The Unmaker

Reluctantly, Enki hovered down like a falling feather until his bare feet touched the snow. The cold passed through him, but he didn't shiver. It'd been a while since he shivered from any amount of cold, so there, in the centre of the garden, he crossed his legs beneath him and mirrored Safi's sitting posture exactly, rifle across his lap.

Safi looked delighted.

"See?" the old man said, cheerful as ever. "You should sit on solid ground more. You'd look less like a floating corpse and more like a human being."

Enki didn't reply. He simply stared as Safi reached into the canvas satchel beside him and pulled out a bulging snowmelon, already cracked from its own ripeness.

The old man didn't use a knife. He dug in with both thumbs and split the snowmelon clean down the middle. The pale blue fruit steamed faintly as its core released a burst of floral aroma into the crisp air, and with a grunt, he started pressing his thumbs into the flesh, squeezing out sticky juice into the two ceramic cups between them.

"So," Safi began casually, "why didn't you pass the other five?"

[They did not fix my wall,] Enki answered without inflection.

Safi looked up. His fingers kept working, but his gaze was sharp.

"You know, apart from Zora, I'm the person who's known you the longest," he said, sounding lightly amused, "and I know damn well you don't give a shit about that wall. You don't really care about how many loops it took them to beat the Spider Gods, either. What's the real reason?"

Enki didn't answer right away. Safi handed him one of the cups, and he took it with both hands, raising it to his lips and drinking the juice in a single, steady pull.

The taste was bright. Slightly fermented. Slightly floral. He downed the juice in one solid gulp and handed the cup back for a refill.

[... Those five, as they are now, are not fit to be Hasharana,] he said.

Safi raised a brow and refilled the cup with a new snowmelon.

"Why not?"

[Because they lack the one thing all Hasharana must possess.]

"Which is?"

Enki took the cup from Safi again.

[Zora… once told me something,] he said slowly. [The word 'Hasharana', from the Sharaji Desert, does not only mean bug-slayer. It means 'wandering' bug-slayer: a human without a home.]

He paused as he downed the juice in one gulp, then handed the cup back to Safi.

[And the five still have homes to return to,] he said. [One has a loving family. One has a mansion of broken servants. One is only exiled in name. One has simply run away. The last still holds too much affection for those she deems weaker than herself, and so, when they are truly cornered—when fear sets in and death feels absolutely certain—they will think of home, and they will run.]

Safi let out a low whistle as he pressed another snowmelon. His hands were soaked now. Pulp clung to his sleeves, and the air around them smelled of citrus and frost.

"I don't buy it," he mused. "If they were the kind to run in the face of fear, they'd have run from the Spider Gods, and they certainly wouldn't have jumped back in to face Apocia."

[The Spider Gods were pathetically weak compared to the bugs the Fool is hunting,] Enki said plainly, accepting the new cup. [They have yet to face an Insect God that will show them true fear. You, of all people, should remember what that feels like.]

The silence stretched now, because even though he didn't say the year, Safi knew what he was referring to.

Enki didn't finish the sentence.

Safi didn't ask him to.

The old man poured himself a half-cup of juice and drank with slow, deliberate sips. The wind stirred his grey hair. His beard was soaked with stray pulp. His eyes, though… still sharp. Still too clear for someone who claimed to be retired.

So Enki chugged his juice again.

[... But, admittedly, I am being more selective than I have ever been.]

Safi tilted his head. "Oh?"

[Five years ago, I might have passed all of them, but things are different now.] Enki handed his cup back over for another refill. [The Swarm is growing too fast and too strong, so when someone has nowhere to go but forward—and the desperation to live and win is all they have left—that is what makes them a good Hasharana.]

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Safi was a bit slower on the return cup this time, so he grabbed a snowmelon out of the satchel and squeezed it into juice himself.

[In that sense, Dahlia Sina is the perfect Hasharana,] he said. [She has no town to return to. No bloodline to protect. She carries her home on her back—as the assassin bug she is—so she will fight until she dies, and that is the sort of Hasharana we must recruit from now on.]

Safi exhaled slowly through his nose.

"Well, this is exactly why Zora doesn't like you proctoring these exams," he grumbled. "You turn away people who'd otherwise be 'decent' Hasharana. Once he catches wind of how many Hasharana you passed this year, I bet he's gonna come out every year starting the next just to make sure you don't ever get to proctor again."

Enki gave the faintest shrug.

