He let out a breath, relieved. ”I… am sorry, for the danger I put you in today… I didn’t mean for it to happen like this.” Tresit told her softly.

”…What did happen? Before I got there?” Kes asked, in accord with Anara in wanting to know the answer.

”I don’t know if it was honorable, to kill a man while he slept, but… I am not a fool. I could not have done it otherwise… My father’s memory was honored, his soul is with the Eight, and now he can slumber peacefully. His murder made right.” Tresit told her, looking… very proud of himself. Kes couldn’t really understand that, feeling that way about… about killing someone. Even someone horrible like Tulk. But Anara understood, and she could feel that… her wife was very proud of her son for what he’d done.

She couldn’t deny Anara the words that came from her lips next. ”My son… I am proud, my elshyash.” She touched his face again.

He looked relieved at her words, and Kes could just sense his mood enough to realize that he hadn’t been as sure as he’d sounded that what he’d done was a good or noble thing at all. Kes remembered looking at the dead man in the bed, covered in blood from all the times Tresit must have stabbed him to make sure he died, and imagined how it must have been for Tresit to see that and know he’d done that with his own hands. She felt tears fall down her cheeks and she wiped them away and smiled at him. ”Come on, we should get going.” She told him, even though the truth was that she wasn’t nearly as content with all that had happened as Tresit or Anara were… Even though she wondered a little, in a place inside her mind that she wasn’t letting Anara see, whether she’d ever be able to look at Tresit again as the same innocent little boy she’d though of him as before what had happened, before… what he had done.

”Of course.” He agreed. He’d been breathing hard too when they stopped, and Kes could tell he was a lot more tired than she was. Physically anyway. Mentally, Kes felt like she’d be happy to never go back to that horrible city ever again… She knew she’d have to, at least a couple more times though, to get supplies.

They walked on in silence for a while. ”We have to go back for him, for my brother. Will you help me?”

Kes didn’t answer right away, she just kept walking. ”I want to talk about all of this with Anara before we do anything. I’m… I think I just need to sleep for a while. I can’t really think that well right now.” She told him in a soft voice. Anara sensed that she was tired too and thankfully was just sending supportive and loving thoughts her way.

”…I understand.” Tresit told her, sounding reluctant.

Kes looked over to him. ”Promise you won’t go without me? Please?” She asked him, almost pleaded, really. Even after what she had seen, even if she’d never think of him in the same way again, Kes knew that she still loved him anyway. Loved him very, very much…

”…I won’t. Not unless you refuse to go. That is all that I can promise.” Tresit replied.

Well, she supposed that would have to be enough then, for now.

The rest was a problem for later.

She kept walking, not letting go of Tresit’s hand all the way back to their house.

——

to be continued