"Sturdy, is there something you want to share with the class?"
"No Ayre, there is not."
"We just burned down a giant building."
"Yes we did."
"Burned it down. For seemingly no reason. At all."
"It would appear that was the case."
"Do you want to, maybe talk about why we just did that?"
"No."
"I think we should have some kind of words about this."
"I do not."
"Yeah, see, this is the kind of socially repressed crazy that burns down giant buildings."
"Indeed."
"So, you agree that you're socially repressed crazy."
"No."
"No."
"That is what I said, yes."
"Yes. No. Stop confusing me. Why did we just burn that building down?"
"It irritated me."
"It...irritated you."
"Yes."
"Yes, Gaffer, I- It saved our lives. It sure as hell saved mine."
"I saved your life. I found the food you needed."
"Yes, but it was...Fine, I do owe you that one."
"Indeed."
"Are you going to say anything but 'Indeed', 'yes' or 'no'?"
"Perhaps."
"You're completely mad, you know that Sturdy?"
"You may very well think that, but I could not possibly comment."

Stirring conversations where my excellently charming friend says very little and means even less aside, this is another boring part of the story. Which means traveling. Lots and lots of walking. Walking and raining. The rain fell almost constantly, although just barely there. What would have been a welcome kiss of the cool on a summer's day was now our constant companion. I just wish it had bought me dinner.

Speaking of food, this was about the time I began to notice something was missing from my diet. Not that I really had much room to complain, given that food itself was only a recent luxury. Vegetables and pickled vegetables were all well and good, but... It was the feeling of a hole in my stomach that no potato could fill, no pickled leek could patch.

Although seriously, try pickled leek. It's awesome.

Yes, the food situation. Judging by how I was rationing everything we had, Crater fed off hugs and Sturdy ate the half-alive grass we were fine for a good while. Not more than a month, but that's a good while when your distant future survival prospects used to end at tomorrow.

We walked. We walked some more. After a little while, Crater opened up to us. While walking, of course.

"Um, mister Ayre?"
"Yes, adorable chitinous pony?"
"Why are you here? In Tartatus, I mean. D-did you do something bad or..." Crater trailed off.
"I have no idea. I don't think I did anything bad, I mean I just kinda appeared in the desert, walked on a rock, met Sturdy and danced in the rain."
"So, you don't know if you did a bad thing?"
"Probably did. We're all in Tartarus, you know. We're evil and have big gnashy teeth." I put my fingers up to my mouth to simulate two big pointy fangs. I wiggled them for show. It got a giggle, that's all I was after.
"But what if-if you are here like me?"
"Like you, little Crater?"
"Because you're from a bad hive and since you're from a bad hive you must be bad too even though you're not?" Damn that little bug-ball talks when s/he's not terrified or near death. I should probably clarify that / sometime. Meh, not important.
"Maybe," I wisely and decisively stated, nodding and taking up the 'walking man thinking' pose. "maybe I'm not so bad after all and I just need a couple of friends to help show me the way to goodness and happiness and all of that."
"Really mister Ayre?" Oh gods. The sheer force of hope that shone out of this one's eyes should have killed me.
"No." And like that it was snuffed out, thank you Sturdy.
"Don't mind him, Cratos, he's just a little sad."
"He's sad?"
"Yeah, you can tell by his long face."

Side note: This was the moment I was banned from puns. Forever.

Another stretch of time passed with nothing but eating, walking, admiring the nothing, walking, walking on mud plains, that was a new experience, walking on fallen tree corpses, I refuse to call them trees, trees have leaves and are actually alive and...more walking. This is an exciting and compelling story, isn't it? So much action.

Let me skip to the good part: the beach. After who knows how long we managed to find ourselves tasting the salty smelling air wafting enticingly in from the ocean above, and gods was it weird. It didn't smell like the regular ocean, at least, it smelled wrong to me. Gone was the tiny note of decaying sealife and the miniscule wavering scent that is dead seaweed. They were instead replaced with...more salt.

Let me explain that. Sorry for pulling us off track, but you may have noticed by now that there is almost nothing living in Tartarus, at least not for long. Remember the sky? No sun, no moon. And though that may seem creepy as hell and generally not good, it's worse for plant life. Which needs the sun to live. Animals are little better, you know, because they need healthy plants to live. When whoever set up Tartarus or whatever created this magicless (tell you later) domain of half-light pulled the storm over it's head, they signed the death warrant for every native species. Only the hardest species of grasses can survive that kind of sky. Again, sorry. Back to the story.

We raced towards the smell as fast as our weary legs could carry us. The dead wood that once comprised the bushes and trees around the once fertile coastal lands were brittle and tasted stale, according to Sturdy. I wish he wouldn't eat the supplies, but we cut through that morgue of trees. Or perhaps corpse. As opposed to copse, of alive trees it's a corpse of dead trees. I like morgue better.

The beach was tiny gray rocks amongst slightly larger slightly grayer rocks. It was still exciting. They were so smooth and cold as opposed to the rough heat the rest of the country. Exciting things, small smooth gray rocks.

"This sucks."
"Indeed."
"Y-yeah."

Those were our reactions. Endless rocks one way, endless rocks and a bend the other. Larger jagged rocks blocked our sight to what I'm going to call the east and around the west was that bend. Picture it, if you will. Indigo seas, flat and still. Storming skies, rolling and silent. Gray stones, rolled flat. And black corpses of trees, pointing like accusing fingers at the traitorous sky.

Quite a picture, if you like morgues.

There was nothing here but stones and the sound of faintly rippling waves. They didn't even crash. The wind barely blew and it's not like there were any leaves to rustle. Although, looking at that giant pile of weather-resistant wood...

"Hey, Sturdy?"
"Yes?"
"Think we could build something out of all that?" I asked, pointing to the path we crashed through.
"Perhaps. I do not know how to construct houses."
"Well, can we try? C'mon it'll be fun."
"I'd like to try, mister Gaffer." squeaked up little Crater.
"See? Even the little one wants to give it a shot. Let's build something cool."
"Very well, we shall gather wood."
"Just don't burn it down this time."
"I do not burn things down."
". . ."

Turns out you can pronounce an ellipsis. It's a croaky, click-y sound from your throat. Like a half formed groan of disbelief. We set about gathering whatever wood didn't immediately break. About two in every three trees were useless. They became flooring after we packed them together and stamped them down. Well, Sturdy stamped them down. Crater and I jumped up and down uselessly. The old hardwood became pillars. Crater stumbled on the idea of how to keep the place warm and not drafty.

"Mister Ayre?"
"What's doing, Cratette?"
"I built a hive."

Yup, that was a hive. He had formed the leftover splinters into a kind of structure and stuck it together with mud. Huh.

"That's stuck together with mud."
"Yessir, mister Ayre."
"Kid, you're brilliant."
"Smartest queenling in the hive."
"Cutest one too. Wait, what's a..." I trailed off at the thousand yard stare the kidling had adopted. Okay. Not asking. For now. But hey, there's that gender I was looking for a polite way to ask about.

The mud made everything better. The walls were four pillars and stuck together kindling. The roof still had to be logs, though. Well, long branches. That took the better part of... Not like there's a measurement of time here, but we were sleepy by the time it finished. I want the sun back. Well...I want the moon back. Everything else wants the sun back. We stood back for a moment and admired our handiwork, the first of what would turn out to be many of these. Which is when the kidling asked the killer question.

"Um, where's the door?"

Damnit.

Author's Note

All dietary suggestions are fictional and you shouldn't do them. Probably. You might like pickled leeks. I don't know.

Trying for less grim in this one. Trying, I never said said succeeding. Everything is dead, you try to crack a joke.