Chapter 2
“This walk never gets shorter, does it boys?” The tallest of them mused aloud, and several of the pack nodded in agreement, silently and wearily following their leader as they trekked over the flattened knolls of the plains, the thick grass visibly rolling in the wind. The dawn was rising ever so slowly, and enough light now shone into the fading night sky to dull the shining stars that had rhythmically littered the open cosmos. With a gust of the unrelenting plains wind, dust blew up in Jakob’s face as they reached the steep hillocks nipping at the farthest edges of the town; these mounds were intentionally built at least a hundred years before to keep people away. People like them.
Jackson led their troop. A vindicator with a grip on his role as strong as on his axe, he was an excellent chief to their party, but an even better sadist with a merciless philosophy. All bit their tongue, but most members of the outpost, and even some at the Mansion harbored ill feelings toward him in some way or another. Only his skilled fighting and empty charm kept him socially afloat; he was favored by higher-ups in the chain of command. It was best to just make nice. They tended to agree with him, but Jakob and the others didn’t exactly enthusiastically jump at his every comment or offer. Except for Johnny.
Jakob’s beloved little brother was attached to Jackson at the hip, shadowing him at all times and mimicking him down to his dress and hairstyle. It was almost as if Jackson had stamped the image of himself onto Johnny, except that the latter was shorter, and slightly nicer. Well, perhaps the uniform he couldn’t help, but he had adopted his crude and cruel sense of humor and even picked up little verbal quirks from him. There was just enough of him left that he was recognizable as family, but Jakob didn’t want to say anything to upset him and risk losing what was left of their brotherhood. Though they were separated by no more than 2 years, he had helped to raise him; he and his older brother Jeremiah were always left to babysit a young Johnny whenever their fathers left to go and run patrols or whatever else it was they did as higher-ups. Now, what was it for? Jackson had ripped away all that bond in just a few short years. However, Jakob chose to push his own conflicted feelings to the wayside and opted not to question how his little brother wished to live or why. The grass was wet and dewy under his boots, and he almost slipped before realizing he’d been staring down toward their steel toes, having zoned out. He became aware again as a different voice found itself singing along the breeze.
“Ain’t so bad with friends,” Johnny chirped, eager to please. Some rolled their eyes, trailing behind the two so they wouldn’t see. Even Jackson’s older brother James shook his head.
“I wouldn’t know.” As Jackson retorted sarcastically, he glanced down to Johnny, who almost seemed hurt, timid as a dog with its tail tucked, and whose face was hot from embarrassment. “Come on, Jon, you know I like to kid ya.” He slung his arm around the boy’s shoulders and side-hugged him, but it read more like a choke hold than a gesture of affection. Moments like this seemed almost purposefully constructed, with Jackson asserting his control and then comforting Johnny to intentionally manipulate him. Most thought of it as casual banter. Jakob saw right through it. He’d only ever mentioned it to Max, his childhood best friend, who had come with him as they eagerly scrambled to sign up for the same outpost as young teenagers; the same one they resided at now.
Max secretly seethed at Jackson, with a genuine hatred for him unlike anyone else Jakob knew of, and he had no idea why, though he felt no need to ask. He seemed to be fine and on good terms with the vindicator when he first ported in as an apprentice alongside Jakob’s uncle William, joining, and eventually leading, their outpost, but it just seemed that their relationship spontaneously soured one day. He never told Jakob why, but he assumed it was some personal business it was best not to be involved in. Illagers tended to be like this; they avoided everyone else’s personal troubles at all costs, and although it led to many questionable situations, anything that happened behind closed doors tended to stay there. Whatever had occurred between them, Max only listened to orders and never interacted with him outside of that, generally preferring the company of his other peers or watching over his assignment. Jakob tended to agree. Oftentimes, though, Emma would be in the village in the daytime, making observing her safely a difficult task.
