The water rippled and thrashed to his right.

Activating the lantern, Xander lifted it to look, finding what looked like a white tail floating on the surface.

Diving into the water again, he swam over, groping in the dark water until he found the base of that tail. Grasping her hips, he pulled, but doing so tugged the log next to her.

Blindly groping, he followed her back. Xander ducked under the water and finally found the problem. A strap on her arm guard had gotten tangled on a branch. He popped to the surface for a breath, then dove back down. The strap was hopelessly twisted up, holding Astra’s neck close to the broken log. Pulling his knife, Xander started sawing at the leather.

Unfortunately, her armor was too high-quality to simply cut through.

Coming up for air again, Xander gripped the log as he tried to think of how to handle this. Splashing around in the lake in the dark would get him into trouble soon enough. He could sense monsters lurking in the depths.

Ducking back under, he tried tackling the branch she was attached to, only to end up hurting himself more than he damaged it.

Again, he needed to breathe.

“No help for it,” Xander said and reached for Astra’s Menu. Treading water and dealing with the menu at the same time wasn’t easy, but he found her equipment information and unequipped her shoulder guards and chest armor, unsure which one exactly had gotten tangled.

Something passed beneath him.

Astra’s body was on the move again, heading deeper.

Xander shoved the Scroll into his pocket, but it slipped from his hand before it was secure.

Diving, he swam as hard as he could after the corpse thief.

The lake monster was intercepted by something larger. Xander was only aware of it on an instinctual level. But luckily, the corpse thief released Astra’s body. With just enough time to grab her around the waist, Xander swam for the surface, dragging her with him, then struggled towards shore before the two monsters figured out who would be dining on whom this evening.

Dragging them both up the rocky shore, Xander collapsed to his knees to catch his breath. Lifting the lamp, he looked at her. She had abrasions across her face, and a gash on her forehead. Pale from blood loss, her skin was puffy from prolonged submersion. The worrying part was the sparks of life surrounding her were nearly gone.

“[Resurrect],” he cast. Her health returned immediately. “[Cure],” he added, bringing her up to full, clearing out whatever water remained in her lungs instantly.

She breathed, opened her eyes, and stared at him with no recognition.

Xander had seen that look before in others he’d brought back just barely in time. It would take a while for her to recover mentally. Gathering her against his chest, he staggered to his feet again and walked towards the ruins he could barely make out a short distance from the shore. Finding the remains of a stone building, he entered and set her down.

Pulling the rugs and blankets from his Inventory, he stripped his own equipment and wrapped them both together. It was going to be a cold night and he doubted he’d be able to find any dry firewood after the rains. Better to just share body heat.

Exhausted, he closed his eyes, holding Astra tight as she started to shiver.

***

The darkness haunted her, although this darkness was warm and broken by gentle breathing beside her.

It encouraged rest, which she allowed herself to fall into for a time until there was a sliver of light in the darkness. Still, the heartbeat beside her was calm, the cocoon of warmth reassuring, but Astra could hear birds and the sound of water on rocks.

I drowned, she realized. Someone brought me back... Xander came and got me. She recognized his scent. Moving against him slightly, she realized that neither of them was fully dressed.

What happened?

The rhythm of his heartbeat changed slightly. Lifting the blankets, Xander let some light into their cocoon.

Astra tipped her head to look up at him. His hair was a tangled mess. He had streaks of mud in it and across his face. He seemed to approve of what he saw and lowered his arm, tucking the blankets back around them.

“What’re you doing?” she asked.

“Getting some more sleep,” Xander said. “I chased your corpse for a full day and a half.”

Her ears folded down. She’d been dead for that long?

Astra remembered the first few hours. The option to respawn had been there. She considered doing it... But if Xander had gone back to Aesir, then she’d just be dropping herself back into his business again. So, she’d left it. What did it matter anyway? As time had passed... she’d felt that option slipping further and further from her grasp. By the time she’d decided that maybe she should just respawn, the option was no longer there at all.

Then the cold had settled in. The freezing grip of death chipped away at the edges of her consciousness.

“Who asked you to?” Astra whispered. “You could’ve just gone back to your life and left me.”

Xander sighed.

Astra struggled to free herself from the blankets and sat up, finding that she wore nothing but her leather pants and undershirt. Folding her arms over her chest, she glared at him.

Sitting up, Xander tiredly tucked the blankets around his waist. He’d stripped down to his pants, leaving his pale chest bare. He scrubbed his hand against his cheek, rubbing some of the dried mud off.

She looked away. Despite being a Healer Class, he still had quite a bit of muscle on his skinny frame. It was distracting to look at.

“We need to discuss what happened,” he said finally.

“There’s nothing to say,” Astra insisted, although she wasn’t sure about which ‘what happened’ he meant.

