Thettan walked toward Lilly. He stood as straight as Yanil and wore the same tight pants. His intentions were clear. Lilly could see that he was holding an identical shiv to the one she was given. Hers was tied to her wrist. The frilly sleeve she now wore obscured it from view. Her heart beat fast. Too fast. Would her heart burst before the knife cut?

He lunged. Lilly threw her arm up. She fumbled with the sheath - which dangled and swayed the knife handle away from her hand. 

The towering man in black thrust his knife. Lilly felt an impact and fell on her elbows. “Ouch.”

She wasn’t hurt otherwise. She saw that blue water held the knife at bay just fingers away from her chest. Light played on the surface of the mini shield. Lilly grabbed the sheath with her free hand and pulled out her own dagger. She stabbed overhead to hit him in the shoulder. 

She was met with resistance. Le’falyne blocked her way. She pushed and pushed. “Raaaagh!”

Thettan pulled away and stabbed again. Stab and stab and stab. Every time he met with the water. Lilly had only rage. He kep the pressure. She felt a sense of pain in the Le’falyne that kept her together in the gut. She pushed through. Her shiv was engulphed in a free spiral of water. The steel was eroded away. The little concave water shield gave way when the steel was like a sliver of time. thin metal cut through the water easily then, and stabbed Thettan in the shoulder. 

 “Ahhh!”

She knew he’d be healed, so she ran back toward the entrance. His bootfalls followed. She passed strangers in regular clothes and militants eating standing up. Yanil grabbed her arm before she could turn the corner. She slipped away with a scratch. but stopped. She couldn’t leave her friends. She made eye contact with Thettan. Thettan huffed. “We’ve discovered shivs in the corridor, zhir.” He held his out by the blade.

“Blades?”

‘Yes. Two. Lillian found another.”

Lilly held hers up. It was useless now anyway.

“What happened to this one?’

“Le’falyne ate it.”

“Le’feelin?”

“let-water.”

“Elves call it Le’falyne.”

“We’ll record these into hall custody. Thettan. You may continue the interrogation. I’ll catch up. Zhe wheeled Drizzel away with zher. 

“Wait, ziz please allow me to attend again.”

“Yes. Thettan. Wheel her in with you.”

The brass ring nodded. 

Lilly and Thettan did not try to kill each other again that day. The questioning was over by the seventh slash and they walked back to the entrance. The bodies were still on display. She didn’t want to see. She stared out the ceiling-high glass windows of the hall entrance.

“She…she wants to be part of Flor’eliant again. She told me.” She remembered cuddling up with her mother. The warm arms. The scary thoughts about dying. Her mama telling her her plans. It felt special to talk about things after dying. Dying was less scary when she thought of that. She still feared dying. 

So much was going on. The light of the sun was too bright and concentrated in some spots. At least an evening glow was settling in now. She was tired from the questioning. She was tired from the stabbing. She was tired in other ways too. Somehow she still felt awake and unreal. She was cold. She was unstable. Something felt wrong in her whole body. She’d never felt like this before.

The let-water in her resounded with her feelings. The Le’falyne in the display tubes rippled. The glass of her mother’s tube shattered. The water spilled away and her mother lay there, carried gently down to the ground. Is it you that doesn’t want this or…is it her? Or is it me?

“Oh.”

“I’m sure enough investigation has been done of your mother.”

“What do you want to do Lilly?”

“She wants to be part of nature. Can you bury her without a coffin?”

Thettan nodded. 

“In the forest outside the city.”

“That’s an odd location.”

“Her father has authorized his daughter to decide what to do.” 

Another man stood next to Thettan at the burial. They looked close. Doan? There were others here that she didn’t know. Citizens crying. Some of them glared at the militants. From them she felt rage and anger, similar to her own. The rest of the citizens - she sensed only sorrow from them. She didn’t sense any regret. Thettan didn't care that her mother was dead.

She heard a mother with her daughter say “Her articles were so well-informed. I’ll miss her witty writing.” -Militant

Some of them know mother? 

Drizzle looked up at her. “You’ll be okay Lilly.” She stood and tried to give her a hug. She was a head taller. Lilly held her back with her hand. “No hugs yet.”

“Ugh, Then please help me back down.” She put a hand on Lilly’s shoulder and plopped back into her seat. She was too heavy for Lilly to hold up, and that irritated Lilly. Lilly was exhausted. She’d nearly buckled under 

Yanil escorted and occasionally carried Lilly back to her house, where she fell asleep on her parents’ sleeping mats.

Shadowy colors murking in pure black swells. Lilly within. She was standing on a rooftop and stared down on a city of drowning people. She was hugged by her mama.

She woke up holding Chila, and feeling her mother’s warmth in her scant dream memory. Instead of getting up, she lay there on the mat at the foot of the couch. The terror of her mother gone made her shiver. None of that. Not yet. She calmed herself. Everyone dies. It’s natural. Mama loved nature. She needed to lay and observe her familiar surroundings. 

The smell of morning soup lured her up. People were talking in the kitchen. Many people. Lilly dreaded the moment one of them noticed her.

“Oh Lillian!” Barn noticed her.

“Didja sleep well? We’ve made mourning soup. You look tired still.”

A lighter voice joined. “Lilly!” Alyz came over and hugged her. Lilly was still on the mat on the ground, so Alyz had to sit on her knees to get her arms all the way way round.

