As the witch had suspected, a group of bewildered traveling merchants had been the only cause for the army's misplaced concern. Lectured on their inability to keep to the roads at more respectable hours, they were sent on their way, and Pike was released from the carriage.

When he joined Min and Rel at their makeshift camp, the witch's words were plaguing his thoughts.

"Hey Min, do you remember the boy that lived up the hill from Hafing's warehouse?" asked Pike.

"The undertaker's son? How could I forget? As they lowered my grandmother's coffin I saw that little shit riding his father's shovel like a horse around the woodshed. I whacked him so hard when I caught him, the mourners thought his tears were of grief. No one could understand why he was so sad to see her go. Didn't his family move south somewhere?"

"From what I remember," said Pike. "Can you recall, the time he used to run to my house and hurl sticks at me? I never really knew why."

"Oh I remember that," said Rel, "My brother knew him better than I did. But... they weren't sticks."

"They were," challenged Pike, "I burnt them on the fire for a whole winter."

"Not sticks exactly," said Rel, "I mean, maybe he started out that way, but he was far too twisted not to push things further. They were pieces of coffin. I guess it amused him, throwing off-cuts of coffin wood at a boy whose father was likely dead..."

"Did he hate me that much?" asked Pike, "Why? I never even spoke to him, much less provoked him."

"Why does anyone hate?" Min chimed in, "He probably hated himself. That, or he was really just a monster."

"Monsters hate..?"

"Why else would they take such delight in hurting others?" offered Rel. "Take your witch for example, she'd likely kill us all if she could."

"Not my witch," said Pike.

"Are you defending her now?" asked Rel, "Has she charmed you with her beauty?"

"No," said Pike, "I mean, she's not mine. Choose your words more carefully next time, people could misunderstand."

"What people? The soldiers?" asked Min, "Are you worried they'll take you off feeding duties and put you to work with the rest of us? Digging latrines isn't all that bad, if anything, my arms are getting stronger."

"Feeding it's by far the harshest punishment already," said Rel, "It's not like anyone else would be willing to do it."

"Because they hate the witch?" asked Pike, "Doesn't that make them the monsters?"

"Now that's a different thing entirely!" cried Min, "The witch gave them reason to hate. You have to understand, Pike, there are those that bring about their own destruction. The witch is one of them. To hate the innocent speaks only of your own shameful character, but to hate the guilty... that's as it should be. Only a saint or a psychopath would pity them."

Before the witch had mentioned it himself, Pike never considered being tainted by his association with him. It wasn't hard labor he'd begun to fear, but the prospect of punishment for something he hadn't done... that the witch was to be punished for something that he hadn't done.

"Is that my cup you've got there?" asked Min, "I was wondering where it'd got to."

"Let me have a lend of it," said Pike, "just until we reach Velmund." 

While the soldiers snored, and his friends tossed and turned on the hard dirt floor, Pike swirled his fingers incessantly around the cup; feeling nothing but the water it contained. He thought for a second there was a glimmer of resistance, but it was only the pruning of his skin that had left him confused. He threw the saltwater out and got what sleep he could. In his dreams, he was floating beneath the waves of Hofingrad. Alone.

The following morning, Pike felt the resistance. Not in the water, but in the passing of the hours. It was as though time had slowed and he was caught in it. He was lingering outside the carriage long before he received the call to feed the witch. In every second that ticked by, his patience was tested. He realized too late that the witch had never drunk his fill of water. He was as keen to slake the prisoner's thirst as he was to learn more about his magic.

"Here," said Pike, pushing the stone flagon directly to the witch's lips as soon as he had scrambled inside the carriage.

The witch drank, almost choking on the constant stream he was fed, and unable to raise his hands to slow the warden's pace. As he shook his head free, the water spilled messily down his chest. 

"That's enough," panted the witch, "That's more than enough."

"But you must have been parched," Pike replied, "And it seemed to take an eternity before I could come to you."

"I've lived through worse," said the witch, his lips forming into a smile once the breath had returned to his body.

Pike pulled a cloth from his armor and proceeded to dry the witch's clothes.

"You can't keep sitting like this... the damp will seep into your bones. What if I ask them to unchain you for a spell? Just to stretch your legs and dry yourself in the sun?"

The witch near cried. He knew too well there was no respite from the harsh journey, and yet the hope in the young man's simple solution affected him greatly. There was still a soul alive that thought he deserved some kind of dignity; even if it would never come.

"You shouldn't think too much of me," said the witch, "They won't thank you for your suggestion. Your efforts are more than enough. At least, I am thankful for it..."

"What is there to thank?" asked Pike.

"Ah yes, I forgot. You're only doing your job," said the witch.

"I mean, I haven't done anything for you, not really. But I want to..." Pike confessed, "Even if you are a monster."

An awkward shame was etched across the witch's face. He had almost forgotten, that even the basic kindness awarded to him was not without its conditions. Even if you are a monster... Tears welled uncontrollably as the words of denial caught in his throat.

