

The days after they put Father in the ground were...hard.

Lior knew Tirza Mari. He knew the Commander, sort of. The rest were strangers, and there were many of them. He remembered the Commander taking him to see them, and being struck by their sheer numbers. Dozens...maybe tens of dozens, too many to count. They covered the plain that they camped on, them and their cloth dwellings, their companion Pokémon, their equipment, their daggers and their spears and their hard shirts and their strange tail coverings. Even more incredible: the Commander called them an army. An army. Just like from one of Father's stories of Sea Knights and the old kingdoms. Lior had never imagined that such a thing was possible now. Father had always told him that the merfolk didn't like to gather in groups.

The Commander oversaw the army. He told Lior that his name was Titus. "But you must refer to me as Commander," he told Lior. "It confers respect. That is the way things are done here."

He asked Lior to join them, and in that moment, the emptiness subsided and a traitorous flash of excitement struck through him. He almost likened it to being asked to join the Sea Knights, to become a member of the Man-of-War's legendary ranks.

But the exhilaration was quick to fade. He realized why later, after he'd accepted and Commander Titus assigned Lady Tirza as his caretaker: choice, of which he had none. This wasn't a tale of whimsy, where the young merboy joined the army in pursuit of glory and gold. Here, now, with his parents gone and his home and way of life destroyed, this was quite literally life or death: death on an empty, barren plain in the middle of nowhere if he refused, and a strange kind of life, amongst strangers and strange customs, if he accepted.

Time passed, he didn't know how much. For the longest, he felt like...well, like he was underwater, but in a different way, almost like he was human. Drifting in a liquid fog, he came into focus only every now and then when he surfaced. He remembered getting his broken arm bandaged, tightly bound into a stiff sling that made it ache, but not too badly.

He remembered being made to change into different clothes: a rough tunic with a longer skirt, a strange leather harness, a tighter tail sheath with an assortment of pockets.

He remembered Tirza Mari sleeping with him in his tent, braiding his hair into a long white snake in the morning and then prying it loose with gentle fingers at night. He remembered moving, constantly moving, helping Lady Tirza put up the tent at night, tearing it down in the morning, and moving dozens and dozens and dozens of miles in the time in between, the whole army, in one long, undulating column. Where they were going, he didn't know — he couldn't focus enough to care.

Every now and then, he saw Commander Titus — some days it was in the morning as the army took down their tents. Sometimes it was at night, as Lady Tirza was combing out his hair. He would ask how Lior was feeling, and Lior would say fine, even though he didn't feel fine, he felt like he was dead — or half-alive. And sometimes it felt like Commander Titus knew that, could see it in his face, but he never said anything, just gave a curt nod and left.

Often, he had nightmares: of Lael, of his parents, of that black hell where he drowned in oil... They shocked him awake in the middle of the night, leaving him too afraid to drift back off, even when Nightlight tunneled into his side or Lady Tirza awakened and sat beside him, singing a sweet lullaby to carry him off. His Pokémon's presence was good, and Lady Tirza's voice was kind, but... It wasn't right. It just wasn't right. He knew whose voice he needed. He knew whose strength he needed. But they were both dead, and the shadows under his eyes grew darker and darker with each passing day.

This, too, Commander Titus noticed — one evening, some long stretch of time later, he appeared in their tent again, and this time he stayed. Lior and Lady Tirza had been winding down for sleep — she'd done his hair, and now she was doing her own, releasing from her cowl a waterfall of white so long and lush that it moved like a living creature in the light current. Lior lay in the space where they slept, holding a dozing Nightlight against his chest and staring up blankly at the ceiling. He wouldn't have noticed Commander Titus if not for his bone-rattling voice:

"Up, boy. Your Commander is before you."

Even after being with the army this long, that voice still scared him — to Lior it always sounded like it balanced on a thin line between sternness and threat. Quickly, he rolled up, sending a disgruntled Nightlight out of his lap. The Pokémon started and quickly hid behind Lior when he saw the Commander kneeling at the entrance.

"What can we do for you?" Lady Tirza asked calmly.