[Even so, the five of them are not ready,] he said. [They do not truly want to be Hasharana. They simply hear noise in the world they wish to silence by becoming Hasharana, but they do not see it is the noise in their minds that deafens them. Until they devour their past, I will not let them pass.]

The snow fell softer now.

It dusted their shoulders, settled in the creases of Enki's lap, and clung to the faint steam rising from their empty juice cups. He hadn't noticed when Safi stopped squeezing fruit, but the old man was now sitting with his head half-tilted, half-smiling with that same annoying glint in his eyes that made him look more lucid than retired.

They drank in silence for a while. It didn't feel awkward.

Then, Safi spoke again.

"Why are you keeping her mother a secret from her?"

[Why are you keeping it a secret from her?] Enki countered. [You picked her up alongside the Hangman. Surely you knew—]

"I picked her up because I don't know anything," Safi replied with a shrug. "I know what Zora and I saw back then in the Attini Empire, but… truth is, the two of us barely knew what we were looking at. At the end of the day, the only person who knows anything about assassin bugs is the boy who fought the Swarm God—the only boy who was sent flying into the centre of the continent, where he remained buried for almost an entire year before returning as a god."

Then Safi leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and glanced up with a half-grin.

"Come on, Enki" he said, almost teasing. "What'd you see down there? What'd you learn about the Swarm? What's the real you guarding so fiercely in the centre of the continent, so much so that even an old friend like me only gets a clone to drink with?"

Enki didn't answer that.

He brought his cup to his lips and drank the last of his juice without pause. The taste was a little off now—the scent sharper than it should be—but still, he wouldn't answer that.

Instead, he set the cup aside and scooped up a bunch of snow, swirling it around in his cup so it'd melt into water.

[... Nothing you or Zora or anyone needs to know,] he finally said. [The humanity that does not know its sins does not need to atone for them. The Swarm will absolve nothing.]

Safi smiled to that, slow and knowing, as he brought the next snowmelon up to squeeze.

[I also do not like the juice,] he added. [It is not fresh as you claimed.]

Safi blinked. "You drank four cups."

[And I disliked all of them.]

"You little worm. You really let me juice my knuckles raw just to be polite?"

[You demanded I drink. I drank. It was not fresh. You have been scammed.]

"I should kill the vendor who sold me the snowmelons, then?"

[You should kill yourself for being unable to tell the difference. Are you not a chef?]

Muttering under his breath, Safi reached into his apron and pulled out a folded pouch of dried tea leaves. Without another word, he began setting up the heatstone, brushing away snow to form a little brewing circle in the dirt.

Enki watched him work for a long moment.

It was always entertaining to watch Safi cook something.

So he said, quite flatly, as Safi started brewing tea on the spot:

[Watch over Dahlia.]

Safi didn't look up immediately. He was already steeping the leaves, the rising steam curling in the moonlight.

"... So you do have your worries, huh?" he murmured.

[If she begins to act abnormally, you must cut her down.]

That gave the old man a little pause, and his stirring slowed.

"Bit harsh, don't you think? Especially since she's probably her daughter," he said softly. "The timeline about matches up, no? She disappeared in Year Seventy during the fight with the Swarm God, and I think Dahlia is fourteen, nearing fifteen now, so…"

Enki said nothing. Not a shift in his face. Not even a blink.

Safi filled two cups with tea and passed one across.

"You don't feel an obligation to tell her about her mother?" he asked.

A long silence.

Then Enki accepted the tea and raised it to his lips.

[Of course I do.] He drank half his cup in one breath. The steam kissed the underside of his jaw, but he didn't flinch. [But I am no longer a boy, nor am I a soldier, nor am I the Worm Mage. I am the Worm God—humanity's champion—so if she must die to preserve the world, I will cut her down. I expect the same devotion to the cause from you.]

Safi took his own cup, sipped once, then chuckled under his breath.

"You think I could take on an assassin bug?"

[You could have killed me and Zora the first time we met. You may be wrinkled now, but I estimate you could still defeat at least a third of the lower-ranked Arcana Hasharana all at once.]

Safi broke into a grin, sharp with mirth.

"Look at you. Learning to flatter."

[Statistical probability is not flattery.]

"Well." Safi leaned back and tilted his head at the sky, tea steaming between his hands. "You're here, I'm here. Might as well drink a little more before you disappear from my sight for the next five years, right?" he said, voice light again. "Come on, kid. Let's catch up."