"No One Knows"- Gurjin
Recognition. It had mattered to him once, more than he ever cared to let on. To be seen as a soldier, a maudra’s son- not a clown, not a foolish follower dragged into trouble by friends he can’t seem to refuse. Not to hear his name as a throwaway with nothing to distinguish it.
So much has changed.
He and Naia can navigate the swamps better than anyone, and that ends up being his downfall- the Garthim catch him patrolling alone, hours from the others- more at once than he’s ever seen. They have none of the Skeksis’ qualms about the water, legs scuttling through the muck and tearing up thick roots. He runs, but catches himself- he’ll be overwhelmed without help, but if he leads his pursuers to where the rest of the Resistance is hiding, that may be the end of all of them.
Rebel against your planet’s overlords, they said, he thinks wryly. It’ll be fun, they’d said.
Maybe it hadn’t been fun, but it was right.
He makes a split-second choice and takes off the other direction, deeper into the swamps, towards the treacherous spots where the mud gives way to quicksand, and away from any help that might come to him.
They’re fast, pincers already snapping at his heels, and he knows there is no scenario where he sees his friends again. But he’ll be damned if they manage to drag him back to the castle to be drained into a husk. If this succeeds, no one will know. They will search for him and find nothing, but the Garthim will not find them either, or make it back to their masters- and that’s what matters.
He remembers the touch of his sister’s hand, a hundred embraces. Remembers the day Rian named him bold.
That will be enough to sustain him to the end.