“Lilly, I have news for you. It’s terrible news. We can wait if you’re not ready.” How many people are here? It should only be me and mama. I’ll play with my wooden town and forget the rest. 

“Tell her already.” Nathan was there too. He had a stirring stick in one hand. 

“Why are you all here? Is this allowed?”

Yanil looked at Lilly. “No, this is invasion of privacy. I alone need be here by law.”

Alyz frowned. “With that Thettan a Droan still about? We can’t lelt you stay here alone! Or with zhem.” She gestured toward Yanil.

“I agree. Yanil is not to be trusted alone with you.”

“I am to be trusted. Anyway you should be glad we came. Thettan was here last night. He tried to get to you.”

“We know from interrogating, that Shawn was the one that attacked you and your mother.”

“There are four confirmed murders and nine missing people. All in the gentile area.

Shawn killed her mother? “Who else was murdering people?” They didn't need to exist.

“I don’t think I will tell you.

“We did have ex-militants…”

“They defected back.”

“Double-defects.”

“They’re not bad people.”

“Just good people doing bad things.”

While the home invaders bickered, she felt for Le’falyne nearby. The intelligent water was heating the soup and running through pipes in the walls. some of it was outside prretending to be part of the rain. It was raining? She forgot that thought quickly, for her liquidous friends combined and grew below her. She was lifted into a sort of undulating bed.Lilly slid down and sunk into the water. She lay there with her eyes open and her mouth closed. she was completely submerged, but she could breath. She was breathing air still.

Lilly was tired. Tired and angry. She didn’t want to eat soup. She wanted to 

These new friends of hers - the adults and the older kids weren't hurt enough. Lilly needed to stop the people from killing more mamas, or families. Her anger and grief moved her to action. Sometimes there was only one way to stop a person from doing terrible things. You had to make them cease to be. Then their plans would cease to be.

Lilly let herself be buoyant and floated at the top a moment. 

“I’ll drink the soup.” 

The four others stopped and got busy getting bowls and soup ready. Lilly pointed to a back corner for Barn. he got out the folding table there and set it on the floor. They all sat and drank soup.

“This is mourning soup isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“I need food, but I’m not mourning yet.”

“Lilly. You’re only seven. You’ll die! You have so many people that care about you now.”

“Lillian, don’t -”

“Don’t Stop me!”

Her anger was answered by Le’falyne. She was ins wash of it that shoved the ones that followed her back into the kitchen. The pushback moved her out the doorway and on her knees in the street. 

“I’ll step on you!” Lilly shouted. The few people out in the late morning looked at her. Le/falyne. The intelligent water knew what she wished before she could form words in her mind. it surged her forward toward the militant hall. 

The hall had one front door but very few inside. Only rooms for militants, prisoners, and guests. Lilly blasted at the doors. The air inside was humid. The humidity reduced rapidly as the moisture coagulated. “I didn’t know you could do that.”

Lilly rose and fell with a wild water that bashed doors open and turned into whirlpools at corners and in cubicles. Sleeping militants were turned in a tumult of bodies and bedding. Lilly sought Thettan. She sought Shawn and Droan. She would kill them all.

She found Thettan in a room at the back of another room. She touched down on the floor.

She punched him in the face. He didn’t even flinch. “Raaagh!” Stay back!

There were many weapons here. The confiscated plasma rods, the same knives they’d tried to kill each other with the day before.

“You’re only seven Lilly, Little Girl. Little Girl Lilly.”

“Rrrrr!”

She caught red light near his hip. She dove to her left. The plasma shot and hit the wall of Le/falyne that had circled the room. The sizzle made even the two humans shiver as if in pain. Le’falyne was hurt. It put out the plasma, but its pain was shared with them. 

“Raah! I’m sorry!” 

She grabbed a plasma rod and bashed his skull. He headbutted her. The Le’falyne healed their wounds even as they were inflicted. Many shots were fired. Le’falyne could not kep up. Lilly sunk backwards in. I’m sorry. She was crying. Somehow in this water that loved life she was crying. She cried for what she was about to do. 

The water was exhausted. Something about the battle and its healing along with its own injuries prevented many wounds from repairing. Thettan threw knives at her that barely missed her neck or eye, or heart. Lilly was not skilled in fighting. She knew how to though. Somehow being Inside Le’falyne healed her despite the water’s other failings. She took two knives floating within it. The plasma rods were all overheated.Thettan showed no signed of slowing. He threw punches with heavy hitting thruists.They nearly hit her even through the resistant water.

Lilly slipped under his legs.

he closed her between them. She stabbed his shin. He yealled and let her go. She pushed herself away with her hand on the floor. She was still floating in it while he was standing waist-deep. He was slow. She was slowing too. Le’falyne was congealing around them. She stabbed his arms reaching for her. Then she stabbed his armpit. She pulled out the first knife and stabbed him in the eye. She pulled out of his armpit and stabbed him in the shoulder. She forgot to listen to his screams. She stabbed and pulled, stabbed and pulled. 

He was standing bloody and quivering in the shallow water. There was water covering the ceiling now too. Lilly pulled both blades out. She stopped to located his neck. She couldn’t see. His head was down. She stabbed him in the kneecap with one shiv. She had to push as hard as she could through the frosty congealing water. He screamed and flinched back. His hand was on his throat. Another over his chest. 

He won’t let me kill him!

The water became an icy slush. Lilly’s arms were heavy now. She let them fall into the slush The two of them passed out from their wounds.