"I brought the cup," said Pike, "Can you show me again this time? Teach me the words to make the light come back?"

"I... there isn't time..." said the witch.

"Didn't you say time works differently the other side of the water? Can't you take me there?"

"Through a cup?" asked the witch, "It's only big enough for a couple of fingers. What use would that be?"

"Well, I don't know," admitted Pike, "I thought there might be something more you could do with your magic. Is that all you can do? Split the water like that?"

The years of meditation and training involved in all he 'could do' were suddenly painted as worthless. The witch's last shred of pride was torn.

"What more were you expecting?" he asked, "If I had the power to shift through an inch of water, what would I still be doing here? If I was a vicious enough monster to rip through the blood of a living man and flood their body as I could, do you think the soldiers would have caught me?"

"Their blood?"

"The power I wield is far greater than you could dare to dream, and yet it is not limitless."

"You can rip through their blood?" asked Pike, "So why don't you? Do they need to be closer for the spell to work? Is that it?"

The witch's tear-stained face stared aghast in the dim light of the carriage.

"You think I could kill so easily? With no remorse or repercussions on my soul?! I know you think me a monster, but I could not kill. I have not killed. There is no life so undeserving that I would think to take it for my own!"

"Then why are you here?" demanded Pike, "Why are you chained like an animal? Why do they detest you? Why is your life so undeserving that they plan to take it from you?"

He couldn't understand it. Not only why the witch was a prisoner, but why he cared so much about this stranger's fate. Nothing made sense. He wiped the tears from the witch's face as they carelessly tumbled down across his cheeks. A surge of emotion carried him to action; mindlessly pressing his lips to those of the sobbing man before him.

The bound and shaking form of the witch was silenced, the rough and clumsy kiss robbing him of the air with which to cry. The warm breath and touch of his skin came unexpectedly, and left in the same, sudden manner.

"Why did you..?"

"You were crying..." Pike explained, as though to justify it to himself, "What else was I supposed to do? The guards would think you were begging for sympathy. Hurry and eat something, we can talk more later."

As Pike fed the crumbs to the witch's mouth, he thought of the moment their lips had touched. The moment of insanity that had driven him to greater intimacy than he had ever known. Even his mother had not kissed him since his father had left. It was on that day that he became a man, a provider. There was no place for the softness of another's lips upon his skin.

His heart pounded and his mind reeled, the rush of cool Cimbran breeze hitting his body as he exited the carriage. His first kiss. A man. A prisoner. He tried to convince himself of his honest intentions, that he had only sought to silence his tears. And yet, the witch no longer cried, and still he wanted to kiss him.

"That was quicker than expected," said Rel, as the dazed Pike nearly walked into him, "Yesterday it seemed to take you twice as long. Was it feeling more cooperative today?"

"Rel. Hafing's eldest daughter, wasn't it? You wanted to buy her a ribbon."

"Like the fool I am," said Rel, "I didn't know that Min had got there first. Don't tell me you did too?! Hofingrad is much too small a place to find a mate. Though I didn't think you were the sort."

"What's that supposed to mean?" asked Pike.

"Well, you've never so much as looked at a girl, let alone made a pass at one," said Rel, slipping an arm around Pike's shoulders and lowering his voice, "Unless... don't tell me!"

Pike looked at the empty sackcloth and flagon in his hands.

"What? Just say it..."

"Unless, you've been keeping secrets, young Pike! Have you got yourself a sweetheart back at home we don't know about? Anyone but Hafing's eldest, at least tell me that much!"

"Why would I have a sweetheart in Hofingrad?" asked Pike, "The only ones there are the ones we grew up with. Wouldn't it be strange? To think about them that way?"

"It's even stranger not to think of them at all!" Rel replied, "But no matter, if there's no one who's captured your heart then at least it's free. You and I can find a pair of beauties in Velmund! I'm sure there'll be a fair face that can tempt you from abstinence."

Rel delivered two sharp pats on Pike's shoulder and continued on his way. The conversation had done little to assuage the torrent of overwhelming emotion that the witch had stirred within him. He should have known better than to try and make sense of things with Rel's help; Rel barely made sense in the first place.

The camp packed and the soldiers ready to move once more, their aching legs and bent spines fighting the constraints of their armor as they willed their bodies to continue onwards. Pike's eyes were fixed to the carriage as it rattled ahead. Inside was the witch... the first man he had ever kissed. 

He watched as it got further away from him, his pace quickening, pushing him onwards that the witch would not be removed from his sight. Rel and Min fell behind as Pike's feet led him closer, the fatigue of travel falling away as he pictured the prisoner; tormented and alone.

He wanted to cut the chains that bound him, to clean his skin and dress him anew in the velvet that he'd talked about. To watch him conjure light within Min's wooden cup, and to swim with him to a world where hatred could not follow. 

Above all else, above each and every impossible dream that drove him; he wanted to kiss the witch again.