The irony of it didn’t escape me—actually, I think that’s what was torturing me the most. Having my Pa’s—no my sword swung on my side, latent but just as deadly laying there was it was flashing all the blues of an asskicking. I had Sparkmarrow beside me and I had you perched on my head, this tiny little shit of a lizard but we both knew the badassery you were now capable of; and I had all that, all that and my Pa’s words, his blessing his thing laying across my brow like drops of holy water (sparklight, sparklight, what even the hell is a sparklight) and you know what?

None of it mattered.

I was probably the most powerful I had ever been in my life—the most capable, I guess. And I was still fucking useless. I still couldn’t make it--stop.

I backed up a step—ears were pinning and teeth were gnashing and he was screaming again and it sounded like the shard of crystal was being shoved deeper into his chest with every movement, every word, every spark of crackling anger that ignited between the group. And my chest was aching with his aching chest—but standing there in pain wasn’t helping the poor guy. You dipped down from my forelock, nothing but lizard feets and your tiny lizard tongue, and you plastered yourself on my right eye, gently lapping up the tears that still seeped from them. You knew me, and I guess that means you knew better; you can’t really see out of eyes that are blinded by salt.

My side was throbbing because oh yeah I was burned by some evil-looking black shit after it squirted all over me (I guess someone had been happy to see me, I dunno). But the dull throb of that pain was nothing to what was going on in my head and my chest and everything else. It was drawing the energy from me, pulling my knees even weaker and my ass even smaller and reminding me with every passing second that I had just come back to this plane. I had spent so much time in that sick, sick place—and it seemed only right that I come back to a complete and utter clusterfuck.

Something about that sick world lingered in my eyes—it made everything dark.

Some massive motherfucker had come—and you can bet your ass he had bigger, sweatier balls than I had, cuz he went right up to Lee and was there, just as strong of a pillar as he looked. I didn’t miss the way he treated Lee, even before he told me the stuff. He was so…I don’t wanna say gentle, cuz that brings to mind all kinds of other things and even though he was careful in his movements, there was something more to it. I guess reverent was a better word. Respectful or whatever.

*“Mauja is— was— a lead of the World’s Edge.”*

I was too fucked up to think about the implications of those words.

All I knew is that it cleared up some confusion: When he said the Edge, he really did mean the actual herd. Okay, cool. Got that squared away. That’s not fucking happening.

I just wasn’t sure why Ma was so upset—oh shit, wasn’t she supposed to be part of the Edge now? I had forgotten for a moment in all the bullshit, but it made a little more sense for her to have some reason to be upset now that her herd was pulled into the mix.

Oh ooooookay. So this was some political bullshit happening. And I didn’t give a fuck about any of that.

All I knew was one of my best friends was on the ground—broken, shattered, pulverized--and it was causing me physical pain to see him like that—and I didn’t know what to do about it but I didn’t want to leave him, I didn’t want to leave him, I couldn’t just leave him like this, at his lowest, when the bottom of the world seems to have fallen from his—

--okay, no, fuck this, because someone else had come, some brown and white woman with wings and a voice too soothing to bear right now. You were already moving across my face to lip up the tears on my left eye, but the flow was starting to stem anyway. This mare came up, so close to the elephant bastard and so obviously smelling like the salt I had missed on everyone’s hides—and something was driving itself home in my head.

I backed up; I backed away from Lee (even though it broke my whole ass and then some to do it) and broke away from the throng of—of a herd. His herd. And of all the implications of the huge guy’s words, one of them was starting to finally break on me.

Lee used to be a king.

…and I guess he was one now.

And these were his subjects, I guess? Ma was, too, which felt so much weirder than my brain would allow to process, so it was more of a vague idea than anything, but yeah, Ma was under his rule. And so was elephantitis, and the winged chick, and probably dozens of others who would cry out and feel pain to see their king—

….their king.

Their….

…I backed up another step. And other. And another. Because this shit was getting too stuffy and crowded.

I wasn’t gone yet, though. I didn’t want to leave. He was crazy and sad and on the ground with a corpse that would never, ever be his daughter again—how could I leave him like that? But I was starting to wonder if my pain for him, my lo—uh, my care for him, my concern—

…did it really matter against multitudes?

Who was I to him?

(A friend, probably--)

But who was he?

Who was Lee?

(And once again, we circle back to the one question no one ever really wants to answer.)