Chapter 60: Chapter 56: System Error

The three of us walked at a steady pace. It was strange, I had a feeling that we’d been going on too long, that our destination hadn’t gotten any closer, that our quest was useless. But at the same time something about this last crossing of the river had felt final. Something had changed, at least. I wasn’t the person who had left the Demon Queen’s castle, not really, let alone the person who had arrived here so long ago. 

 

I looked at Sally. She was quiet, her hood up. She’d gone through some changes herself. I don’t know what she’d been like before she ever got here. But when she did she’d spent a long time surrounded by people who were convincing her she was insane and that she’d had her mind messed with, all while suffering massive dysphoria from being displaced into a body that was all too masculine for her. I know I would’ve shattered under that kind of pressure if I’d been allowed to be something else first. 

 

For a moment I paused at this thought. Other than some initial euphoria, I’d spent a remarkably small amount of time really considering what it had been like to finally be a woman. A lot of that had been repression, not allowing myself to acknowledge just how distinctly not-uncomfortable finally being who I’d always wanted to be had felt. But even after coming out to myself, after fully allowing myself to be Liz, I had spent very little time observing myself. The lack of negative feedback from my own body had been very pleasant, of course, but what struck me, now, as the most remarkable was how I just felt comfortable. None of the hateful itch in the back of my mind telling me the world was slightly wrong, and that I was wrong in it. I wouldn’t give it up for the world. Sally had been made to give it up. Daniel and Lisa too, for that matter. I hoped they were doing all right. 

 

But then I’d gotten my fiendish hands on Sally and gave her the body her soul demanded. It had been significantly more seductive and devilish than I’d expected, but she’d seemed ecstatic. She’d been flirty and fun and had spent most of her time flying around, when she wasn’t making regents blush or Erza snigger. She’d been the only person I’d been able to share even the mildest homesickness with. Then we’d traveled and she’d come with. Out of gratitude? Boredom? Loyalty? I didn’t know. But she was with us and I was glad to have her here. I worried she wasn’t. She seemed to grow more quiet by the day. The adventure had taken a turn for the very serious and now it wasn’t fun anymore, not at all. 

 

I walked up beside her. She seemed unhappy. I understood why. But if she was going to be sad, I was going to make sure she at least wasn’t lonely. Or, well, alone. I couldn’t fix someone’s loneliness for them. But I could try to be there for her. 

 

“How are you holding up?” I asked. She looked at me calmly and the corners of her mouth curled up. I liked to hope she understood what I was doing. That she appreciated my attempts to help. Her eyes had that peculiar quality, that heartbreaking look that told you that they’d been in pain but they were used to it by now. I hated that look.

 

“I’m fine,” she lied. She even smiled. 

 

“No,” I said. “You’re not.” I wasn’t going to just let her be like this, clearly hurting, without at least letting her know I knew. She sighed deeply. She had been caught. Woe. Kazumi walked a little bit ahead. I knew she was close by enough to help if she needed to, but far enough to give her some privacy. Obviously, she’d also noticed Sally’s changed behaviour. Her mood had taken a swing down when we’d entered the Redwood and had just sort of stayed there, with only a few small upticks in between.

 

Sally looked at me, and I could tell that just acknowledging the fact that she wasn’t doing well was making her feel everything more keenly. She opened and closed her mouth a few times as her feelings rose and fell like water bubbling on a fire, unsure if it was going to boil over or not yet. I could tell that she was, gradually, taking deeper and deeper breaths in that way I did when I felt like I was going to break down. 

 

“Kazumi,” I said softly, and wrapped my arm around Sally. She broke down instantly. Kazumi slowed down, and I got the feeling she’d seen this coming. She’d been very good at anticipating my own feelings, after all. I guided Sally just off the road to a tree stump where I sat her down. If I thought she’d been crying before, she was properly bawling now. Her tears came hard and fast and she was sobbing. Kazumi sat down on the other side of her and we both held her. I didn’t want to ‘wait until she was done’. She was hurting and I was going to be there for her, and so was Kazumi. She started hyperventilating so I tried to steady my own breathing and urged her to copy mine. It seemed to help and after a while her laboured breathing turned into soft sniffling. She looked at me and opened her mouth. I smiled warmly at her. 

 

“Don’t you dare say sorry,” I said, and she smiled back. She closed her eyes and a couple of leftover tears drew wet lines on her face.

 

“Okay,” she mumbled, opened her mouth as if to apologize for apologizing, and closed it again with a slight, broken giggle.

 

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” I said. Kazumi softly rubbed her back. 

 

Sally leaned her head on my shoulder. I could tell she wanted to say something, but she wasn’t finding the words, not without it hurting. I wasn’t going to push her. She needed to find them on her own. The sobbing had stopped, but every time I heard her inhale to say something, she cried, softly stuttering her way through the tears. Finally, something came out. 

 

“I want to go home,” she said, softly.

