I Know I Would Do Anything For My Friends.

Chloe spilled everything out of her backpack, looking for anything. A health potion, a mana capsule, anything.

Old witchcakes fell out, as did Mr. Feather’s totem, dungeoneer’s supplies… and a faded yellow dandelion.

It matches your hair, Luka had said.

Chloe held it up. It had long died, crushed between the things in her bag.

Tears were streaming down her face. Her thoughts were nothing but scattered pain.

She leaned over Luka and placed the dandelion in her hair. And though the girl was beautiful in life, in death she was haggard and covered in her own blood, and a tiny dead flower did nothing to change it.

Chloe held Luka and sobbed, harder than she ever had. Her throat screamed with pain as she whined and howled, and the way Luka’s body was heavy and cold in her arms seemed to etch itself deep into her soul, a sensation she’d certainly remember until her time finally came and she departed too.

She put her forehead to Luka’s and cradled her friend.

I would do anything to have you back, Luka.

Anything.

Then, she saw someone.

Standing off in the distance. A lone swordsman, wearing dark robes, a sash, and bamboo hat. As the wake crashed upon the shore, encroaching toward him, Chloe blinked and he was gone.

But even so, she knew. The story of man who betrayed everything else to save the person he loved.

It seemed the tale was true.

She scuttled over to Rogara’s shrink-bag, and tipped it over, dumping out its contents. The Helmet of Transitory Thoughts tumbled out, growing to full size in the sand—as did dozens of gold coins, jewels, magic swords, a crystal ball, a unicorn’s horn, an oil lamp, a pharaoh’s headdress. Item upon item upon item, until a massive pile of treasures from the Dungeon Complex lie at Chloe’s feet, inches from Luka’s puddle of blood.

The final thing that bounced out was a large, clean-cut ruby.

Chloe picked it up. It was the same color as the blood around her.

She knelt over Luka.

My parents and brother will have to work harder, she thought. I can’t bring them back what I said I would.

She closed her eyes. For her family was happy and well to do, and her village would be okay.

But… Billy…

She could see the puppyboy’s smile, graceful brown eyes peering into her window at sunrise. Playing with worms in the dirt, chasing Ebby’s ball, she and him jumping for joy in the wheatfields, until Old Man Rover had shouted for them to get off his property.

Something within her understood that this magic could only be used once. Her outward excuse for it, if she had taken it home and used it for such a thing, would have been the only thing she could’ve wished for anyway, had she done that first. Which meant…

I’m sorry, Billy. I guess our goodbye was permanent.

And Chloe knew it was selfish. All around her was death; Rogara, his minions, and Nym, who she could see lying peacefully by the tide, having long since stopped breathing. The last of the Upholders, now gone.

And there were thousands, maybe millions, of other people out there, who all may have met unfair and untimely ends, who deserved a second chance. People who could go on to end wars, or cure disease, or otherwise improve the world. But rationale had nothing to do with love.

She knelt over Luka and wished, wished with everything she was.

The ruby cracked in her hands, a hairline fracture speeding across its surface. Then it ruptured and fell to dust.

Luka gasped back to life, coughing the blood out of her throat.

Chloe made a noise, the kind of noise that follows the worst and most mournful kind of crying. As Luka’s beautiful blue eyes opened wide and she gasped for air, sitting up out of the sand, Chloe’s whine trailed into sobbing as she reached around her friend and held her close, feeling now warmth, breath, and a beating heart.

“C-Chloe? What… what happened?”

Chloe held her tighter, so tight she was sure she’d crack her ribs. And before she could think to hold back, she said:

“I love you so much Luka… don’t ever leave me again… please…”