Backing up just a touch, I shuffled nervously next to James as he stood in the pouring rain, stoically taking in the wreckage of his contraption. It was hard to guess how he’d react. It was still the middle of the night, and the angry cloud that had seemed to follow him around throughout the previous day was shrouded by a veil of exhaustion that made him difficult to read.

  In the end, he just turned away with a sigh. The tarps I’d whipped up around the raincatcher were a bit more sturdy. I was afraid I’d still have to replace them every storm or two, but they were holding well for now. James let himself smile at the sight of it, then turned to me.

  “Thanks for all your help Zeek,” he said. “I think it’s been pretty well established that I’d be a goner without you.”

  With that, he started groggily stumbling down the shoreline. “I’m gonna go try and clean up a bit,” he mumbled.

  I watched him until he disappeared around the edge of the treeline following the curve of the island. Then, I took a moment to think about my own emotional state.

  I’d spent the first few hours of the night finally taking the time to analyze those synthetic shorts, but my efforts hadn’t been as fruitful as I might have liked. The task was supposed to be familiar and relaxing, but I’d found myself struggling to focus properly. As if the alien structure of the fibers wasn’t bad enough, I just couldn’t seem to stop thinking about what had come to mind when James had said ‘explosion.’

  On a purely objective level, I understood the comparison to the sun. I could still scarcely fathom the scale of it after hearing what it was. It was the sort of thing that was just too big to truly understand.

  A nuclear explosion was different though.

  James had taken that city he’d unwittingly shown me—a sprawling metropolis bigger than anything I could have imagined—and he’d vaporized it. It was straight up apocalyptic, and the way he’d said it assured me that he knew it was possible.

  He’d used the thought of it as a joke. He already had a solid enough understanding of my capabilities to use them against me, if he felt the need to. What he’d done was a stupid prank I might have been able to laugh off in other circumstances, but it was paired with the fact that I knew he didn’t trust me.

  He acted grateful, but something in his mind still flinched every time I did something for him. I’d been trying to ignore it, but it had been stuck in my mind all night. After two days, he already knew me well enough to hurt me if he wanted to, and he still didn’t trust me.

  He was probably right not to. Maybe that meant I wasn’t supposed to blame him for it, but telling myself that didn’t seem to make a difference.

  I found myself wandering towards the churning sea, not entirely sure why. The storm was getting worse, but not terribly so. I crouched down at the edge of a low cliff, staring out into the waves as I tried to formulate a way to ease the distress I was feeling.

  I usually hunkered down in my studio when storms came around. I’d spent years figuring out how to keep it safe and dry, and I’d pretty much pulled that off for anything less than a hurricane. I didn’t feel like being dry that night though.

  There was something cathartic about sitting out in the wind, letting the spray of the sea wash over me and be washed away again by the constant downpour. There was a time I’d been small enough for even a storm such as this to throw me into the air. I would have been drowned in the torrent.

  Now, I could face it. I’d suffered bigger storms than this.

  On a whim, I opened myself up to my sprawling mana array, letting the overwhelming flood of sensation roll over me. I usually kept it muted, focusing only on individual threads. Now, I let the barest trickle flow in from everywhere.

  In a moment, it felt as though I went from a lone creature parting a sliver of wind to a whole island standing in defiance of an angry sea.

  I could only keep that up for a moment and the mental strain almost left me too exhausted to keep my footing on the rocks, but I planted myself firmly and stood a little taller, the thrill of it all washing through me right as the night’s first thunderclap rumbled over the island.

  I felt better after that. I pondered that distant thunder and wondered with amusement if James would have some rational explanation for lightning. I almost felt like I could guess what it was based purely on what I’d learned from him already.

  I caught sight of James in my periphery, making his way back in my direction after finishing his shower. He plopped down next to me as the storm started to settle down, letting his feet hang out over the crashing waves.

  “I don’t expect I’ll be getting much sleep tonight,” he said, absentmindedly running a finger through a stream of water running off the rocks. “I’ll need to build some kind of shelter tomorrow.”

  I hesitated for a moment. The storm had improved my mood for reasons I could hardly guess, but his comment brought my attention back to the issue I’d been struggling to resolve.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  “You don’t want my help with that,” I said, trying not to let it sound like the question it was.

  He chuckled darkly. “No, I suppose I don’t,” he said.

  I can’t say I saw the humor in it that he did.

  “You don’t trust me,” I said.

  I was a little surprised as confusion crept into his countenance. It only lasted a moment though before being washed away by something harder to interpret.

  “Trust has nothing to do with it,” he said with a slight grimace. “I’m afraid it's far more petty than that. At least, I think petty is the right word for it…”

  I turned to look at him, clicking my mandibles in confusion, not to mention a bit of embarrassment. Trust was such an obvious explanation for what was going on that I’d never even considered the possibility that it might be something else entirely.

