“You… could you sense it when Decklan died?”

As Randidly asked the question, the sharp strand of nettle that formed the core of Thorn’s algae body twitched and froze. Another long strand of Thorn that was nearby also trembled. Randidly just waited. They floated there for several seconds in silence, Randidly reaching out and touching his plant while the other did not communicate any emotion through their connection.

Part of the reason that he had been so hesitant to come out and see Thorn was that he knew this conversation would be difficult. As he prepared the Earth to handle the Calamity, Randidly needed to start taking responsibility for the ways he affected Earth. And in a lot of ways, Randidly had left his Soulseeds to their own devices since he had created them and felt deeply guilty about his lack of follow-through. That guilt was one of the main reasons that he hadn’t made more, despite the Soulseeds’ obvious power.

Especially now, feeling the internal turmoil of Thorn’s hidden emotions, Randidly felt devasted by his own thoughtless actions in the past. He had left Thorn and Arbor on Earth to find their own way, and although both had succeeded, there were consequences. The path that Thorn had chosen was a brotherhood with Decklan. And after seeing what Decklan’s unstability had led to...

Not that Randidly believed there would be any permanent adverse effects from associating with Decklan. His involvement in the Red Revival had come as a surprise to Randidly, but it didn’t seem like Decklan had tried to convert Thorn or anything. It just seemed that the temptations of Ileot had broken something within Decklan.

Something inside of Decklan had died along with Terra.

But now Thorn had to deal with the sad truth that his most meaningful relationship outside of Randidly had ended. It needed to deal with fact and the method was important. After all, a bad choice here meant Thorn could be damaged in a way that would lead to unpredictable results down the line.

Pain. Thorn eventually replied with an exhausted bleakness to his earlier question. And that was really all the answer that it could manage. Randidly sighed.

Along with the word came an image of a section of ocean that Thorn hadn’t been completely peaceful with. It seemed like Thorn had sensed Decklan’s passing and had been briefly overwhelmed with rage. All of the aquatic monsters in that area had been torn into thick pieces of flesh that floated in the murky water. Bloody water hung there like mist on a cold morning on land. There were no monsters at all in the surrounding several miles, because some instinctive fear drove all the sea creatures away from that place.

It would likely take quite a bit of time for that area to recover. Gore and algae mixed in thick clumps that hung unnaturally still in the water. As Randidly removed his focus from the memory and used Grim Intuition to speedily ascertain the actual location where the slaughter had occurred, he was shocked to discover that the images in the area had been marked by what had taken place there. Thorn’s rage had been strong.

Randidly’s eyes softened further as he looked at Thorn. “I know how much it can hurt to lose someone. Especially when Decklan was one of your few close friends.”

For I lost my best friends, again and again, Randidly’s heart ached as he thought about the strange distance between him, Sydney, and Ace. He truly hadn’t lost them, but for the longest time, he thought he had. He had been devastated.

Especially because of the way things ended between them, with Ace never understanding why his girlfriend was so intimate with his best friend. Never knowing that Sydney had hidden her illness from him and entrusted the secret to Randidly.

This time, emotions flooded out from Thorn. Its thoughts and impressions were mashed together in an overwhelming tide that threatened to sweep Randidly away. Luckily, the negation effect of Nether rapidly reduced the powerful and emotional images into still-frame pictures that were quite manageable to handle. Yet as Randidly quickly scanned Thorn’s emotions, he gritted his teeth.

Overall, Thorn had one thought that was expressed in dozens of ways through the memories he passed to Randidly. Why did this happen? This shouldn’t have happened. He didn’t deserve this. What do I do now?

Randidly consciously stopped himself from pointing out that Decklan had chosen this path himself. That wouldn’t be helpful. He knew that when it came to such a painful situation, the real question Thorn was asking wasn’t the details of why something happened. It was just the first time Thorn had felt such pain in its existence. And it didn’t know what to do with the hole that Decklan left in its heart.

