The waters had stilled, the clash of stone on stone, gold on steel, and bloodied currents had since dissipated—but I still clutched Shea’s body, and I clutched it tight. My hands were numb, and my fingernails had begun to pierce his skin, cutting through the cluster of once vibrant, golden scales on his arms, smearing them with the crimson of his own blood. The warmth had officially left his flesh. I knew his voice would never return.

Medics arrived, wearing their emerald and coral-encrusted armor, bearing the crest of the Waveguard, a sigil of Neptune, a sight for sore eyes. Their long tails swished through the current with quiet grace, their tools clattering against one another. I could see the myriad of delicate bone needles and glowing vials of seaweed extracts, water from the Abyssal Springs, and pearlescent spheres meant to coax life back into the broken. One medic, a taller mermaid with special, gold trim on her armor, swam toward me, tailed by a smaller medic with a white blanket. She outstretched her arms, reaching for Shea. 

“We need to take him,” she spoke gently, her eyes soft but resolute. The water, thick with blood, slightly muffled her voice, but the command was clear. “He’s gone. We must begin preparing the body.”

I looked to her, then to Shea, my lower eyelids feeling heavy. Was I tearing up again? “Is there anything you can do? Any potion of resurrection?” As I spoke, the two exchanged a glance.

The smaller medic pinched the air before her, most likely opening their System Screen. She pressed a few times, and then stood over Shea, miming a scan. “Unfortunately, we cannot. His survival was Quest-dependent, and whoever accepted the challenge failed.”

What?

No way.

My chest heaved, my eyes widened, and the current’s tugging suddenly felt much heavier than before. How? How… was that possible? I failed that Quest. I was the one who accepted it, and I was the one who failed. My lip trembled as I stared at Shea’s face, pale, but peaceful.

The medics gave me a moment, their eyes drawn to the scene that played out before them. All across the battlefield, the other members of the Waveguard tended to the wounded soldiers from our platoon, their hands moving with swift, practiced exactness. One used a needle and thread made of enchanted fish scales to stitch gaping wounds closed, while another carried yellow spheres, pressing them into the chests of the dying, the magic seeping into my comrades’ wounded bodies and knitting their flesh back together.

“Is someone giving you issues, medics?”

A shadow fell over me, but I already knew who it was.

Ariel’s crimson hair swayed in the current as he floated above us, his sharp eyes fixating on me from under the ridge of his helm. He looked down at Shea and I for a moment, unreadable, before he descended with smooth strokes of his tail.

“Infantryman with the conjoined corpse companion… what is your name?”

“Firth Ridire.” I whispered.

“Ridire, hm?” Ariel arched a brow at my last name. It seemed he hadn’t expected the son of Murphy Ridire to be so weak… so embarrassing. Or perhaps he was surprised my father had a son at all—the man certainly didn’t brag about me. Ariel pulled his helmet off of his head, revealing a much younger-than-expected face. “Let him go.”

“But…” Why was I having such a hard time with this? I was cradling a dead man.

“You’re not doing him any favors by holding on. He’s gone. That’s a fact.”

I recoiled at the bluntness of his words, but Ariel continued, sans sympathy, paying no mind to my averted gaze. “This is war. People die. It isn’t easy, it isn’t pleasant, but you need to face it.”

A few more medics approached as we spoke, preparing a woven kelp stretcher to carry his body away. My heart sank at the sight. It was all happening so soon, so fast. The battle lasted a meager thirty minutes. Thirty. And there was so much death, so much pain. So many lives that had been lost, so many dreams crushed. So many goals and aspirations forever left unfulfilled. How many books had Shea put down after only reading to a halfway point, confident he’d come back later to finish them? How many potions had he started but left unattended, left incomplete for his future self to come back to?

And his wife! He told me he had a wife—a pregnant wife! What about her? What will she do? Who will take care of her and the baby? Who will warm its bottle while she shushes its cries?

“Firth. You’ve done well. You held him close, made sure he didn’t die alone, made him feel appreciated in his final moments. But, now it’s time to let him go—Shea wouldn’t want this. He wouldn’t want you dragging his body around, refusing to let the medics do their job.” His hand reached out, resting on my shoulder. “Shea is a cautionary tale—do not blame yourself. Yes, his death was a consequence of war, a consequence of needing to protect his weak platoon, but also a consequence of his own neglect.”

My brows furrowed, unsure if I’d heard him right. “What?”

“He focused too much on his Intelligence, on casting magic like a mathematician instead of a warrior. His luck was stuck at five. He was too prideful to admit that a sorcerer cannot simply focus on precision and control over variables. They cannot simply move their arm in a perfect, geometric arc on the battlefield and win. War is unpredictable, and he paid the price.”

As I listened to Ariel, my anger flared, but so did my begrudging understanding. Yes, I remember now… I remember his Player Profile, his luck stat only a few points above mine, despite his Level being 45. I wondered if that was why he got speared so precisely, or if that's why Ariel's platoon arrived a few minutes too late, or if that's why I was the one given the Quest to save him.