  James met my eyes. “You haven’t known many men, have you,” he said, his face cracking into a sheepish smile. “Well, as embarrassing as it is to admit, I could be stranded on this island with my own wife and still feel determined to figure out all this survival stuff on my own. I’m not so prideful as to not accept help when I need it, but I can’t say it doesn’t sting a little knowing I’d be dead five times over without you.”

  That was… a perfectly reasonable explanation. All I had to do to empathize was take two seconds to imagine being stuck in an unfamiliar place where everything I knew about staying alive was utterly useless. Having help wouldn’t make that feel pleasant no matter how I felt about the other person.

  It was so obvious that I felt like an idiot for stressing over it. Then, that embarrassment turned to confusion as I realized that the stress wasn’t all gone despite the reasonable assurances.

  “I feel strange,” I said, looking back out over the water. “I think I like not being alone. I like learning about the world and running all these experiments. I like having everything not just be the same all the time anymore.

  For the most part, I’m glad you’re here, but then…”

  I trailed off, unsure how to shape the rest into words.

  James started raising a hand. I flinched a little as he brought it over my head, brushing against my spines. I froze in place as he touched my back, gently brushing through the fuzz and tickling at the chiton underneath. It wasn’t hard or threatening in any way, but I found the sensation unpleasant nonetheless. It'd been so long since I’d been touched by anything that it just felt like one more new thing to cope with, and one without any of the benefits afforded by all of the others.

  “I’ve changed a lot for you, haven't I,” James said apologetically. There he was feeling sorry for me again, despite having every reason to focus on his own well being. Whatever I was feeling, it could hardly be worse than what he was going through, could it? Where did he find the energy for it all?

  “I didn’t like what you did yesterday,” I said, fighting through the tension. “You knew what happened with the rock wasn’t going to be that bad, but you also knew something that bad was possible. You shouldn’t tell people stuff like that as a joke.”

  I shivered a bit just thinking about it again.

  “You haven’t really seen something like that, have you?” I asked, trying not to imagine that wave of death filling my horizon.

  James sighed. “It’s a little complicated,” he said. “I can’t remember not knowing nuclear bombs existed. We have ways of seeing things that aren’t real in my world. It’s an artform based on flashing through a few dozen sequential pictures per second in a way that mimics seeing something in real life, and people have managed to make those pictures pretty realistic. All of that is to say, I’ve seen a portrayal of an explosion like that, but never the real thing.”

  One of my dreams seemed to crack in that moment. It happened so fast it’d be easy to miss if it wasn’t so devastating. What I’d spent so long striving to do could never match what had already been done.

  James continued, oblivious to what he’d just taken from me. “The invention of those bombs pretty much gave humanity the power to end itself, along with most other life on the planet,” he said. “Some feel like that annihilation is an inevitability, but it’s one that has yet to come. I can joke about the knife to my throat because it’s always been there, and I’m still alive. You’re right that I shouldn’t have used that against you. It wasn’t a good joke.”

  I once again found myself curling inward, bracing myself against the new.

  “Can you let go of me?” I asked softly, hoping to remove at least a little bit of the weight.

  James grimaced, and pulled away. “Sorry,” he said. “I wasn’t sure if it would help, but I figured it might do you some good to start getting used to it.”

  A part of me wondered why that would be the case, but I didn’t ask. I think perhaps James was trying to change the subject, and he didn’t seem to know what to do when I didn’t take the bait.

  “You should get some more rest,” I said coldly. The rain had died down a bit, but it didn’t show signs of stopping any time soon. “I know a place that’s dry, but I… I don’t want you to see it.”

  He frowned at that, and I once again was baffled by how miserable it was to see the sliver of fear that broke into his emotions.

  “My pictures aren’t as good as yours,” I said in explanation, unsure if I thought the truth was really better than the potential assumptions.

  His fear evaporated in an instant, but I found myself wincing at the curiosity that replaced it. I shouldn’t have said anything. He wanted to see it now, and I wasn’t ready to show him. I needed more time. That little alcove was mine, and it wasn’t ready for sharing.

  It wasn’t good enough for sharing.

  I doubt he understood exactly what I meant, but James didn’t ask any questions. I was more grateful for that than I knew how to show.

  He looked up at the dark sky, reaching out a hand into the slowly dwindling downpour. “It shouldn’t rain for much longer,” he said. “I can live with a bit of water for one night. If you wouldn’t mind, though, I’d appreciate some help getting something set up to keep me off the sand. You know how to make a decent hammock?”

  I can’t say that sounded too terribly difficult.

  The tension started to fade away, and I managed to prop myself up and start making my way back to the stump clearing. It was as good a place as any for a hammock, and I’d probably need the mana supply.

  James stomped awkwardly through the jungle behind me, so thoroughly mocking the concept of stealth that he might be mistaken for an apex predator by virtue of sheer arrogance. I couldn’t help but buzz in amusement at the absurdity of finding such a sound comforting.