Esko had never seen a golden hare before. Ever. In fact, the idea of a rabbit coming in flaxen blonde was just plain absurd to him. This was why he was staring very, very hard at the yellowish lagomorph in the brush a few yards away from him, squinting like he thought it would come into focus as something else. He was hallucinating. He just had to be.

The sun was setting, which began what Esko assumed was day 23 or 24 of the living nightmare that surrounded him. Time was strange to him now, and he was counting evenings as mornings and mornings as evenings in a way that put him about 12 hours off the usual calendar. His companions all seemed to be doing just fine with it, but to a diurnal creature like him, the learning curve was incredibly steep. He was fairly convinced that the golden-tan animal in front of him was the product of his sleep-deprived mind, gazing at him with big dark eyes. It also looked like it knew the secrets of his soul, which he wasn’t exactly a big fan of.

“Hey.”

At the sound of approaching footsteps, the hare vanished off into the brush in a dash of fur that seemed to glow when it caught the dying sun. Esko blinked a couple times, shaking his head to collect himself, and turned to glance over his shoulder.

Finner. He knew it before he even looked, because he’d know that voice anywhere.

“Hey,” he greeted softly in reply, scooching over on the rotting log he’d been perched on so that his companion could join him.

Finner sat down next to him, taking off his hat and resting it in his lap, held gently by his hands. He didn’t make eye contact, and neither did Esko. He simply sat.

Then, Finner pressed a small parcel in his hand, and Esko opened it. Blueberries, wrapped neatly in what looked like some old paper. “Breakfast,” Finner explained simply. “I’ve got something more filling if you’re really hungry, but…”

“I’d probably want to start small. You knew,” Esko replied. There was no sense of emotion to it, just a factual statement. After the distress he’d endured during the daylight hours, Esko didn’t feel much like eating, and Finner had guessed it spot-on. If he weren’t tired and still reeling from his dream, he’d probably be slightly impressed.

“Yeah. And you said you hadn’t had a blueberry in awhile, so I decided to get you some when Greta and Astrid found a patch. We had one right behind camp the whole time.”

Esko snorted. “Lucky us,” he replied softly, a tiny glow of mirth creeping into his tone. He had to admit that there was something sweetly serendipitous about discovering a patch of delicious blueberries just a little ways away from their quiet grotto, like the universe was trying to say sorry for its wrongdoings. Esko accepted the apology, mostly because the nostalgia of eating a blueberry was a more pleasant feeling than dwelling on his sorrow.

They were damn good blueberries, too.

A little ways behind them, the fire crackled, the air filled with the soft sounds of Olifur shifting the last batch of crudely grilled fish onto more makeshift napkins to be devoured by them and the girls. Esko glanced up at Finner, preparing to ask if he’d eaten anything yet, but Finner only nodded once before he could even get anything out.

“Are you some kind of fucking telepath?” Esko asked, going back to his blueberries.

“No, your line of thinking is just very easy for me to predict.”

“You’re calling me predictable?”

“No, I’m calling myself smart.”

The arrogance tempted an elbow to the ribs or sharp retort, but the blueberries were nothing short of scrumptious, and Esko was a man with priorities. Besides, inciting violence when Greta chose to sit cross-legged in front of you in the grass was a bad plan. Greta was, for reasons Esko only loosely understood, very much a pacifist. He wanted to be respectful of that.

“Hey,” Greta greeted them. “How are you doing?”

“Blueberries,” Esko replied.

“She said how, pӧlkkypää,” Finner snarked, but his tone was gentle.

“No, no, ‘blueberries’ is a valid description of status and should be treated as such,” Greta replied with the most serious face possible. Her banter was betrayed only by her smile. “He’s feeling blueberries.”

“Please understand that I think both of you are morons,” Finner replied. To some, the statement would’ve come across as an insult, but after having known Finner for almost a month, Esko understood it as playful.

But then, the silence fell, and Esko realized he’d been lured into a trap.

Oh shit, here we go…

“So, uh…” Greta began very awkwardly, obviously trying to be polite as she spoke, like his mood was made of glass (it was, but she didn’t need to know that), “You… had a pretty bad nightmare earlier. Finner and I just… we just wanted to see if you wanted to talk about it. Even just a little bit.”

There it is.

At first, Esko wanted to snap. He wanted to tell them that it was none of their fucking business, and chew them out for even asking, but the part of him that stayed soft despite all his strife held him back. Instead, he finished the last of his breakfast and replied in the most cold, corporate voice possible.

“I’m fine.”

He was definitely not fine, and Finner and Greta could’ve probably smelled it a mile away, but neither of them pressed.

“Well,” Greta said softly, looking mildly disappointed by his answer, “You know we’re always here if you want to talk, right?”

“I don’t want to talk.”

“That’s alright then. Maybe we can la-”

“Ever. I mean I don’t want to talk about it ever. At all.”

He didn’t raise his voice, but the sharpness still made Greta flinch, and guilt zapped through his chest and behind his tear ducts before he squashed it down with the force of a trash compactor. Don’t get attached, dumbass, he reminded himself venomously. They’ll just leave when they realize what a fucking failure you are.

“We don’t have to talk about it then,” Finner declared softly, adjusting himself so his elbows rested on his knees. Esko knew he was only trying to be accommodating, but somehow that only made everything feel worse. “Take your time alone, alright? We’ll see you later.”