Speaking of which, they approached the fenced in edge of the farmers’ ranch. The fields were far off, but a figure could be seen working them in the wee hours of the morning as the group rounded one of the storage outbuildings nearer the plains edge of the property. The patrol looked to Jackson as he let go a smirk and a snort-laugh, “Hey, watch this.” They didn’t even try to argue against his more dangerous antics anymore, and none breathed a word as he slid over the short fence and picked up a small stone, no bigger than could fit in his closed fist. His battle axe clattered against the wood fence, causing it to wobble and creak as he banged the blunt end against the old, seasoned wood. The farmer’s head shot up from their work, and they stood up using their hoe like an old man might a cane. The figure was a little more clear now; hobbling toward them was an experienced older farmer whose white beard hung nearly to his chest. The others hesitated and hung back as Jackson stepped forward. This particular man was not to be trifled with; he was afraid of nothing, having survived his whole life out in these fields and woods, harassed and attacked and beaten to hell, and despite his age, he still talked a tough game. Talked.
“Son!” He yelled across the ever-closing distance between him and Jackson, “I suggest you get the hell away from this place and stay that way before I get to you.” His bluff had been called before he’d uttered a word, and neither of them backed down.
“Don’t worry big man,” he teased the skinny old farmer, “you won’t make it that far.”
Nelson, an older pillager in the group, almost tore over the fence at Jackson’s retort. They really could not afford a direct conflict right now - or worse, killing one of the villagers. Not because they were morally against it, but if they were going to be monitoring their assignments and planning a raid, they couldn’t have the entire village, and, in turn, the humans, on high alert and building up their defenses. “Jackson, asshole, I get you’re in charge but we have a lot more important shit to do. Stop torturing the locals and let’s go.” Nelson hissed and waved, beckoning him back over, but with his other hand he kept an iron grip on the cracked, splintery wood of the gate, ready to hop over if need be.
Jackson turned to protest, but realized there might be some degree of wisdom in the older man’s words, and he acquiesced. Still, he was mildly angered by the suggestion that his leadership was inadequate. Walking toward the fence, he spoke in a low but irritated voice, “I am only stopping because it’s the best move in the long run, not because you told me to.” As he straddled the wood post in getting back over, the old man gleefully hurled insults directed at the illagers. No one cared.
“... and look at you runnin’, bein’ an idiot coward, boy!” The leading vindicator snapped, slinging the rock at the old man from the fence. It thunked hard as it struck against the wooden handle of the hoe, right next to the old villager’s head, close enough for him to feel the wind off it. He was silent. Turning on his heel, he wordlessly old-man-limped as quickly as he could back toward his field home for help, while Jackson cackled as his feet finally met the ground again.
“See? They’re still scared. No ball on these guys.” He stretched and sighed contentedly as he gestured toward the still-dark tree line, grinning at the others, who appeared desperate to escape his presence “Arright, let’s get the fuck outta here.”
The group split up as they walked, branching off onto different memorized paths toward where their assignments usually hung around, so they could gather information and discover more about them. Although most went on alone, Jakob was tailed by Jackson and Johnny; Emma’s camp was on the way to Ferra’s - Jackson was assigned to her - and hers was close enough to Akio’s daily living and working space that Johnny utilized it as an excuse to linger by Jackson’s side as long as possible. Jakob had never actually witnessed them part whenever they outed for the week; it was entirely plausible that their absence was spent together after he departed for Emma’s clearing, and that Jackson never even really watched his assignment. It would be typical of their leader. Jakob was pretty certain Jackson only knew his assignment’s name because Jakob had heard Emma mention it in passing when she and the redhead were talking to each other. He delighted in their banter, but Jackson would ruin that enjoyment with ceaseless rude comments about them if he and Jakob ever did manage to run into each other when their assignments met up. Thankfully, their interaction while in the woods was mostly limited to walking to the village together, and visiting each other’s camps was a rare occurrence; he surmised that Emma and Ferra’s nigh-unbreakable bond was forged from time spent together at the stronghold and village rather than out here.
Emma spent most of her time at her camp conducting experiments or following already-set recipes to produce all types of potions and powders with intense magical properties. The monitor and assignment tended to match each other, but with her sudden arrival, they needed someone quickly and did not discriminate or screen for the best fit. The choice had been between him and Robert on account of their assignments being essentially glued to each other, and the responsibility of monitoring each could easily be consolidated to one member of the outpost. Robert had been working with his assignment for much longer than Jakob, and the younger volunteered to switch roles. As it turned out, her skills struck very close to home for him - he had once been through a small degree of alchemical training when he was younger and had aspired to become an Evoker like his father. He had only a faint idea of most of her work, but wrote what he could manage to understand about her innovations. This was surprisingly useful. Within the last year, with help from his father, their entire mansion was able to phase out the need for large volumes of liquid potion and now most effects were achieved with far more concentrated syrups and even dry, dissolvable tablets that were easily able to be carried.