Titus narrowed his eyes, inspecting Lior silently, head to tail. The sea was growing dark, yet the Commander was still in full armor: a blood-red breastplate, gauntlets, and a long kilt tied tight to his elaborate tailfin, heavy with chain mail. His face gave no sign of weariness, of a readiness to turn in for the day: his eyes were sharp, and his long hair was banded in disciplined plaits so tight it hurt Lior's skull to look at them.

"I've come to inquire after your health, Lior," the giant merman rumbled. "How do you fare?"

Lior looked down. "I'm all right."

"Truly? You're pale, and by those bruises under your eyes, I'd assume you've been grappling with one of the squires. And you've just finished a Drought." Lior opened his mouth, but Titus interrupted: "No fluff, boy, and no excuses. How do you fare?"

He hesitated. He didn't want to complain: Tirza Mari had taken very good care of him, and Titus had been very considerate in taking him in, rather than leaving him back there, in an ocean befouled by oil and dead bodies. But...

"I haven't been sleeping very well," he admitted. "I..." He paused, and Commander Titus waved for him to continue. Swallowing, he said, "I... It's hard to eat sometimes. And I'm tired all the time. But that's probably just because I'm not used to moving so much," he added quickly.

Lady Tirza laid a soothing hand on his shoulder. "You've been through a trying time," she assured him. "You're adjusting. The Commander understands."

"Yet that does not excuse your complacency," Commander Titus said with sudden sharpness; Lior flinched. "It is time you rise out of this empty-headed lassitude, Lior. When I offered you a place in my army, it was no jest: from day one you have been a soldier in my ranks, and eventually I expect for you to report for duty like all the rest."

"Commander," Lady Tirza said in a strained voice. "Do you hear yourself? Lior is not a soldier. He is a boy."

"Silence, woman. He may be young, but he will not be coddled, not here." The Commander stared down at Lior intently, his weirdly-colored eyes shiny in the same way the rocks in his — former — collection were shiny, and edged. "If you expected to be left alone to mourn yours losses indefinitely, boy, you are sadly mistaken. Every man under my command has a duty to perform, and it is about time you started pulling your weight."

Lior shrank back, instinctively reaching for Nightlight — behind him, his friend clutched at his tunic and released a harsh, nervous spark, which sent ugly tingles along Lior's skin. Become a soldier? There it was again, that intrigue, that excitement, but it was buried beneath an avalanche of dread and fear. Lady Tirza was right — he was just a boy, and yes, he'd fantasized about being a Sea Knight once, becoming powerful and smart and awe-inspiring like Cheber, but...now? Like this? He was just a boy, his parents were dead, and he could barely function without them, even with Lady Tirza and Nightlight stepping in to fill the breach they'd left behind.

He didn't want to become a soldier — he wanted to sleep. He wanted to keep crying. He wanted silence and stillness and arms around him, someone to lean on, to wait out the storm that filled his head, his life, until the pain finally subsided, and he could move on.

If he ever could.

But looking into Titus's face, he saw no choice there, and heard no compromise in his words. That scared him. He was going to become a soldier, and he wasn't ready.

He felt like he was trying to swallow cloth — suddenly, his throat was thick, and his heart was pounding.

Lady Tirza was angry: "Commander, I understand your need for more men to support your cause, but this is absurd. Do you truly intend to give him armor and a spear, and put him on the front lines?"

"I intend for him to begin working," Titus growled. "I intend to tear him away from your side, and put him among my men. I intend for him to get to know them, to memorize their names, become familiar with what they do. I intend for him to know our purpose. I intend for him to stop thinking about what has happened, and think about what we are doing. Where we are going. I intend for him to stop moping, and stop clinging to the past." He shot the Karpon a sharp look. "And yes, then when he grows older, becomes a man, I intend to put him in armor and give him a spear. Do you take issue with my intentions, Lady Tirza?"

She tried, stubbornly, to meet his eyes, but after a moment she looked away — Lior could sympathize. There was no arguing with this merman. "What is this work you will have him do?"

"He will work with Enos," Titus rumbled, "and serve as a courier. When he is not with Enos, he will be with Adiah and his tools. If he is not with either of them, he will spend time with Jabin and the other cooks, or with Cephas and the Pokémon."

Lady Tirza's mouth became lined with stress. "But—"

"And at the end of the weeks of my choosing, when I convene council with the Man-of-War," Titus said, still staring unflinchingly at Lior, "he will join me." Finally, he looked over at Lady Tirza. "At night, and only at night, he will join you."