“We’ll see you later.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Rope. Footsteps walking away down the sidewalk. The note. Tears. Being taken away. Been thrown out to die.

It all flashed through Esko’s mind in an instant, but an instant was all he needed to exclaim “No!” and grab Finner’s sleeve. He took the Troll’s arm and hugged it to his chest, heaving panicked breaths like a drowning man. Finner nearly toppled over onto him.

“Esko, what the fuck?!”

“You can’t go! You can’t leave! I need you here!”

It sounded desperate. It sounded insane. It sounded like the exact opposite of what Esko wanted the other four to see him as… but it was also what he needed to say. Instantly, any of Finner’s disgruntlement fell away, and he sat back down by Esko’s side. “Esko… Esko, it’s okay. I’m not going anywhere. I’m right here.”

Greta reached out and placed a careful hand on Esko’s knee, inching closer to the two boys. “Deep breaths. Deep breaths… Yeah, like that. You’re okay.”

He probably looked like a fool, but at least no tears fell this time. Finner was warm against him, smelling like bulrushes and lilypads, not that much different from a summer night. He forced himself to keep his feet still, too. He’d rather not kick Greta.

A clawed hand gently brushed through his hair. “Just… Just breathe. I know you must be going through a lot. That’s okay.”

Despite himself, Esko couldn’t help but angle his head to bury in the warm crook of Finner’s neck. It wasn’t much, but he felt a little better that way.

“… I miss her,” he admitted, but didn’t say anything further. It had been almost a month since he’d spoken Ellen’s name, and the word felt like a precious secret now. Not wanting to dwell on her too long, he forced himself to give a half-truth before anyone could ask for specifics. “My mother, I mean. I miss her. And my father.”

It was true. He did. He’d been trying very, very hard not to miss his parents, but he was a young adult far away from home in the big scary world, and he missed their safety and their love. No matter what he told himself, he couldn’t hate them, much less feel indifferent about them like he felt he needed to. They weren’t perfect – no one was – but they loved him, and that love was unconditional. Maybe they didn’t understand what it was like to live in his body with his experiences and mind, but he had to admit that he had it better than the Others whose families openly spoke ill of them in the news after they became an Offering. 

Mother and Father would never speak of him like that. Ever.

“They loved me,” he continued. It hurt to focus on any of the people he’d lost, but it felt worse not to talk about those two. “They love me so fucking much, and I think they still do. My father is a doctor, my mother is a freelance writer. It was always just the three of us, and I was their ainokainen.”

“What’s that word mean?” Greta asked, then looked mortified when she realized she’d interrupted him by accident. “Shit, sorry-”

“It’s fine. It means ‘only child,’ basically. My parents used it as a term of endearment. I was a rainbow baby, so it was especially meaningful for us.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Esko saw Greta smile.

“That’s… beautiful,” she said, reverence coloring her tone.

“Yeah, it is.”

“I’m glad you had good parents, at least.”

Esko’s mouth twitched into the tiniest of smiles. “So am I. Were yours…?”

“My grandma raised me,” Greta replied. “I never knew my dad, and Mom had complications when I was pretty young, so she took me in.”

Esko frowned, remembering what Greta had told him about her grandmother. He’d known that she was a woman cruel enough to force her granddaughter to help burn villages, but he hadn’t realized Greta had been raised by her. How had she turned out so kind despite all that trauma?

… Was he a hypocrite for wanting to wipe out his entire species while still feeling bad that she’d been the witness to something so horrible?

Don’t think about that.

Finner grunted softly – his version of acknowledgement of what Greta had said. “I lost my mother, too. My father raised me. He was… he was a good man.”

Without thinking about it, Esko reassuringly squeezed Finner, just for a moment.

“Do you guys ever miss your homes?” Greta asked, flopping back in the grass. Somehow, she managed to prop herself up on her antlers, though Esko couldn’t fathom for the life of him how that could possibly be comfortable.

“Yeah,” he replied after a moment, finally disentangling himself from Finner. “Oulu was a pretty place. The food was good, the libraries and museums were nice, the schools didn’t completely suck.”

Greta formed her mouth into an ‘O’ shape. “Wait, you guys had schools?!” she exclaimed joyously. “You’re so lucky! I always wanted to go to one, but instead the village elders taught us.”

Lucky? To go to school?

Esko had never thought of it that way before, but looking back at all his experiences, he realized that Greta was probably right. He was lucky in that regard. Very lucky. He’d gotten to go somewhere where he could have a full, enriching education. He had no idea what Greta’s learning material had been like, but he suspected that it was probably much less comprehensive than his.

“Huh. I guess I am,” he said aloud, watching as Greta tried to persuade Finner to give her a fistbump because they were ‘homeschool buddies’ now. The dying light caught golden on her hair, familiar in the most poignant way.

Gold, like warm light and lazy afternoons, perfectly cooked potatoes, the evening glinting over the water, flames in the fireplace…

Her.

Somehow, always her. Always her smile, always her laugh, always her warmth and her presence and the feeling of conversations had late into the night. 

Always her name. Always her promise.

“I’ll always be with you.”

… And I’ll tear apart the world until I reach you.