Oh, yeah, gotta take that right about now. He had been so engrossed in thought and staring at the forest canopy that he had almost passed over the most crucial step of the routine; their invisibility tablets were their best defense against detection, allowing them to spy for much longer than the large bottled potions - and they tasted less terrible, too. It really wasn’t a huge deal if they got caught and killed; not only did they carry totems and play dead until they could get away, and if worse came to worst, his father could resurrect them. It did still leave some scars depending on how quickly everything was taken care of. Humans could be so violent, and did not react as predictably as villagers, who, with the exception of an occasional verbal protest, consistently fled in terror at the sight of them. Some humans’ reactions were more visceral than others, but some hesitated, allowing them to leave if they wanted to, before trying to engage in a fight. He had once had an experience, somewhat foggy to him now, of once stumbling into a society established far, far outside his homeland, wherein humans and villagers, and illagers lived without violent conflict, and some had even treated him well. It seemed more like a dream these days. Shaking off the thought and unlatching his waterproof leather pouch, he produced a tab no larger than a sweetberry and quickly placed it under his tongue, allowing it to dissolve. The other two took note, but chose to wait until they were further into the “danger zone” before taking the necessary precautions. “I would warn against that, but knock yourselves out,” he disapproved.
“Oh shut it. Jackson and I know what we’re doing.” Johnny’s words stung him. It wasn’t that he expected him to listen, but having him react so strongly just made it seem as though they weren’t even on friendly terms sometimes. “Besides, you don’t even need to worry so much if she ever did catch you watchin’. You could take her!” He paused. Not content without a verbal approval from Jackson, he continued, “And look at me, my guy is huge ! You ain’t even in actual danger, yours is so easy; meanwhile I’m bein’ brave over here and risking my friggin’ life-”
Jakob cringed, wanted to pinch the bridge of his nose, but opted to just silently sigh to himself as Johnny’s tone went sour and he readied himself for the incoming insult. And here we go.
“- you know, sometimes I just think we should switch and maybe you’d toughen up and learn to stop being such a puss.” Jackson snickered at his last comment, and Jakob thanked whatever magical mechanism managed to fade away his form as he felt his face flush hot and dark with irritation, and he bit his bottom lip to keep himself from retaliating. He had never so much as raised a hand to his little brother, and he certainly never planned on hurting him physically or emotionally, but lately it had become much, much easier to consider it. He brewed.
“Nah, nah, Johnny, you gotta watch the big guy,” Jackson reinforced the younger vindicator’s ego while wrapping his arm around his shoulder, axe in hand, “See, you’re all squirrely and sneaky; that asshole wouldn’t be able to catch you if he tried! You’re perfect for it.” He nudged him in the center of his back in approval. The pair continued their self-serving chatter as Jakob tuned them out, desperately hoping that time would accelerate so he could split before he said anything and risked pissing off either of them.
He took off as soon as he came upon his landmarker: two rocks stacked in an odd fashion with a scrap of pink weathered fabric stuck between them. Pink had been his choice for Emma - although most of her clothes were some fashion of yellow; her braided blonde hair ended in soft pink tips, and whenever he saw that pink hue, it reminded him of her. He wondered if the color was natural on humans.
Spring had sent the world many gifts, like the bright green stems sprouting from the tips of bushes and treetops before him, some terminating in bright buds and blossoms. As a child he’d made many a crown and weave of flowers of different patterns. Usually, he and his peers would create the accessories and promptly tear them to pieces as a kind of catharsis; it was encouraged by elders if perhaps only to instill a certain level of brutality and hard-heartedness that would prove essential for their social survival at a later stage in life. It seemed so unfair to permanently destroy such beautiful and gentle things, who were simply radiating color and life to bring joy to the world. It would be more appropriate, he thought, for them to meet their ends as gifts.
But he supposed they were just flowers, after all.