She spoke with muted outrage. "How can you ask so much of him, all at once?"

Titus looked back at Lior, and in his eyes now there was something other than that hard, harsh light — it was something that looked like high expectation. "He survived a storm of oil," he growled. "Perhaps, Lady Tirza, you should ask yourself why you ask so little of him."

***

Lady Tirza fretted that night, perhaps more than Lior himself did. They both expected that first day to be horrible.

And... It was.

Commander Titus was not a friendly merman, but on that first day, he was pitiless. Lior was told to report to his tent at dawn, alone: Lady Tirza and Nightlight accompanied him there, but he entered the dwelling by himself, and was appraised by the Commander with a hawkish intensity that awakened in Lior the urge to bolt and hide. When he spoke, his words were cutting and blunt at the same time.

"Tie up your skirt," he commanded. "And re-braid your hair — you have strands lose, and I'll not have a soldier of mine looking haggard."

Lior silently obeyed, fingers shaking uncontrollably, and once his appearance was to Titus's satisfaction, the Commander gave him his task for the morning: to report to the head courier and present himself for duty. He did not tell Lior who the head courier was, and he did not tell him where the head courier was bedded down. And Lior was too afraid to ask — the Commander's eyes seemed to dare him to, and threaten harsh consequences if he did.

So he set out across the giant encampment, wondering what to do. At that time, the army was just starting to wake up — soldiers milled around their tents, reporting to commanding officers, organizing into patrols, cleaning armor, feeding their Pokémon. It was much different from the first time that Lior had seen them up close, where Titus had shown them to him from on high. Now he was down among them, and they all felt bigger than life with their metal breastplates, their bulging muscles, their tightly-woven braids. Some looked at him as he swam nervously past, and he felt his skin crawl at their gazes. Was that suspicion, he felt? Or was it just curiosity?

He tried to focus on finding the head courier's tent, but midmorning found him floating above some rocks a ways away from the tents, trying to stifle the urge to cry. So many strangers, with no smiles or sympathy to found among any of them. Just hard routine, seriousness. He experienced a surge of need for Tirza Mari, Nightlight, Mother and Father, one so strong he nearly choked on it.

Commander Titus found him like that, far off and trembling. "What are you doing up here?" the merman barked. There were several other mermen with him, and they hung back and watched silently as Titus approached.  "I instructed you to find the head courier."

Lior looked down. "I-I'm sorry, I—"

Titus slapped him — there was a savage, blinding pain, dizziness, and acute nausea. And shock, more piercing than the bite of a Carvanha. He heard Titus's voice, but couldn't find focus.

"I gave you an order," the merman said, "and you give me excuses. I detest excuses, Lior."

He tasted blood in his mouth, and it pushed him past the edge; abruptly, uncontrollably, he burst into overwhelmed tears. "I'm so—"

Titus slapped him again. This time, the blow very nearly drove him to unconsciousness.

"Be silent," the Commander snapped. "I didn't ask you to speak, or snivel. I asked you to find the head courier. Do you intend to obey? Or do I need to hit you again?"

"No!" Lior rasped; he covered his mouth with a hand, trying to keep down a sob boiling up his throat.

"Then go. Fail again, and I may give your punishment to your Pokémon."

Lior bolted, and Titus's men parted to let him pass through. For a moment he was blinded by invisible tears and the rank taste of copper in his mouth. His jaw and the inside of his mouth ached; his teeth had torn into the flesh of his cheek. Hurts! And he intended to do the same to Nightlight?  He could scarcely imagine how his friend would fare under Titus's hand. He could scarcely believe that Titus had actually hit him.

That need erupted inside him again, fierce as fire: Mother, Father, Lady Tirza, Nightlight... A wild urge to find his way back to their tent nearly overwhelmed him, but what would Titus do to him if he did? He struggled to swallow down his shock and hurt, and the animalistic impulse to find a place to hide.

Nightlight. His mind seized on his friend. He'll hit Nightlight if I don't find the head courier. He'll hit Nightlight.

