Teige had slipped away from the firelight, into the woods which were lit only by the hard blue light of the nearly-full moon. At his feet, a still pond glistened in the moonlight; a frog chirped quietly at its edges. His mother was now asking him about if he had enough money left, if he was eating, if he was being looked-after, if he still had all of his belongings--

"No," Teige was saying patiently. "They confiscated that, too. I don't even have my glasses."

"I'll refill your prescription before we leave Earth, honey."

"Thanks, Ma."

"Have you run into a lot of fighting?"

Teige shifted from foot to foot, answering casually, "Oh, here and there."

"Teige," his mother said, in a voice that froze the smile in place on his face, "you don't have to do this, you know. If you want to come home, you can."

"Ma," Teige started, taken aback.

"There's no shame in it, Teige," his mother interrupted. "I'd rather you come home safe than not at all. Do you really know what you're getting into? Joining up with the Order?"

Teige paused, the smile fading from his face. For a moment, he thought about being shot in the shoulder, about the blood welling to the surface through his shirt, about his hands and Hawk's desperately grabbing at the spot as if that would hold the blood in.

"Nothing I can't handle, Ma," he said finally in a distant kind of way, rubbing his shoulder where the wound had been.