As he passed a bush, he ran his hand through the petals and hard buds, daring to pluck one off of its stem and absentmindedly fidget with it in his fingers. He almost felt bad tossing it aside - what right had he to take and to waste its existence? The notion was difficult to brush off, but trudging forward through the stomped-down scrub of the woodland floor, he managed to convince himself to forget it entirely. He was supposed to be hardened; they were supposed to be a people of little empathy for all that was not them, or, at least, this was a lesson he had understood from the teachings of his kin. They were obligated to serve themselves as individuals first, and then to aid each other, and they deferred to or sacrificed for none outside of this ingroup. It was their own bubble. Occasionally, upon seeing the humans’ and villagers’ lively and loving ways of life and their taking comfort in one another, it was a bubble - no, a barrier - he desperately wished to dismantle.
Although, sometimes he suspected he wasn’t the first one. Max constantly chittered about his assignment - a girl named Bonnie. He knew Bonnie almost as well as Ferra - she and Emma would also visit each other at their respective encampments sometimes. As an armor-worker, the girl was less concerned with the whole “killing and violently defending the people with weapons” aspect of her position, and like Emma, observed a more friendly and accepting approach concerning illagers, and thought they were simply misunderstood and bitter through some kind of ancient injustice. As if, he thought. They were just as brutal and backwards as the older humans seemed to think of them. But this odd leniency seemed to have drawn the two girls together, regardless of how flawed their viewpoints might be. From the beginning, Max had adored her - from her pastel aesthetic to her lack of bias against them, he never had a bad thing to say when it came to her. Sometimes, he even outright praised his assignment. As if he were in love from afar. He shook off that thought, too. Ha! Max? In love with a human? That’d be a riot. But if it were true, then he -
He had reached the clearing without realizing it. His feet froze to the dew below as he prayed he hadn’t made any noticeable noise, but even if he had, he would not be visible. The strange alchemy had taken its effect in full. He inched along silently, scanning for movement in the camp as he drew closer, spying nothing, until finally he stepped foot onto the tree root and hauled himself up the branches onto the barely-visible platform of a hunter’s blind; it was a well-hidden structure to any who didn’t know to look for it. After clawing his way to the very top, he set down his bag and bow and, one final time, gazed out into the clearing for movement. The sturdy tent at the edge of the property stirred, and the rough beige canvas flew up from the entrance it sealed as a boot kicked at it once, sharply, allowing a much-encumbered figure to escape its clutches as she hauled several large boxes out of the structure all at once and hurried over to the table scattered with devices, glasses, and substances of all kinds.
It seemed Jakob had gotten lucky. She must have woken up some time before and begun preparation for the day’s work, and he’d made his entrance at such a moment that she missed him entirely. Now, the problem lay with getting down without her noticing. However, with such confidence as he had after repeating this routine for nearly a full year, he simply jumped back to the forest floor below, leaving his items sprawled on the platform high above. His boots were something else, specially crafted for mobility and sound suppression, and they allowed him to fall just about however far he pleased without a hint of harm tormenting him. With this, he crept ever closer toward the main event. As Emma scuttled back to her tent once again, the bags she’d dropped hastily piqued his curiosity, and slowly, he moved aside the top of one of the sacks, finding oddly warm, crystalline rods whose visages ever-shifted between warm, fiery colors. The fuel. He cracked a smile and shook his head, wishing he could have chuckled out loud; for the last several weeks she had been mentioning to her peers that she’d been meaning to pick some up, and he’d watched her supply crumble down to one last stick, and not but a few days before he had witnessed her hold this last crystal to the sky in some kind of prayer and sigh before loudly proclaiming, “If this isn’t enough to heat up this last batch and the process reverses I will personally horse kick your ass.” For a moment it seemed as if she were talking to him instead of her apparent strange deity. He’d been so taken aback by the unexpected hilarity that he’d doubled over and nearly fell to his knees, silently reeling in laughter, and it was one of those times where he was certain he would blow his cover and cackle until he cried. Humans were such hilarious creatures when caught at their best. He didn’t know how he was supposed to hate her.