The blur of tears began to clear, and he took in deep, gulping breaths, trying to calm the unhinged gallop of his heart. His jaw still ached like fury, and the fear of being slapped again, with the same degree of mercilessness, frightened him, but not so much that he couldn't think. He gazed around, striving to focus on his surroundings. Tents, and they all looked the same, whether on the ground or swimming high above. How cruel was it that Titus hadn't simply told him where this merperson was? To be punished for something so insignificant... It frustrated him to no end.

I have to ask someone. The thought made gooseflesh ripple up his arms, but did he have a choice? He didn't know the layout of the camp, and it changed every day. But someone here did — perhaps everyone did. He just had to ask someone...

Yet, approaching any of the soldiers proved an unnerving task — he tried to catch the eye of some of them, hoping that they would invite him over and ask what was wrong, but most of them either ignored Lior or barely spared him a glance, too wrapped up in their own work.

Then, just as he was beginning to despair a little, he spotted an unlikely candidate, sitting in the shade of a giant pavilion — a mermaid! He swam a little closer, wondering if he was seeing things, but no — that was definitely a woman sitting beneath the big tent, a Jeager with her hair woven down into three long, intertwining braids. She was speaking to someone that Lior couldn't see, but abruptly she glanced up, met his gaze. She didn't smile and she didn't speak, but she did hold his eyes longer than any of the others. Encouraged, Lior slowly approached.

"Hello," he said nervously.

The mermaid didn't speak for a beat, and then abruptly her face transformed into a frightening glower. "Do you think this is the mess tent, brat?" she snapped. "I don't have the mantle so that whelps can come up and speak to me however they like!"

He reeled back. What was she talking about? "I'm sorry—"

"Shut up. Who asked you to talk?" Lior stammered, and she lurched out of her seat. "Have you been living under a rock, or are you just stupid? Salute, damn you. You think just because I'm a woman you don't have to show me the honors?"

Salute? Lior didn't know what that meant. Desperately, he searched the tent for a sign for what he should do. His eyes landed on a merman floating over in the far corner, the one the mermaid must have been speaking to moments before. He was appraising Lior with a twisted smile, his eyes alight with cruel amusement; clearly, he enjoyed watching Lior squirm. Lior pleaded silently to him with his eyes as the mermaid drifted closer, and the merman chuckled and then crossed his arms, planting an open palm on one breast, a fist on the other.

Quickly, Lior replicated the salute, just as the mermaid raised her hand to strike him. He cringed, expecting for her to finish the blow anyway, but with an annoyed grunt, she lowered her hand. "At ease," she hissed. "You're lucky I'm feeling charitable today." Lior quivered as she returned to her seat, a mound of giant cushions underneath which she tucked her tail. "But it's apparent that someone's being lax in the way they train their underlings. Who do you report to?"

Lior wrung his fingers. "Um, Commander Titus."

"Everyone reports to Titus, you idiot," the mermaid snapped. She narrowed ice-blue eyes at him, ones about as barbed as Titus's. "Are you with the cooks? Or maybe you're a squire. Or do you dig the latrines?"

"Easy, Carys," the merman in the corner said, grinning with obvious enjoyment. "Can't you see? It's the whelp that Titus told us to look out for. Not stupid. Just new."

Carys shot the merman an irritated look, and then went back to studying Lior. In the beat of silence that followed, her temper seemed to subside. "State your business," she ordered.

His voice shook a little. "I'm l-looking for the head courier. Commander T-Titus told me to go there and report for duty."

"What am I, the midwife?" she hissed. "Am I just here to give directions? Am I supposed to hold your hand and walk you there, too?"

"No, but you are a woman," the merman chortled. "Probably he thought you'd be nice, as did we all. Little did we know..."

"Shut up, Mattathias. And find it yourself, brat. I wear the general's mantle, and the general's armor — I'm done towing people around." She made a harsh shooing motion at him, to his dismay. "Go on!"

"It's east of here," Mattathias said just as Lior was about to swim dejectedly out of the tent. "The pavilion is black, and they have a Seadra assigned to them. Hard to miss."

"Mattathias!" General Carys roared. "Will you stop overstepping my—"

"Better go now, before she gets heated," Mattathias said with a wink.

