"Hey," Teo said, quietly. "Tell me a story?"

"I—" Wren looked up, and over her shoulder, abruptly. She'd thought Teo was asleep. "Don't scare me like that."

He laughed—too weakly. "Sorry," he said. "I was just resting, but, like—are we there yet?"

Even under the current circumstances, he could still put that deliberately childish whine into it, and with his face tucked against her neck, she could tell that he was grinning. Wren snorted, and hefted him slightly in the piggyback carry mid-step, shaking her head. "If you have the energy to whine, I'm going to make you walk."

Both of them knew the threat held no water. His dark hair was sweat-damp against her skin, even though she'd been carrying him all this way on the slow walk across the wastes. The body trying to fight the poison in his system that was taking effect too fast, after the guide who'd said he'd lead them to a powerful weapon that could defeat the despotic emperor turned out to be a backstabbing double-agent.

She had to focus. And besides, "I can't think of any good stories," she added, dipping her head self-consciously.

Teo gave a brief bark of laughter. "You've got plenty," he said, and fell silent again for so long that she thought he had fallen asleep again—the slow rise and fall of his chest against her back her only assurance that she hadn't run out of time.

And then—what felt like an eternity later, his voice in her ear again: "It's okay. You can tell me an old one. Yours... don't get old." He made a quiet humming noise. "You could even tell me the first one you ever told me. I liked that one."

"That one was—" Ah. That one. She sighed, and shook her head. No point in protesting now, even if it was childish. "All right. If you insist. Once upon a time, there were two intrepid young people—"

Two children, really, who found themselves lost and adrift in a world foreign to them after being transported away from the hospital where they'd just met. There, a mysterious light healed both of them and granted them abilities—to one, strength, and to the other, magic—to keep them safe, yes, but also to vanquish a great evil that had taken root in the land.

At first, neither of them knew what to do with their newfound freedom, newfound health, or newfound dire responsibility. But after seeing the corruption in the country firsthand, the swordswoman felt drawn to fixing things. The mage had been reluctant at first, out of fear—but to aid her, found his courage, and in doing so, found his own meaning in their struggle. And together, they found like-minded people to rally to their cause, in adventure after adventure.

But the Emperor, empowered by his dark magic, had only increased his efforts to snuff out the little flame of hope they created. He resorted to brutality, to trickery, to abominable, deeper evils. Still—as long as the two had each other, they were unstoppable. And every day, hand in hand, they made this world a little better.

"And," Wren added, on a spur-of-the-moment inspiration, wiping a little of the sudden mist from her eyes with the back of one hand, "Even when it seemed like all hope was lost, when they had suffered unfathomable betrayal—the swordswoman carried on, step by step, across the wastes. Because they were together, and because as long as that was true—she'd have enough strength to carry him home."

She paused, for a moment, feet coming to a brief rest, and smiled to herself. Even if it was a childish story—it was a story she'd told so many times, to get them through the long nights. Hopefully—this would just be one more of those.

"Is it just as good as the first time, or did I put you to sleep—" she started again, grinning, head half-turned—

---

Wren read the lines over and over and over again, in the days after. She re-wrote them, too—starting the passage over again, and again, and again, until the wastepaper bin next to her desk was full of crumpled sheets. Every one was an abortive effort to make it end any differently.

Balling her fists into the composition notebook in her lap, on the way home from the funeral, all she could see were the ways he'd saved the story. Teo had always been the one to say things like, "It kinda seems too easy. Let's add some obstacles," or "I think my character needs some more flaws to make things more interesting."

He would have had a good idea, for how to save his story counterpart. Now that Wren was alone, though—every single version rang hollow.

When she climbed the stairs back to her room and shut the door, she sat for a long few moments with the notebook in her lap, staring down at it blankly.

Then, she tucked it back into the cardboard box with all the others, closed it up, and pushed it into the back of her closet.

Maybe there's no point to fantasy, she thought, flopping down on her bed, face damply pressed into her pillow. In her chest was a sudden, white-hot knot that surprised her. Maybe I'm done with it.

And for the next ten years, she believed that.