 

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I’d never wanted to go home since arriving here. Not once had I felt the urge to go back. It had never felt like home to me to begin with. It didn’t matter how much I missed some foods or shampoos. This world was home. These people were home. Perhaps much too selfishly, and because she’d seemed so, well, at ease here, that I’d never considered the possibility that things weren’t that cut and dry for her. Sure, she’d been happy at first, but with a war going on, herself and the people she cared about being in actual physical danger, I could imagine a stable or at least comfortable home life sounded a lot more appealing to her right now. 

 

“My parents aren’t bad people,” she said. I didn’t know where she was going with this but I let her speak. Comparing her experience with her relatives with my own wasn’t going to help much, in this situation. “I just… I’ve been raising my little sisters. I’m not… I’m not ready to be a parent, you know?” I didn’t, wasn’t sure what she meant. I gave her an encouraging nod so she’d continue. “Mom and Dad are out of the house all the time. I graduated high school and now I’m just… working, when I can. And taking care of my sisters the rest of the day. I can’t go back to that. It was killing me.” Ah. She looked at me and I could tell she was ready to cry again. “I miss them,” she said. “I just… I don’t want to go back, but I want to have them back and I don’t know what I have to do and I don’t even know if I can go back and they must think I’m dead and--” and that’s where her voice broke and she started crying again. Family stuff was difficult. I could see my father’s face, the stoic patriarch, flash in the back of my head and I pushed him away. He didn’t deserve a seat at my mental table. Unless the memory of my parents had anything useful to contribute, I wasn’t going to waste time thinking about them. They weren’t going to be living in my head rent-free. 

 

I softly pressed my forehead against hers. I didn’t have the same experiences, obviously. She seemed to love her parents, her family. They seemed to love her. It was the pressure of the life she’d lived that she’d found an escape from. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d avoided even thinking about her family for most of her life here. That she’d just hid it all away so that she could have been free of the responsibilities and stress. But now everything here was also stressful and the escape fantasy had become something of a nightmare too. 

 

“I understand,” I said, and she cried again. I softly kissed her forehead and she leaned into me again. I wrapped my arms around her and softly rubbed her back. 

 

“I’m s--” she started.

 

“Bad,” Kazumi and I said together. Sally giggled a bit again. I softly bopped her on the head. “When we get back to the castle, we’ll look into a way for you to go back, even if it’s temporary.”

 

“But without Sabine…” she said. That hit me right in the heart and I tried not to let her see me tense up like I’d just been slapped. 

 

“I-if she could do it, I’m sure someone else could too,” I said. “We’ll find a way.” I sighed and locked eyes with Kazumi over Sally’s shoulder. She looked as pained as I felt. She had her hands clutched to her chest as if she was covering a wound. I could certainly feel it. The weight of Sabine’s soul-stone pushed against my chest, a reminder of having failed to protect her, and the hope that I might see her again some day. 

 

“We should keep moving,” Sally finally said, wiping her eyes. 

 

“Are you sure?” I asked. I didn’t want to push her to move if it was going to cause her to break again, more, later. She nodded in the affirmative, and we all got up and before she could try to simply walk it off, I pulled her into a hug. Kazumi got one in, too, and Sally seemed to be in better spirits as she took off walking. I softly kissed Kazumi and both of us shed a tear for what we’d lost. This pain was going to be with us for a long time, but we had each other. We held hands for a few moments as we continued walking. It was good to have her so close to me. 

 

As we walked, the scenery began to shift. For a large part of the journey since we’d crossed the Dergow, we’d been surrounded by woodlands, but the area began to clear as we walked. First we saw simple grassland, but further on we began to encounter more and more tilled fields. It was getting close to the end of autumn and the harvest was in full swing. There were people on many of the fields and we figured that, if we weren’t going to be suspicious, we might as well be friendly. A few farmers waved at us as we went and we happily waved back. 

 

It was only after some traveling that we realized that, the larger the farms were, the more of the non-human races we saw working the fields. A moment of horror struck me as I saw some of them wearing collars. I very nearly walked off the path when I saw it, ready to approach them. I was strong enough to take the metal bindings off, I knew that in my soul. That’s when I felt Kazumi’s hand on my elbow. She shook her head.

 

“This isn’t the time to be the hero, my love.” I was about to say something back, perhaps give her a rebuttal, but she nodded her head ‘no’ again. “If you free them now, it’ll make you feel good. And then they will get punished. Maybe killed. This...” She motioned lightly at the surrounding countryside, where on all sides all manner of creatures were working the fields. “...is what we are trying to fight by going to the capital. Give them a voice. You’re not going to be able to help these people escape the system without breaking it.” Kazumi looked at me with pleading eyes. I could tell she wanted to do something about this as much as I did. There were Lamia among the indentured. The sense of injustice was staggering. 

 

I looked at the workers. Some of them had noticed us, though none of them stopped working. Whether that was disinterest or fear I couldn’t tell. It was infuriating. I wasn’t able to help and it made my skin itch. I wanted to yell at something. It was so tempting to be the big hero. I had so much power, but I’d never be punished for it. I turned my eyes to the horizon, where, somewhere out there, was the capital. I had power. Things were going to change. 

“Let’s break the fucking system.”

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