"Thank you," Lior said with heavy relief, and he hurried away, leaving a barrage of ugly cursing in his wake. Black, with a Seadra assigned to them. His heart pounded as he kicked up, searching for black tarp among the dozens of pointed, brown dwellings. He spotted several candidates scattered among the rest, but one was bigger than the others and, indeed, there was a Seadra milling around outside, looking a little bored. It perked up when Lior approached, though, and blew bubbles in his face when he tried to enter. He spluttered.

"I'm here to see the head courier," he explained, shielding his face.

The Seadra was distrustful — it scooted towards the tent, and glared when Lior tried to follow. Clearly, it wanted him to stay outside, so he did, nervously ringing his hands and looking around for signs of Titus coming to check up on his progress. But the Commander was nowhere to be found, just soldiers dismantling tents, packing up supplies, and sharpening tools and armor. Moments later the Seadra reappeared, pushing open the flap of the tent. Looked like he had been given permission to come inside.

The interior of the tent was somehow smaller than it looked outside, perhaps because many bodies filled the space. Young bodies, he realized with some surprise: not as young as he was, but several of the merboys that flashed by him looked to be early teenagers, fifteen or sixteen. Each was dressed similarly to Lior: no armor, but sturdy clothing that was easy to move in, with tail sheaths riddled with pockets. All had knapsacks slung over their shoulders or wrapped underneath their arms. There were at least ten boys, and half of them left in the moments that Lior came in through the door. The rest gathered before a thin-boned merman, a Karpon whose clothes looked almost too heavy for him to bear.

"Orders," he was saying. "Jesh, Oren, Mattathias. Carys received hers the previous night. On your return back, you are to record requests and bring them here for processing." He handed out satchels, and one by one the boys shouldered and secured them. As they did so, the thin merman spotted Lior, and rasped, "Jabez, stay."

One of the boys, with his hair up into an almost square-looking bun, obeyed, and lingered silently by the merman's side as the rest departed — Lior moved out of the way to let them pass, almost catching a tailfin in the side for his trouble. The merman drifted forward airily, looking wraithlike as he peered down at Lior.

"You are the one we were expecting," he said. His voice was rough and...sandy, almost, broken up by a rattle at the back of his throat so faint that Lior almost didn't hear it.

"Y-yes. My name is Lior." The merman's eyes narrowed dangerously, just like Carys's had, and quickly, he performed the salute, one palm open, one closed. "Commander Titus told me to come here and report for duty."

"I am aware." The merman spoke sharply, in a way that told Lior not to speak further. "I fail to see the amusement in dumping all the army's whelps on my tired old shoulders, but I don't suppose I have a choice — I see you've already had a taste of what comes of those who are insubordinate in this place, Lior."

Self-consciously, he touched his jaw. It was already swelling furiously.

"I am Enos," the merman said. He gestured to the boy behind him. "This is Jabez. Fairly new as you are, but he understands the tasks at hand well enough. He will show you how things are done today, and then you will do them on your own tomorrow. You will take your meals with us, and should you fail to complete all of your duties before then, you will sleep hungry." Abruptly, he yawned. "Go now, I am done explaining things. If there is trouble, our Lord Commander will know of it."

A fresh wave of anxiety curdled Lior's stomach, but he had nearly no time to process it. In a flash, Jabez was out the door, and despite his best efforts, it was a struggle to keep up. The boy was Karpon, like Enos, yet he was a powerful swimmer, even faster than Lior and his Milotica tail.

Something about that filled Lior with dread. The rest of the day was going to be long and stressful, indeed.

***

Five days later, upon waking to a body racked from agonized muscles and lack of sleep, Lior wondered fleetingly how he had survived the bulk of his first week. Obligation? Or fear?

Both, but surely the latter more than the former.

That first day of tailing the boy Jabez had been a brutal, frightening awakening for Lior as to who these people were, and how they operated. Very quickly, he'd come to find that the soldiers of Titus's army prized discipline, protocol, and coordinated routine above all else — there was little to no tolerance for slip-ups and disobedience, and punishment for such things was quick, harsh, and nearly...mundane in its execution.

Lior saw this when he and Jabez went to deliver orders for patrols to a far quadrant of the camp in the late afternoon, after a long day of swimming. They had arrived later than expected, and Jabez had received a blow to the face for his lack of punctuality. But unlike Lior, he hadn't crumpled, gasped, or even flinched — it was like he was used to it. He said as much later on, when he led Lior back to the couriers' pavilion for the evening meal.