The rods chimed delightfully as he ran his fingertips across their surfaces. Sensing a stirring to his left, however, he backed away as Emma once more hurried in his direction to finally unload the last of her supplies. She unpacked wonders one after another, some of which he had been familiarized with, but then there came a few that he had never seen. First there came a kind of thin, leathery sheet, dried and shriveled, tucked away like leaves in a little paper tea box. Even standing at the far end of the table from her, he could smell the ghastly things, which stank like dead fish and dry bones, and to his horror, she had grabbed a pot with water, tossed two of the little mystery stench bombs into it, and allowed it to heat over the newly-fueled burner. Just please don’t drink it, he thought as they steeped and she tended to the rest of her mess, I will never be able to look at you the same way again.
Finally, satisfied with her sorting, Emma began distilling the standard base of most of her potions - a simple solution of water with the essence of a red fungus, which she had only ever referred to as “wart” in her notes, and pour the solution into a kind of titration contraption affixed with a thin metal rod acting as a drip spigot, which would allow her to drip the solution slowly into a container below. However, this time, instead of having a different ingredient waiting in the receptacle at the bottom of the device, he witnessed her pull the now-hydrated membranes taught across a kind of strainer, she placed it under the spigot. He realized now that whatever this new ingredient was, it must act as some kind of strainer, although what it might filter out was a mystery to him.
He had been so entranced by this new experiment of hers that he’d almost forgotten to keep his distance, having been drawn closer by curiosity, and he nearly bumped her as she swiftly turned and grabbed her notebook from directly in front of him. He nearly fainted from fright. Luckily he was still aware enough to make not a sound as she scribbled in a diagram followed by words, a list, exclamation points, all with excitement as she observed this new phenomenon. After a moment, he finally realized it, too - after being passed through the membrane, the drops of the liquid potion themselves had a strange, shimmery property, and fell somehow awkwardly into the bottom jar. They did not splash as if they were regular water droplets, but somehow did not seem to adhere to gravity, splashing to the bottom with a much lower velocity than normal water. They fell slowly.
“If I’m right - !” Emma thought aloud, interrupting his focus, and he listened to her intently, hanging on every word. “Oh, oh! If I’m right we might as well be flying after this. Goodbye synthetic Elytras, and hello life-saving antigravity potion! Or...” She seemed to think the term sounded a bit too technical. Musing, she kept trying to name it in her book rather than focusing on the reaction taking place. “Antigravity potion, no - falling from heights potion? Weird. And long. Okay, cliff potion, mountain potion. Potion for anti-falling…” The brewbottle below had filled to the top, yet the drip continued as she turned her back, negligent to the burnplate she had left active just to the left of the thing. “Potion of not falling. Falling slowly. I guess that would do for a placeholder.” Jakob looked to her, to the ever-overflowing bottle, and back to her, desperately wishing to intervene. It would not be the first time she’d gotten so comfortable and confident in her work ability that for a moment, she turned her back, but for his brief time understanding her art, he already knew that the first rule of alchemy was never to turn your attention away from an active experiment. Though it was risky, and thinking she might very well look back at the very moment he would be adjusting the setup, he swiped one of the glass bottles to the right and carefully moved the first bottle away, immediately settling the second, empty bottle below the drip. Quickly backing away, he hoped she might simply think she did it and had forgotten, or wouldn’t notice at all.
Perhaps she was a bit reckless, but the girl wasn’t stupid. When she looked back and the new bottle sat where she had left the first, she gasped, primarily at the fact that the bottles had inexplicably traded places in her absence, and then at the small flame that appeared when the run-off from the overflowing first bottle met the still-hot burner. Regretting her negligence, she rushed to flick the switch on the burner and frantically planted it coil-first into the sandy ground beneath the workstation to quash the flames. Seemingly more inconvenienced then worried, she tended to the rest of the spill, exasperatedly sighing “Okay, I get it, you are not fire-retardant,” as if talking to the mixture. Though her annoyance at the almost-fire faded as quickly as it had risen, and once again she stared horrified at the second bottle, now half-full as nearly all of the solution had been passed through the membrane. She glanced around the camp. “Ferra? Bonnie? Are you two out here playing tricks on me? Quit it!”
Jakob stood stock-still. Shit.