“...Decklan had lost someone very important to him in the past, just as you are feeling the wound of losing Decklan now. And he bottled up those emotions for a long time until he couldn’t stand it anymore. He looked for ways to run from the pain, to fix the pain, to cover up the pain, to blame someone else for the pain…” Randidly shook his head. “But the truth is… the pain doesn’t go away if you don’t face it. Sometimes you just need to… cry. Let it hurt you. Because that is the only way to eventually live with that pain.”

Randidly’s mind wandered a little. If I had a Level for every night in that first Dungeon, after being trained by Shal during the day, that I cried while thinking about them...

Thorn was confused. Cry?

Unwilling to share his actual thoughts, Randidly provided a few memories of him crying alone in his room from his younger days while his mother was spending time with one of her many boyfriends. Even now, Randidly felt his stomach dropping as he remembered those long nights. The Grim Chimera, who still had a strand of that emotion Randidly had put into his Spear Phantom image, shivered in sympathy.

Immediately, Randidly could tell that something had gone wrong with the communication because Thorn immediately brightened. So I just need to secrete liquids like humans do? I do not have eyes, but I watched Decklan secret fluids in several interesting ways-

“No, that’s not quite right.” Randidly winced. He had come here to talk with Thorn about death, not sex. Who would have thought that the System would transform him into a parental figure to a giant thorny monsters…?

Then Randidly waved his hand in the cool water. “There… there might not be any easy answer for this. But the important thing isn’t the liquid, but that you… follow your body’s natural instincts for how to grieve. When you face the pain… some weird things might happen. But you need to just… let the pain affect you, alright?”

Thorn was still confused, but it assent. Randidly felt it withdrawing most of its focus along the thin trail of algae between this avatar form and its main body, so Randidly quickly began to swim back toward the beating heart of Thorn. Through their mental connection, Randidly could feel Thorn begin to face the emotion.

It wasn’t an easy thing to face the things you’ve been hiding from in your own heart. You couldn’t just will it to happen. But you could move the distractions out of the way and wait for your heart to be honest. And that was exactly what Thorn did. For several minutes, it sat in silence as it tried to grasp the place that the pain waited. Then everything started to happen at once.

Rage and loss howled upward like wild monsters in Thorn’s mind. It was so powerful that its mental connection to Randidly rapidly began to dim. There were suddenly too many emotions to spare any attention. At the moment, Thorn was completely consumed by the emotions.

And most clearly of every feeling it had, the urge to destroy rose in Thorn’s chest. It was so sudden and instinctive that all of the many extensions of Thorn that ran along the bottom of the sea abruptly tightened as it prepared to unleash its pent up violence on those unfortunate enough to be in close proximity to it. With a grim expression, Randidly vastly increased his swimming speed by condensing an image of Yggdrasil around and spinning several roots like a propeller.

Through the exploration with Thorn today, Randidly had gotten a better sense of Thorn’s body. His core was very near the base of the continental shelf, while large ropes of thorny algae as thick as the tunnels that people used to blast through mountains spread out in different directions to distant corners of the sea.

These larger bundles reached specific points and broke down into strands as thick as tree-trunks that spread out in a smaller radius. In this way, Thorn became a net that was present in most parts of the sea. Which was why Randidly felt genuine fear as the entirety of Thorn’s massive body strained and tightened.

Thorn could do some serious damage if it went wild.

Randidly reached out mentally once more, but Thorn’s emotions seemed to muffle Randidly’s attempts to calm his Soulseed down. And although Randidly could probably cut quickly through the emotions and reach Thorn, he was hesitant to do so when Thorn was so obviously poised to take action. It was likely that using his image to forcefully connect with Thorn would come across as an attack and cause a violent response. And while Randidly didn’t care overmuch if the oceanic monsters died, he knew that starting such a cycle would not help Thorn.

So he accelerated further, Yggdrasil doing its best to manifest physically under the water.