"There's no way around it," he'd said tonelessly. "You're new, and you're slow, and you're younger than the rest of us — you'll annoy a lot of people, and you'll get hit." To Lior's horrified look, he said, "I'll stick close if I can, if our deliveries take us along the same routes, but tomorrow you're going to be mostly on your own, so don't hope against hope. Just take it and move on."

Lior slept little for those words that night, and across the span of the next five days, they turned into a terrible, self-fulfilling prophecy: suddenly he was out alone in a massive camp that changed with every march, to deliver orders, messages from generals to captains, captains to generals, requests for armor, requests for weapons, inventory of supplies, summons for councils, changes to training regimens, and scavenging, harvesting, and resupply assignments. True to his word, Jabez tried to stay with him when he could, so that they could deliver messages together, and he could point out the locations of Lior's recipients, but more often than not Lior was alone, struggling to find lieutenants that were not where they said they would be or pick out a single soldier from crowds of bodies in red armor.

As Jabez predicted, he was often late, and, as Jabez predicted, despite all his efforts, his punctuality cost him a physical blow. They all hurt worse than Lior thought they would, even when he braced himself, perhaps because he braced himself, and quickly he accrued a number of bruises. Sometimes he bled. Often, after he left, he cried.

More terrifying than the blows themselves, though, was the utter lack of sympathy behind them: he was struck when he was late, and struck when he tried to apologize, and then the recipient would usually accept his message and send him off with a cruel kind of apathy that nearly crippled Lior with hurt. No one seemed to care that he was trying his best, or that he was new, or that he was inexperienced and should have been granted a degree of leniency: like Titus, the soldiers only seemed to care about one thing, and that was the end result.

The difficult days left him restless at night.  Then, the self-pity dissolved away, leaving resentment and the sharp edge of hatred sitting in his gut, preventing him from sleeping fitfully. And so he would wake up tired, and perform worse than he had the previous day.

Lady Tirza silently made note of the ugly cycle, and she and Nightlight worried continuously over him: the former tried to get him to talk about what was happening, and the latter tried his best to comfort Lior by his sheer presence alone, but Lior barely saw their faces or heard their voices when he drifted back into the tent at night, greatly disheartened and weary to the bone.  And even if he had the strength for conversation, what was the point? Talking about it would make it all twice as painful, and what could they do for him, exactly? He'd already seen that Lady Tirza could not dictate her will to Titus — he was in charge, and if he wanted Lior bruised and exhausted, then Lior would be bruised and exhausted. And Nightlight... The Chinchou was just a Pokémon. He couldn't help Lior.

And neither could any of the other courier merboys. At some point he couldn't place, Lior had thought that he might befriend some of them, befriend them as he'd wanted to make a best friend out of Lael, but they were always so busy that there was never time to foster any kind of camaraderie. Not even during the evening meal, which took place in the giant mess tent with Enos exactly three hours after dusk. The meals, whatever they were (Lior could never remember, they were always so bland and he so tired) were always consumed in silence, as they all seemed more concerned with refueling than getting to know one another. Even Jabez, with which he only had a shallow rapport, seemed only interested in talking of duty when he spoke to Lior, if at all.

Now it was the end of the week, and close to dawn. Lior's body was already awake, but his eyes, swollen from improper sleep and a slap from a captain that had strayed too close to one eyelid, felt like lead balls in his skull; they screamed for more rest as he tried to open them.

As did the rest of his body — his tailfin was aflame with muscular aches that seemed to bend his bones and cartilage, giving life to a searing pain that he'd never known was possible. Worse, he'd turned onto his bad arm in the night, and now the tenderness of that slowly-heeling fracture had evolved into a deep, burning pulse once again. He blinked slowly at the gap in the tent as it fluttered in the current, at the lightening water outside, feeling delirious.

I have to get up soon. Now. Titus would be angry if he didn't — the Commander had made a routine out of inspecting Lior before he reported to the couriers' pavilion, and if he was the least bit unseemly when he went to Titus, he would be late in reaching Enos, and earn a blow to the face before he even began any of his deliveries. One of his worst days this week had started out that way.

