"It is, a very nice. Generous Argent. She shARes it! The light goes everYwhere. But it is s oft. Soft soft. Lils could lie, in thE DIrt, to be there. And sEE it. And it is okAY."

"Night-noon is always my favorite too," Yhelm agreed. "The Cazirizahd has a lot of lamplighters, so you adjust to a day-noon night-noon schedule. And sleep during the lid-closes."

"Lils sees. Sees. Aiax. The Red EYE. He is WATCHING peepINg. Lils cannot see TravErse? Where is green?"

Yhelm stopped and scanned the sky. It was so impossibly huge and vast, if you looked up you lost all frame of reference to an infinity of eyes staring back at you. When she looked back down and could see the horizon again she was suddenly very dizzy. "I don't see him? He might not be out tonight."

"Aaa. Our EYE. It is sleepy. Even a god can make sleep. It is okay. Lils can sees Aiax. The RED eye. She makes a sight on. It be. To be an."

Lils started to walk again, her uneven, drunken gait weaving across the dirt road. Yhelm kept pace. "We have the summermotes out tonight, too. I don't think any lamplighters live near here, though. We're missing their lantern-strings."

"Yes, yes, string. A connection or entrapment of idea. A string makes a connection. To be make." Sometimes Lils slipped up, Yhelm was already figuring out. Sometimes a thought would do its own thing inside her head. She was already used to it.

"The junk-pile's just up ahead," Yhelm said, trying to reassert the present. "We might run into some other trashpickers but we're Guild, so--"

Lils stopped, suddenly, and Yhelm almost stumbled over her. The little half-dead was staring at a summermote that was floating just before her face, slowly flashing between blue and yellow. "Ah," Lils said.

"The summermote?"

"Summmot." Lils sat down and cupped her hands. The summermote landed in them, folding its wingframe and settling in. It slowly pulsed its colors into the wrappings that held her rotting fingers together, and Lils sat there, staring at it.

Yhelm sat down next to her. They weren't in a rush. This was for Lils. Who knew how long it'd been since she'd even left her shack? Lils apparently paid trashpickers to bring her junk in bulk. She didn't need to eat. She never had to leave. Yhelm understood, she could understand Belham's urge to protect her. But it was a lesson Yhelm had learned in Cazzhad. A life well-provided for, without any freedom, was nothing to love. It did nothing good for you. Princess Flyhh had answered for it publicly a thousand times. Why had she and the other heirs made a world with suffering in it? Because if they had given their children everything they would have ever wanted, the whole world would have suffocated in the stagnation.

Keeping her locked up wasn't healthy.

Belham was going to be so pissed when he found out.

The summermote fluttered out of Lils' hands and back into the patchy grass at the roadside. Lils pulled back her hood, and for the first time Yhelm saw her actual face. Ah, she wasn't entirely ready for it. She might have been cute, once, but now her skin was dry and mummifying on her yellowing skull. The eyes were gone, sunken pits framed in bone. The ears were shriveled and misshapen. Her mouth was stuck open, the edges melted into an unyielding, confused smile.

"Summot," Lils said. Her jaw barely twitched. The voice came scattered and tumbling from between her exposed teeth.

"Yeah," Yhelm agreed.

"A summot. It only is for SummER?" She looked back at Yhelm.

Yhelm tried not to show the discomfort she felt in making eye contact with a skull. "Yeah. Springmotes are pink and don't fly nearly as much. In fall--"

"Summot," Lils repeated. "It is. A night. A nigHT THing that happens. Lils remembers."

Yhelm nodded.

"Lils reMEMBERS!" she said, suddenly, standing up onto her fours, and sticking her face in Yhelm's. "Lils can REMEMBERS."

"What do you remember?" Yhelm asked, politely falling backwards.

"It was SUMMER. Lils wanted to see SUMMOT. Lils REMEMBERS it."

"That's good," Yhelm smiled.

"Lils remember. The last. Last THING Lils had made thOUGHT of. As Lils DIES."

"Oh," Yhelm frowned.

"It was a DaY. And Lils thOUGHT, becaUSE DeaTH isn'T GOOd and is BAD. ANd Lils had a THOUght: Not ever see SUMMOT again. Never. BecauSE was kill on DAY. Lils. Lils sees it. Again. LILS SEES IT AGAIN! Is night and Lils SEES IT. SEES IT."

Lils' head was pressed into Yhelm's chest and now they were hugging. Her body was so light and frail. It was the first time Yhelm had touched her. She was so fragile. She was an autumn leaf long off its branch. She understood why Belham could only think to protect her. She was making a sound like she was crying.

"Can remEmber. The last thought of Lils. NeveR see a summot again. Lils can see it. Lils saw it! Did it! Did it!" Her hollow frame shook with dusty sobbing and Yhelm couldn't think of anything to do but continue to hold her. Finally Lils pulled herself away and sat on her hinds in front of Yhelm.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"Whoever--Lils thought, to never see it. A summER night, as DIED, thought neveR to SEE again but it isn't. It isn't. Lils can SEE IT. Death was so Slow for Lils. And Lils knows there were a lOt of thoughts. TimE to THINk when dying. And couLD never remember. LiLs remembers! Was a sadness, to never seE summER NigHt again. And Lils is sEEINg it. Lils is."

Her tail, a bony scrap wrapped in rags, swished back and forth on the dirt path behind her, going potpotpotpotpotpot.

"It was try to KIll Lils. To not SEE thIs again. Lils can. Lils caN see it again. Summermotes. Lils held one! Yhelm knows: this means?"

Yhelm shook her head. "What does it mean?"

Lils lowered her head slightly, and oh, the way she did it gave her grin a frightful shape. "They FAIlED. Lils WINs. They only killed Lils a little while. Lils gets to see it again. Gets to sEe the night again. Lils wins. It's okay. It's okay to died. It's okay."

It was only that Yhelm was descended from the Heir of Style that she didn't need to wipe her eyes. That wouldn't be cool, so she didn't have to. Her inheritance. Instead, she stood up, slung the empty sack back over her shoulder, and looked at Lils out the corner of her eye. That was cool, and sometimes people need someone to be cool. Sometimes especially people needed someone to be cool for them. "Fuck yeah. It took you a while to get back here, but you made it. They couldn't take it from you."

"The night," Lils agreed. She pulled her hood back up over her face. "It is not forever. A night does not forever. We must get us our treASure."

"Fuck yeah, let's go dig in some trash."