Yet as seconds ticked past… Thorn didn’t lash out. It sat in the pain. It teetered on the bubbling powder keg of emotions but did not act. And gradually, Thorn forced its massive body to relax. And as the taut strands of algae relaxed…

Hyunnnnnnnnnnggggggg.

A strange thrumming echoed across the bottom of the ocean. Surprised, Randidly’s concentration slipped and his speed slowed somewhat. The noise was somewhere between a violin and whale song and seemed to bounce off the sea’s floor so Randidly heard several strange echoes. His eyes narrowed as he realized the thrum was produced as the strands of Thorn’s massive body relaxed.

As the relaxation of the strand above Randidly ceased, the noises slowly faded. Then, from all across the sea, the noises arrived as they traveled persistently through the water. Because it was not just this strand that had relaxed. The lone note became an echoing symphony.

Hyungggggg. Hyyyyyyyyyungggg. Hyunnggg.

It got to the point that there was a constant low level of vibration to the water around Randidly. The notes bounced off each other and spun together in complex harmonies. But soon the tension rapidly had been drained out of Thorn. The constant buzz around Randidly ceased and the ocean returned to silence.

The silence didn’t last long. This time, Randidly felt Thorn consciously tightened its body.

HYUNNNNGGGGGGGGG!!!

Whereas the previous noises had clearly been accidental, Thorn finally understood what it wanted to accomplish. It strained its body to the point of vibrating and unleashed a noise that was full of grief. In a way even more precisely than when Thorn tried to share its emotions, Randidly understood its deep pain. It would never forget Decklan Hyde until the day that it died.

You helped my Soulseed when I was negligent… for that, I can never repay you, Decklan… Randidly sighed as he proceeded back toward Thorn’s heart at a slower pace. The entire sea had come alive with mournful music around him, mirroring his rather sour mood. For your sake… I am here to find out if there is any way to repay what you have done for me.

Randidly eventually arrived back at Thorn, but he didn’t attempt to break Thorn out of the all-consuming exertion of expressing his pain. Randidly waited patiently for the grief to run its course. The ocean became a vast concert hall with a young composer just figuring out how to manipulate its band.

Another hour later, Thorn finally began to still. And at that point, Randidly went over to the large pink and green-black heart and hugged his Soulseed. Then he asked Thorn where Decklan had been staying while he had lived in the area.

The location Thorn directed Randidly to was a small shack on the edges of the port town. It would be easy to confuse such a location with a hastily assembled shanty, but Randidly’s Absolute Grasp of Yggdrasil could detect how deceptively solid the foundation of the building was. Without standing on ceremony, he walked inside and found a rather nicely arranged living room and an austere kitchen. A rotten apple sat on the counter.

But Randidly ignored these rooms and ascended to the second floor. There he found the room he was looking for, the room that represented the core of who Decklan Hyde was.

The entire room, which was likely designed to be a bedroom when the building was built, was empty except for three items hanging on the wall and a large feature in the middle of the room. The feature in the middle of the room was a hole that would allow Thorn to burrow up and spend time with Decklan while he was here. Pursing his lips at the hole, Randidly looked to the wall.

The first item on the wall was a small painting. Immediately, Randidly could tell it had been done by Raina during the early days of Donnyton. Very early days, because it appeared to be depicting events during a beast horde. Randidly stood atop the wall, looking outward. Decklan stood with his arms folded in Randidly’s shadow. Donny and Dozer were on the ground swinging their weapons, while Clarissa and Mrs. Hamilton threw Arcane Orbs out into the approaching horde.

They all cut valiant figures, more stylized than real. Yet somehow Raina had captured their essence without needing to rely on many details. It was immediately clear to anyone familiar with the subject of the painting who was depicted.

Hell, we look so young. Randidly rubbed his jaw ruefully. Although he hadn’t aged physically at all in the intervening five years… the Randidly that was drawn by Raina in the painting looked like a teenager. Not because of features, but because of how bright his gaze was. It has been a long time since then…