Shadow Slave

Some time later, they were hidden in a small cave at the bottom of a deep canyon, sitting in front of a fire. A piece of monster meat was roasting on it, filling the cave with a delicious smell. Sunny was a bit sullen, because it had taken all his knowledge of wilderness survival to make the small fire... snowy reaches of Antarctica were not exactly the best place to search for fuel.

He had almost been forced to use the divine flames of the Cruel Sight to cook, which would inevitably result in an atrociously burned dinner for him.

Currently, Sunny was passing time by trying to play a simple melody on a flute made of emerald bone. Kai would have probably become ill if exposed to his musical talent, but Jet didn't seem to mind.

She stared at the fire, flames reflecting in her icy blue eyes. After a while, she suddenly said:

"...I can smell things too, you know. When I am sufficiently full of essence. My Aspect might only give me a semblance of life, but it's a faithful imitation."

Sunny lowered the emerald flute and looked at her gloomily.

"What I'm hearing... is that you want to rob me of some of this meat. Right?"

Jet lingered for a moment, then grinned.

"Right. That was exactly what I meant. I am hungry, too."

He sighed, then hung more meat above the fire.

"Should have just said so. Gods... what is up with me always ending up with gluttonous women? It just never ends..."

Sunny turned the meat over. After a while, following a whim, he asked:

wicked Flaw, anyway? I thought mine was bad... but if I survived the First Nightmare only

understand

staring at the stone roof of the cave. She sighed, then shrugged

not survive the First Nightmare. I was young, and weak, and

head and looked

completely dead. I crawled out of the grave, somehow, and finished the trial. I guess the role I played in the Nightmare, or maybe my innate Attribute, created the possibility of something like that happening... it had to be an infinitely small possibility, though, because the Spell seemed rather impressed with the

First Nightmare. If he had not been sent into the body of

things had come together to create the possibility... he had been

at Jet silently, thinking about her Flaw. What would happen if he gave her

the Spell, and the vicissitudes of fate, Sunny developed an intuition about these things. Jet would indeed come back to life... but her soul would remain shattered. And like all living beings with broken souls, she

Flaw, mockingly, was the only thing that allowed her to

about his own

imagine the life he would have had if not for the inability

lie and manipulate them instead of trusting them, out of fear of being rejected and betrayed. And for that reason, he would have probably died a long time ago. Or

the lesson he was supposed to

you hypocrite. Weren't you yourself

These philosophical questions were a waste of time. He would still choose to get

sighed, breaking

time between the Nightmare and the solstice. As you can imagine, it's not easy for a Sleeper to find things to kill before entering the Dream Realm. I ended up having

Sunny shifted slightly.

"Who did you ask?"

She chuckled.

Aspect... on a voluntary basis, of course. But what would an ignorant kid from the outskirts know? I told