He made to push up from the sleeping mat, slowly as not to disturb Tirza Mari... And then stopped. Arceus! What's happening? His entire body felt like it was malfunctioning — fire awakened between the bands of his muscles, and his bones and joints popped strangely, alarmingly, as though gummed into place by some unknown substance. He let out a startled breath, and Lady Tirza awakened beside him.

"What is it?" she asked, rubbing sleep from her eyes.

He looked at her fearfully. "I-I don't know. I feel bad. M-my tail, it's—"

Her eyes sharpened into focus. "Lie still. Let me see."

He obeyed, and her hands drew up his skirt and then skimmed lightly over the flesh of his fluke. "Just sore muscles," she announced. "And little wonder. You've been run ragged, my dear — you're young and resilient, but you're not as limber as you're being asked to be. Your muscles have reached the edge of tolerance."

"But... It'll get better?" he asked. "This isn't permanent, or anything?"

"No of course not. But we ought to start stretching before you go to sleep at night." She smiled suddenly. "Hopefully you'll be a little less stubborn about it than Lord Kygriss-Mari."

That name... Had she mentioned it once before? "Who is Lord Kygriss-Mari?"

"The ward of my community. Our fabulous, one true king, he fashions himself." She became wistful. "I serve as his acolyte, and what a task that is! He's both articulate and overly-excited. A conundrum." She smiled. "He's younger than you, but I think you'd like him. His humor is quite unconventional for those in our order."

Her words both mystified and fascinated him. Suddenly, he had a lot of questions, both about Tirza Mari and this Lord Kygriss-Mari. Were they related? Their last names were the same... And how could he be a "lord" if he was younger than Lior? And what did that mean, "lord"? Clearly he ruled over Lady Tirza's people... Who were they? It occurred to him that though he had been relying on this kind, sweet lady since the death of his parents, he knew little about her. Maybe if he wasn't so tired tonight, he could talk more with her about who this Lord Kygriss-Mari was.

Tonight. His curiosity drained away, replaced by grim resignation. That meant, somehow, he had to get through today. He made to rise again, and stopped as a sudden and horrifying pain overtook his tailfin. He yelped and thrashed, startling awake Nightlight, who jumped and went to the ceiling, his lanterns glowing with sudden fright.

"Lady Tirza!" Lior screamed, blinded by pain. "Oh Arceus, help!"

Quickly, the Karpon lady wadded up the belt of her robes and pressed it against Lior's lips. "It's all right, chew this," she said. "This is simply a bad muscle cramp, Lior, what the humans call a 'Charley horse'. Bear with it — it will pass."

Lior barely understood. This disgusting, searing pain would pass? He clawed at the bed mat, his teeth biting into the cloth, wriggling maniacally. He was still flailing when he heard a voice at the entrance of the tent.

"Lady Tirza, a message from General Carys." It was a courier, one Lior would have recognized if not for the pain. "Tents are to go down two hours after sunrise. We march at midmorning, and our unit will report to General Carys at the kelp patch a mile north of here. Do you have any outgoing messages?"

Finally, the "Charley horse" began to ebb, subsiding to fiery burning in the trunk of his tail. As he gasped with relief, Lady Tirza said, "Yes, to Commander Titus. Notify him that Lior will be unable to report for duty today, as he is currently indisposed by severe fatigue. He will be kept in bed at my recommendation."

The courier saluted and left, and Lior shot Tirza a fearful look. "But—"

"The cramp will end, but you'll feel its effects the rest of the day, perhaps longer," the Karpon said. "You'll be next to useless as a courier, and will be punished repeatedly for something that isn't your fault."

He didn't disagree, but... "What will the Commander say?"

She looked troubled. "I don't know, but whatever it is... He can say it to me."

There was defiance in her eyes, and that made him both relieved and nervous. He was grateful that she was putting her tail on the line for him, and he desperately wanted more rest... But what would Titus do when he received her clipped message?

He settled back onto the sleeping mat and very quickly fell back asleep to the feeling of Nightlight working his way back into the hollow of his side. He didn't know how long it lasted, but his aching body told him not long — he had a very vivid dream, one in which Titus got Tirza Mari's message and became so furious that he actually boiled the water behind him and took off towards their tent, leaving a burning wake in his path.

Then he was awake, and there was noise outside, and he wondered if it had been a dream at all.