At the lack of response, Emma shook her head, plugging the first full bottle. “I swear I didn’t move this, did I? Maybe I’m going insane.” He felt a bit miserable at that last comment; he was only trying to discreetly help her, not gaslight her into doubting her own ability. Then, to his confusion, she cracked a wide grin and snickered. “Heh, I suppose I have a ghost. Or a guardian angel. In which case, thank you. I realize how that could have gone…” Never had Jakob known a soul to talk to themselves aloud as much as she had in the time he’d known her. If Max offhandedly chattered this much while they were working together, he might have just had to slap him.
But with Emma, it felt... different . Or, perhaps at first it had annoyed him. He’d had some preconceived notions regarding humans not only from the teachings of his elders, but after observing his previous assignment as well. Again, most humans that they came across viewed villagers as perfect cherubs while illagers were met with vitriol, and he had thought the same rhetoric would apply to her. He harbored no hate, but had no soft spot for her either, distancing himself emotionally - and physically, on account of their still using low-quality liquid potion to conduct monitoring at the time. As time went on and he listened from afar, he’d learned of her lack of hatred - no, affinity , for illagers. Once he’d caught her speaking to her flowers, cooing, “If only we could be friends, if only they could hear me, if only…” and so on. At first, he thought she was referring to the plants, but discovered that she was talking to them. About illagers.
From there, as her work was exploited and their transparent charade became longer-lasting, he was able to get close enough, even in the daytime, to observe what life was like for her. He found that she was charming, fun, smart, and generous, and she had friends, and family. Just like them. In some sense, it had developed into a one-sided friendship, and rather than despise or feel indifferent toward her, he found himself wishing he could step out from the shroud, introduce himself, make a genuine friend out of someone he was supposed to hate, prove to everyone back home that the world has changed, and that they could change, too.
What wishful, airheaded, useless thinking. Jakob thought too much, and in the opinion of Jackson and Johnny, did much too little. They seethed at his successful copying of invaluable formulas which he’d brought to his father to make sense out of, and the praise he’d received as a result. Nothing - the love, the jealousy, none of it meant anything to him so long as they lived isolated as they were, when he had the evidence that there was a whole new beautiful world out there standing in front of him. If he ever said anything, though? It would destroy his fathers, who had worked so hard to raise him, and prove to Johnny that Jackson was right. The conflict tugged at his heart as he watched Emma cap one of the formulae, while she poured a portion of the second into a beaker with glee. She ran to a tree at the opposite edge of the woods, chugged the essence, and scrambled up the branches as quickly as she could. He nearly gagged witnessing her actually drinking that, but it didn’t seem to phase her in the least, and as she reached one of the largest upper branches, she pushed off of the trunk and flung herself from it.
Are you fucking crazy?! He started running toward her instinctively, as if ready to catch her, but before he made it halfway across the camp he bore witness to the full effect of the potion and was halted in his tracks. She giggled, almost suspended in air, and was lowered down to the ground as gently as if a giant hand was letting her down from the clouds, raising her fists in victory as her shoes met the soil. Her next steps would be to refine the process and show Thomasin her breakthrough the next time she went back to the stronghold. She had, for lack of better phrasing, reached new heights as far as her experiments went. Jakob, however, stood open in the middle of the clearing, cloaked under the cover of magic, but feeling very much exposed. Moreover, he felt embarrassed, and chided himself for nearly blowing cover for the second time in the same hour over nothing. Perhaps he should have placed more confidence in her.
Relatively speaking, the rest of the day proceeded uneventfully. Jakob even became bored as Emma repeatedly distilled, titrated, and tried to condense the potion. She’d tried to reduce it by boiling, but it evaporated off instead of becoming a syrup or a salt, so she tried using more ingredients and less water, but the waste was so high that it wasn’t financially feasible. Finally, deflated, she huffed and gave up, angrily slamming down the top on a crate she’d decided to store the bottles in, and gave herself a break, leaving it to be a project to continue the next day. In the meantime, she went back to simple gardening tasks, watering and weeding and pruning, and Jakob realized that this was probably the time to quit standing around waiting for something to happen. He scaled his tree again, grabbed his field notes, and prepared to capture Emma’s scribbled ramblings within it. Carefully, making sure her workstation was well out of sight, he flipped open her book and worked quickly to re-create her diagrams, notes, and for good measure, he grabbed one of the stinking dried ingredients out of the wood box on the table. As soon as the last word left his pen, he scrammed.
