“Idea, are you awake?” Karla asked softly as she lay with her back pressed again Rex’s faintly snoring warmth.

“I know,” Karla said with a faint laugh, Idea and Sixxy had kept watch every night for the last month, “I guess it still feels weird to talk to a voice in my head while Rex is still asleep.”

“Yeah.” Karla replied. Idea didn’t seem to understand what Karla meant, but she was unwilling to try to explain the weirdness of talking to someone who she visualized as some sort of ghost living inside of Rex, while Rex himself was asleep.

Idea guessed.

“Yeah,” Karla said again, this time with a sigh.

“That’s good I guess.” Karla replied.

Idea observed.

“Well, I did just have a nightmare about it, I dreamed I saw them get eaten by a bear. It was horrible. I felt so guilty, but there was a part of me that also felt glad.” Karla paused for a long while, “Does that make me a terrible person?” She asked finally.

Idea replied calmly,

“You say that, but I’ve done a lot of thinking this last month since… everything happened. And I keep thinking about what Nightshade said. I think she was right, you know. If I don’t have the resolve to do what needs to be done… I’m going to lose you and Rex. I’ll go back to being a slave. I’ll go spend the rest of my days in a salt mine or gladiator pit… and it terrifies me. If I have to let a dozen slave hunters die, or even kill them myself…”

“But they’ll probably catch someone else. They were bad people. I don’t get why you care if they die or not.” Karla replied angrily.

Karla shook her head and sighed deeply. “You think it’s bad for me to feel angry like this all the time?”

“I miss him you know,” Karla replied after a long pause to think about what Idea had said.

“Yeah, I guess, up until I got captured, I really thought we could all live together as friends, we’d work hard together at that academy of his, and then his father would give me my freedom, and I’d be the stablemaster someday. I had a whole plan in my head. Maybe even… someday, I’d try to be Eric’s mistress.” Karla added in a rush. “I mean, I knew we’d never marry, but maybe just for a little while, until he found whatever political match...”

Idea was a bit shocked.

Karla snorted, “Who else would I tell? Rex wouldn’t understand. I donno, I guess I wanted to confess it to someone. But, now I see it was all just a silly girl’s fantasy. It wouldn’t ever have worked out. Too many people would have tried to get in the way. Eric may be nice, but, he’d have been too honorable, too duty bound to do something as shameless as dally with a beast girl like me. I was always chasing after the sun, but then they showed me where I really belonged… in the dirt.”

Karla was silent for a while, “I don’t know if he will still like me, even if we meet again in three years. I think that if I keep having to fight people like those slave hunters while he stays safe in his home, I’ll end up being someone he wouldn’t approve of anymore. But if I don’t change, I won’t be able to do what is necessary to survive and see him again.”

Idea stayed silent for a while, then replied.

“I’m pretty sure that would be even worse. How could I live with myself if someone else has to kill because I’m too weak to do it myself?”

Karla laughed, “You say the strangest things sometimes. But, I don’t know. Maybe you’re right. I’ll try to do what’s right, until the time comes when there just isn’t any way left but to do what’s necessary.”

Idea, replied softly.

After a while, Karla relaxed and went back to sleep.

Sixxy opined. the little bird pointed out.

Idea felt a flash of amusement followed by sadness.