“So, enough feeling responsible for his death. There are a thousand things that could have been done differently, a thousand ways to blame yourself or blame him. But why do such a thing? Why torment yourself? This is war. You will lose everyone you love and gain a new family within the same day. So… unhand him, Firth. That is an order.”

I stared at Ariel, my chest heaving. He was right. Maybe it was my fault, and maybe, at the same time, it wasn’t. And maybe I’d just have to be okay with that. Be okay with the outcome, even if it hurts. With trembling hands, I let go of Shea. The medic nodded and took him, handing him off to the other healers and their stretcher, who placed him down snugly, draping a blanket over his body. He looked like he was sleeping. Bloody, but… sleeping. I hope he has a good rest. And I hope, somehow, someday, he wakes up. That the cloth is not a shroud, but a… blanket. To keep him from getting cold.

“Now,” Ariel said, “let’s see if I can salvage anything from this mess.”

His words were cold, but they didn’t carry malice. Still, it ruffled my scales. All these people were so unfeeling, speaking of us like we were little more than expendable scraps from a battlefield.

Ariel’s platoon gathered behind him, their armor gleaming, their weapons still wet with the blood of the rebels. They moved with military ordinance, their tails kicking through the water with expert timing. They were perfect. Synchronized. Like a school of swordfish. He landed in front of our remaining men, his gaze scanning each of us one-by-one.

“This is how it's going to work,” Ariel began. “Your platoon leader is dead. Your ranks are in shambles. I do not care which of you was sergeant, which of you held authority. I will select a few of you into my platoon based on merit and merit alone. The rest…” He let the sentence hang in the air like a threat, “...well, you’ll be honorably discharged, unless Neptune himself sends a special order of reassignment. Now, share with me your Profiles.”

My stomach twisted as I opened my System Screen and accepted Ariel’s message request. Unlike Shea, it was not a fair exchange. I received nothing but the basic:

[New message from: Ariel MacNamara.]

[Access to Player Profile Requested]

[Accept?]

No ability to see Ariel’s profile, see what he’s working with, what he’s doing. But I knew from the way that people criticized my old platoon leader, he had a strange manner of running things. So, perhaps this would just be the new norm. My leaders are aloof enigmas, and I am an open book.

However, that didn’t concern me right now. What concerned me was the selection process that was going on. Ariel was infamous for taking only the strongest, only those he saw with genuine potential for greatness.

Everything I wasn’t.

“Rory,” Ariel called out, gesturing to the merman, who was currently looking worse for wear. His copper scales were burnished with red, and a stolen, rebel harpoon was strapped across his back. “You’re with me.”

Rory straightened, mustering a sigh of relief as he swam forward and saluted Ariel. He did look at home there, among the ranks of the great. “Thank you, MacNamara, sir.”

Next, Ariel’s eyes flitted over to another merman, Kellan, whose tail had been mangled in the battle. He hovered anxiously, assuming this was his mention of honorable discharge. “You have spirit, Kellan. I saw you fighting, saw how you lost that tail. You’re in, as long as the medics can fix you up enough to swim.”

The selection went on for a little longer, Ariel going down the line of profiles, giving his yesses, his nos, and his prayers for those that did not make it. It seemed anyone who fought was taken in and given gentle compliments from their new leader. I knew what was coming. I did not hold my ground in the face of the rebel onslaught, no. I only held Shea. I surely would not be plucked and absorbed into Ariel’s elite unit.

“Ridire,” Ariel said, his voice laced with finality. “You’re not fit for my platoon. You’re soft, too soft. Softer than your dead leader. You lack discipline and strength, and, frankly, your age is working against you.” Momentarily, he gave me a once-over, looking at my frame, my body, with a critical eye. “You’ve let yourself go. Or, perhaps, you never even lost your… baby fat.”

I swallowed hard, my face burning red with embarrassment. The words stung, and the way they were spoken so bluntly, so void of venom, made it all the worse. Ariel didn’t believe he was being cruel—he believed he was stating a fact. And it hurt because it was true.

“Take this as a blessing, Ridire. You don’t want this life, you’re not cut out for war. If you stay, Shea will be your first death of many. Can you truly handle that?”

His words made me think.

Could I handle that?

Could I truly watch another die? And could I move on so easily?

No… I don’t think I could. But I also did not want to leave, did not want to be cast aside. How am I still not enough? How, after all this, am I still a reject? My father and mother were right. I’m a mooch. Worthless and unskilled. And it’s all of my own volition. I had everything working for me, I had good genes, a talented father, connections into the military, and yet…

I am nothing.

But I didn’t want to be. Not anymore!

“No… I have to fight. Shea wanted me to learn magic, he wanted me to—”

“Enough, Firth. My decision is final—gather your things and go home.”

With that, he turned away from me, moving onto the rest of the survivors without a second glance.