“I took my anger out on you,” Xander said. “You weren’t aware of the damage you were causing. You couldn’t have known. I apologize.”

Pulling her knees to her chest, Astra turned her back to him. “It isn’t like you don’t have a right to be mad,” she admitted.

“Be that as it may, I do not have the right to be angry on the part of others. Especially those who are long dead. It has been five hundred years since the Immortals left. We do not have confirmation that you are alone in returning, but regardless... You were not one of the worst offenders. Given the circumstances, you treated me well.”

“You were still a slave, essentially,” Astra muttered into her knees. “Treating you better than I could’ve doesn’t make it right.”

“You had no way of knowing I was sentient,” Xander said. “I forgive you.”

Astra didn’t want to continue the conversation. It didn’t matter if he forgave her. She didn’t forgive herself. “I’ll send you back to Aesir,” she said instead.

“I lost the Menu.”

She could swear her heart stopped.

Turning to look at him, she found him in the process of equipping his armor. He dropped her leather chest armor and shoulder guards beside her.

“You were tangled with a log. When I got you loose, a lake monster stole your body and I had to take chase again. I lost the Menu in the lake,” Xander said.

Astra couldn’t find words. Her mouth opened and closed a few times before she settled on just silence and put her chin on her knees.

“Do you happen to know how to cook without Crafting?” Xander asked. “I have Razor Boar meat in my inventory.”

“Yeah, but it won’t be very good,” she said.

“Better than nothing,” Xander said and stood, heading out into the sunlight, his filthy hair glittering like stars.

But what was the point? Her Menu was gone and that had been her hope of being able to log out. So now she was just stuck, waiting for her body to die and take her with it? The uncertainty was maddening, and she could not get her hands to close correctly over the buckles for her armor.

Disgusted with herself, she stood, tumbled to the ground, and ended up crawling out of the ruined building to the beach. Where she was going, she had no idea. Throwing rocks at the water seemed like a nice idea, but she could barely get her hands around them. They kept slipping from her weak fingers.

* * *

He could still sense the grip death had on her. Her mind had returned, but her spirit was still not recovered.

Xander couldn’t help the guilt as he glanced out at the lake every time he picked up a piece of driftwood. If he’d not let her just charge off like that... if he could find her Menu... On the other hand, it was a hint that Immortals could die permanently if they were prevented from going to a Soul Stone. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that knowledge.

Returning to Astra, he found her picking through the rocks on the beach, a distant look in her eyes. She’d not put her armor back on. The rocks fell from her fingers frequently, as if she didn’t have full control of her hands, she didn’t even seem to know what she was doing. She was not okay.

Dropping the load of branches, he started setting up a campfire but wasn’t looking forward to what he would have to do to light it. He considered trying to pull some threads and fur off the blankets and rugs. Considering their quality, though, he doubted he’d be able to, much the way he hadn’t been able to cut Astra’s armor the night before.

She looked up at him for a moment, then back down at her rocks. “I can’t seem to move very well,” she said.

“Side effect of being close to permanent death,” Xander said.

“Oh… so, I can die if I don’t respawn in time.”

“Apparently.” He glanced at her. “Usually, it takes longer to reach that point.”

“Maybe I didn’t want to live,” she said.

Xander set down the stick he held. “Why would you give up like that?”

She didn’t look at him, didn’t speak.

“One heated discussion and you decide that dying is your best option?” Xander asked. Her ears twitched. Her hair was hopelessly matted.

“Wouldn’t it be better that way? One less Immortal to worry about.”

“No.”

“Then I’m to spend the rest of my immortality atoning for my sins,” Astra said dully.

Putting his hand to his eyes, Xander sighed. He’d never been very good with people’s emotions. This situation was incredibly uncomfortable. He honestly didn’t know what to do.

“Astra Diane—”

“Jessica,” she said.

“What?”

“That’s my real name. The one my mother gave me.”

Xander hesitated a moment, then asked, “Do you wish to return to your world?”

“What’s the point of that?” she asked. “I’ve got nothing there either.”

Recalling what she’d said of her past, Xander lowered his hand to his lap. While he’d spent the last five hundred years using the Skills she’d given him to improve his lot in life, she didn’t carry any of that over to her daily life. She was only powerful here in Ashguard, and even then, compared to any of the Cursed Ones, she would be very little challenge. She’d come to Ashguard as a relief from her miserable life only to find herself stuck and despised by her only companion.

“I am sorry,” Xander said. “Jessica. I have been nothing but unkind to you.”

“Nah,” she said, still looking at her pile of rocks. “I really should be used to it by now.” The smile she gave was bitter.

Left with no way to make it better, Xander turned back to trying to make a fire.