The island’s evening ca in slowly, the way island evenings did when the ocean held the heat and let it go gradually rather than all at once.
The light off the water went from direct white to sothing softer and more orange, and by the ti Rex had collected the wood for the fire and set up the camp’s evening configuration, the sky was the color that made everything under it look like it was worth looking at.
Talyra and Aisella had taken over cooking without any discussion, as if they had naturally divided the work. Talyra was still handling the fish she had caught with the skill of soone who knew exactly what they were doing, and Aisella was managing the plants she had confird were safe to eat and mixing them in ways that made the whole camp sll better and feel more livable.
Rex sat on a rock shelf at the edge of the camp and watched them both work.
"You need to sit sowhere useful," Talyra said, without looking up from what she was doing.
"I am sitting sowhere useful," Rex said.
"You’re sitting sowhere comfortable," she said. "That’s different."
"You have the cooking covered," Rex said.
"And the supervision," Aisella said, also without looking up.
Rex stayed where he was.
The dinner that ca out of this process twenty minutes later was much better than anything the field kit could have made. The quality of the dinner demonstrated that both Talyra and Rex had a tendency to excel when they focused on sothing: the result was always better than necessary.
Talyra sat on Rex’s left while they ate, which was too close to the available space. Aisella sat across the fire from him in a way that made it clear she had made a choice about where to sit and didn’t want to talk about it.
Rex couldn’t help but notice the tension in the air, the unspoken words hanging between them like smoke from the fire. As they finished their als, he wondered how to bridge the gap that Aisella had so deliberately created.
But then the silence broke because soone was enjoying the food way too much.
"OH MY GOSSSHHH~!!! IT’S SO GOOOOOOD~!!!" Talyra scread with tears in her eyes. "MORE PLEASE~!"
Talyra noticed Rex when his plate was about two-thirds full; she moved another piece of fish to his area without any trouble, as if she had made up her mind that this was going to happen.
"You need to eat more too, Rexy~!"
Rex chuckled at Talyra’s enthusiasm, feeling a warmth spread through him at her infectious joy. "Alright, alright, I guess I can indulge a little more," he replied, scooping up the fish she had so generously offered.
Aisella was watching with the expression she wore when she was tracking sothing that interested her. Rex t her eyes across the fire and she did not look away, which was new.
He turned around and looked at her just to ask. "What’s wrong?"
After a mont she said, "Tell sothing about yourself that I wouldn’t be able to figure out through observation alone."
It was the kind of question that revealed the person asking it as much as the person answering it. Rex thought about what to give her, because what he chose to give her was itself an act of calibration, reflecting his desire to share sothing aningful and personal that would deepen their connection.
"Well, as you probably know..." He said, "I’ve died before."
"Not in this life, but in a different one."
Talyra looked at him, shocked that she had gotten so close to him.
Aisella’s expression didn’t startle. It revealed a more intriguing aspect of her character, specifically the way she responded to information that necessitated adjustnts to her working model.
She remarked, "So you’ve experienced a reincarnation event, much like Apollo, correct?"
"Yeah, a full one." Rex said, "I rember the other life."
"Is that common?" Talyra asked.
She didn’t ask it in the careful way that most people do when they ask about soone’s past; she just wanted to know.
"No," Rex said. "I heard that most people forget the mory during the transition."
Aisella asked, "What was the other life like?"
Rex thought, ’There’s no way I’m sharing details about my previous life... you two would probably freak out if you knew I was a womanizer.’
For a mont, as he contemplated a believable story about his fabricated past, Rex gazed into the fire.
He said, "It’s different from this one in most ways that matter."
"Similar in the ones that didn’t."
"Which ones didn’t matter?" Talyra asked.
Rex said, "The chanics of wanting things."
"That’s the sa no matter where you are."
The fire crackled between them, and the ocean behind the camp made the sound that oceans make when they are resting. The darkness on the island was soft instead of deep because the moon was high enough to make the volcanic sand glow faintly between the shadows.
"Do you miss it?" Aisella asked.
Rex thought about the question carefully, as it should have. To be honest, he already thinks that this new life is better, so it’s safe to say for him to tell the truth anyway.
After a mont, he said, "No."
"But I think about the parts that were mine, not the parts of the world it was in." He paused just to let out a sigh. "I miss those parts sotis."
Talyra asked, "What parts were yours?"
"The way I understood things." Rex said carefully, "The way I saw the world made sense to ."
"You carry that over to the next life, whether you rember the last one or not." He stared at the fire. "Everything else can be replaced."
Talyra was quiet for a mont before asking, "Is that why you see things the way you do?"
"Like the way you see the shooting, the fish, and how Aisella arranges her plants?"
"Maybe," Rex said.
Aisella asked, "What way is that?"
"Like they’re interesting," Talyra said.
The way she said it made it sound easy, but it wasn’t at all. "Not impressive and not what people usually an when they say interesting, but it seems like he really wants to know how it works, just for the sake of knowing."
Rex looked at her.
"Is that annoying?" she asked, but the question’s vulnerability was not acted out.
Rex said, "No."
"I notice things people are doing," she said. "Always have... it’s not considered polite to ntion it."
Rex said, "You talked about it with ."
"You’re not like the others," she said.
Rex kept looking at her, and Talyra didn’t look away. The only thing that moved was the fire between them.
He had two more things to say tonight, two more specific comnts that would have pushed both of their desire levels even higher in the direction they were already going, such as expressing his admiration for her or sharing a personal secret that would deepen their connection.
He had them ready, and he could have used either one at the right ti.
But...
He decides that he didn’t want to, not today.
They would work, but what was already going on between the three of them was doing more work than any extra targeted statent would.
Adding more to it would be like adding color to sothing that was already the right shade. The real skill in this kind of work was knowing when to stop.
He leaned back on the rock shelf and gazed upward. The sky above the island was characteristic of those far from the mainland, free from light pollution: a deep darkness enveloped everything, with stars scattered across it in abundance.
It was so dark that it was hard to look at and think about anything small.
Talyra looked up too and said, "There are a lot of them."
Rex said, "Eighty billion in this galaxy alone."
"How do you know that?" she asked.
"Before this life," he said.
She was quiet for a mont, then she laughed, the real kind of laugh, not the fake one, and leaned back next to him to look at the sa sky.
Aisella reclined on the sand she had prepared for this, and the three of them gazed at the sa sky. There was nothing uncomfortable about it, and Rex let it be what it was, a mont that didn’t need anything else.
They stayed that way until Talyra fell asleep where she was lying down. This happened slowly at first, and then all at once, like sleep always does.
Aisella said quietly from across the fire, "I’ll carry her to the shelter."
Rex said, "I’ll do it."
He lifted Talyra with the effortless telekinetic precision that was just how things moved on this island, and he led her into the shelter without waking her.
Aisella stood by the fire and didn’t say anything, but when Rex ca back, she looked at him with the look she had when she had made up her mind.
"Good night, Rex," she said.
"Good night, Aisella..."
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