Later into the night, the dusk painted the sky a desaturated purple, with the bottoms of clouds reflecting red back from the setting sun on the other side of the valley. He gazed back down at the camp from his perch, and saw a warm, bright fire with a figure hunched over it. He wished that she would just sleep already, so that he might be able to steal a few minutes of its warmth while it still smoldered. His notebook and pen sat at the bottom of the sack lazily hanging from a branch above him, containing all of her hard-earned marvels and mysteries. But with how absolutely defeated she had seemed earlier, he realized he almost felt terrible exploiting all her hard work, allowing her alone to go through the trials and tribulations while he and his kin saw only its stolen fruits, all just for it to be used against her. That’s all he felt he ever did, really - steal. If Karma was real, he was sure it would come to haunt him. Or perhaps the guilt on his conscience was punishment enough.
Eventually, Emma rose from her spot at the fire, stretching contentedly after the full day’s work, and without further incident, retired to her tent for the night. Yet, as the night fell sharper, Jakob found himself restless, and hungry. He had neglected to catalogue the day’s events, so he swiped his bag to take with him to the fireside before jumping from the platform again.
Sitting on a log, he wrote almost cathartically, gnawing on a piece of salted, jerkied meat with the warmth of the low fire spreading across his face as he recounted the day. The log book was supposed to be shown to Jackson at the end of every week, to prove the men of the outpost did anything worthwhile, but because the vindicator was lazy and impatient, he never did check them, so Jakob treated his logbook as somewhat of a diary. As long as the pages had visible writing, no one but him would ever actually read them. Sometimes all he snuck in was a snarky and childish “Jackson is a jackASS” in small writing in between sentences, but sometimes he went into longer details about his thoughts and emotions, paying special attention to the new ways humans made him think and feel, and evaluating the worth of these new discoveries. He took a swig of water from his leather canteen after jotting down the last few sentences and concluding notes, sighing as the flames before him turned to smoldering ash.
The day had flashed before him all too quickly, and despite it not being much of a late hour and his inability to rest just a short while before, he suddenly found himself sleepy. Shoving his belongings back into the bag haphazardly, he yawned as he got up and began to stride back to his lookout platform for the final time today. He would have passed her tent on his way, but slowed down until he came to a stop at its entrance. His invisibility was gone by now. This might be the only time he ever got the courage to say hello, and he knew it. After he'd helped her through the woods at night the week prior, she already knew his name, but this could have been just the right moment to tell her who he really was, to confess everything, and to break down the barrier between them. Without him even realizing, he had already pinched the edge of the flap of the tent, but suddenly he became acutely aware, in horror, of the cost of these potential actions. Jakob tore his hand away and stumbled backward as if the tent had been made of red-hot steel that seared his very soul. What if she saw me? Not taking a moment to gather himself, he sprinted to the tree line, disappearing up into the gnarled branches of his post before he had the chance to be so bold and stupid again.
He was still panting in a panic even as he sat at the top shaking his head in disbelief. Somehow, it was exhilarating as much as it was terrifying, and he let one cough of a laugh escape him, running his hand through his hair. This job was starting to get to him. Emma did not come bursting out of the tent screaming, nor did he spot any sign of a stir in or near it at all. She was asleep, then. Trying to shake off the anxiety, he sat with his back against the trunk of the tree, using a torn-up leather jacket as a cover, and his racing mind once again dominated his consciousness as he tried to doze off. He wondered, what did she think of when she went to sleep? Her work? Pets? Might a funny memory lull her to sleep, or does she end the day so exhausted that there’s not a moment to think before her head hits the pillow and she’s out? He smiled. He wondered if she was going to go back and disappear for a while like Robert’s assignments had when visiting family. He wondered what her family was like. What she would think of his. Maybe when she went to sleep, she thought of them, or her friends, or that trader who she’d hole up with every so often when at the village. He almost found himself a little jealous at that thought, no matter how clear they’d always made it that they were just each other’s playthings. He wondered if she ever wanted someone to love. If someone like her would ever go for someone like him.
Dumbass, quit dreaming, he chastised himself, go to sleep.