Lady Tirza was gone — he heard her outside, and she sounded angry. He also heard the deep baritone of Titus's voice and its fury was not hot like in his dream, but cold and sharp, like an icy knife. The flap of the tent swung open, and Lior jumped up as an unfamiliar soldier reached in for him.

"Lord Titus commands your presence," he growled, and seized Lior's arm.

He was dragged outside, where there were more people gathered than usual. Soldiers from Titus's personal guard, mostly, but also several bystanders beyond, watching with interest while pretending to get on with the morning's duties.

Titus stood in the middle of this sudden, small bubble, with Lady Tirza beside him, looking dazed and cradling a blazing red cheek. Lior was stunned. Did he hit her?

Her and him — Titus's hand flashed like a whip, and Lior's head was knocked back, nearly cleared from his head entirely. He was too shocked to scream or cry out — he let out a strangled noise instead, and coughed out red water. His nose felt like it was on fire.

Behind him, Nightlight let out a shocked squeak; it occurred to Lior that this was the first time his friend was seeing him get hit.

"The both of you have chosen a strange day to take leave of your senses," Titus growled. "Especially you, Lior — I would have thought that five days as a courier would be enough for you to understand the expectations that have been placed upon you. Enos did not give you leave to sleep in, and neither did I — what made you think that you had the freedom to shirk your duties today?"

Lior's traitorous eyes went to Lady Tirza, who was staring at the sand, looking ashamed.

"Don't look at her." High Pitch crept into Titus's voice, making it bite. "She is a guest in our army — she has no rank, and therefore no authority over you, even if she thinks she does. She is not responsible for this morning's foolishness. Who is, Lior?"

"I am," he rasped. "But I—"

Another blow — the stream of blood leaking from his nose thickened. "Who is responsible, Lior?"

"I am," he managed.

Titus came close, bent down until his entire shadow enveloped Lior. "For your sake, learn this lesson, and learn it now: you cannot hide here, boy, not behind Tirza Mari or any other excuse. I will not allow you to: you are a soldier, and you will take responsibility for your mistakes. Is that understood?"

The pain was an enormous, boiling thing in his skull, and for a dangerous moment, Lior could not speak around it. He tried and coughed, and Titus came closer, a muscled mountain, casting him into gloom. Stammering, he said, "Ye—"

An angry cry, and suddenly Nightlight was between them, pressing against Titus's breastplate, trying to push him back. Titus stared down at the Pokémon, something black and flat coming to his eyes. Horrified, Lior tried to grab his friend and push him away, but he was too slow — in the blink of an eye, Nightlight was in in Titus's meaty palm, being crushed between his fingers. Lior found his voice and screamed.

"Don't!" he pleaded. "He didn't mean it!"

Titus raised a hand — to strike Lior or Nightlight, he didn't know — and Nightlight erupted with violent sparks, sending biting tendrils of electricity lashing through the water. A couple tagged nearby soldiers, making them hiss and crumple, and one missed Lior's ear by a hair's breadth. The rest raced up and down Titus's body like white-hot Ekans, crackling angrily against his armor.

But were they hurting him? Lior couldn't tell — the merman did not flinch. His eyes didn't crinkle. And he moved with blunt purpose, as though the electricity was not there — he lifted his open hand, placed it over Nightlight like he intended to bless him, and suddenly the Chinchou was incased in a block of ice, antennae and all.

What? Lior's mind wondered, but his body screamed, and lunged forward, even though it was already too late. Lady Tirza banded her arms around him before he could so much as stir the sand.

"Stop, don't," she cried. Lior collapsed against her, weeping — the tears poured like a river, invisible but heavy.

"Why?" he moaned to Titus. "He didn't mean it, he didn't mean it, he was just scared, you didn't have to kill him..."

"Shut up, whelp. I didn't." Lior looked up, shocked, as Titus handed the block of ice, so blurry with distortion that he could barely see his friend within, off to one of his men. "But mer or Pokémon, it matters not — all who transgress in my army are made to pay for their folly."

Lior didn't see Nightlight for three months after that.

—

FLOOD Artwork: "Lior and Tirza"

Man, Lior can't catch a break, can he?

Anyway, this is the first image where I fully drew and colored in Tirza Mari. I experimented with this image, and allowed the background to shade in the characters.