Sometimes there has to be violence for there to be peace.

A turtle told him that right before she ate Gug, the beetle. That upset Finn tremendously; Gug had been his friend.

There have not been many friends in Finn's life. There have been friendlies—creatures nice enough, the straying tadpole, the cross mole. They lingered for a while, told Finn things he needed to know, but their paths led them somewhere else, somewhere Finn could not follow.

He understands how that is now.

It's a tomb of rocks and roots and stones that lie behind them, burying Finn's friends. Or maybe he is only a friendly of theirs, his path leading him somewhere else.

It's just us; no one else can know.

Maybe Finn has only ever had one friend.

They walk in this tunnel like moles in the dark, following intuitively, knowingly. Inside here, inside his mind, Finn is a firefly, flickering in the darkness, abdomen blinking a weak green-glow, and every time he goes out faces flash in the gloom, white with frozen grins. Melting, screaming.

Bad memories, Hiran might say, might tell him because he is clever about these things, clever in ways Finn is not. Bad moments in the past, Finn. Just the past.

But they aren't.

He could feel it, how the clowns had struggled underneath his grip as they burned, as they melted, how their wills had fluttered and scrabbled against his own.

It was awful. Worse than watching a wolf take down a fawn, worse than a snake in a rabbit hole, worse than one of things chasing after him, leering, holding a glint of metal in its hand. Because it was his fault. He did it.

It's not really their waxy faces that haunt Finn in the dark; not the brittle hollowness inside their wills, like something powerful and ugly had carved them out. It's him holding on, him holding them down, letting them burn alone in the black, until they're nothing but cinder.

Sometimes, the turtle says to him, breaking Gug between her beak, there has to be violence for there to be peace.

Finn doesn't know about all that anymore; but if it's true, he thinks he might not be cut out for it.

It's up to us. Up to you. Are you listening, Finn? You need to—

"—concentrate."

He blinks wide in the darkness.

"Do you feel anyone? Anything?"

It's a game of hide and seek, where he reaches out without a hand, grasping for a thread, a flutter of breathing, and they hide, wills and minds that don't want to be found, don't want to be caught. The cleverer they are, the harder to find.

"No."

They never seemed to understand, the cats, the bears, the people, the butterflies. Finn never wanted to catch them. He just wanted to say hello. It's just—

Lei on the ground, spitting dirt, wheezing, and the boy on top of him, the boy holding the knife, pressing into his skin, Finn's friend's skin, pressing oozing droplets of blood—

Sometimes they didn't give him any choice.

The turtle understood that. But Finn thinks that's not why she ate Gug.

They are climbing now though some kind of city with flat, tan walls; high, white arches; and dust. And hollowness.

"There's no one here," he says, and the alleyways whistle with loose wind, blowing grit and gravel, but not anything else.

"I know."

He watches the empty halls as they pass and wonders if he isn't wandering inside the hollow insides of one of those creatures after all.

If we are, he thinks, we are going up to the brain.

Even in all this hollowness, all this emptiness, he can hear it ticking up ahead, like the steady drop of water, the click of a dial in a zeppelin. She climbs ahead on the narrow path up toward the dark structure—the looming, leering X above them—and Finn doesn't want to go.

It's cold underneath the Throne Room's shadow when they arrive, and inside the atrium is a tall, black door, glittering, held tightly shut. It's like an arch into nighttime, a hole with a silver knob, and there's something about its cool glint, something about the way the warm light just can't seem to touch it, that sparks a hint of hesitation. A moment of pause.

They stand there together, watching the door, and he thinks for one sliver of a second they might escape what comes next, until she turns.

The Paragon's face is waxen, just like those creatures', gray and flat in the dim light. And her eyes are dead, cold, like ocean waters.

"You know what to do."

And Finn nods because he does, because this is what all that practice, all the times thrown back onto the floor, forward onto his knees, was for. He wants to ask again if they'll stay together, the team, but he's afraid of her answer. He's afraid of the other side of the door.

A hand settles on his shoulder, cold and heavy.

"Isn't it better," she asks, "to kill one man than a thousand to reach the same goal?"

When the silence stretches too long, he nods. It's only then that she leaves him there, in front of the door. Leaves him to open it, and walk in alone.

But, he thinks, turning toward it, hands trembling, I don't want to hurt anyone.

The thing on the other side is a monster. Black and burning on the inside, coiled and putrefying. It wears a human form, but with his sense Finn can see it's all darkness, all seething rot, and when it wheels toward him, giant and shimmering in cold metal Finn's lungs seize, his heart pitter-patters.

"Who are you?" it asks. "Where is Isa—"

Its instinct, the reach, the grab. This time, this one time, it's never to say hello, never for want to touch—he fears it, oh god, please, he doesn't want to touch it—it's to seize. It's to pin.

Yield.

He grabs with his Skill and it's screaming, shrieking, and the paws are clawing, lifting up, talons curling—

Down. He pushes, hands trembling out in front of him, knees bending, feet spreading, as if to hold off a physical block, instead of hold together a mental clasp. It's writhing, screeching, head tossing and butting thin air, arms out, shaking, holding still.

Down.

The hands lift higher.

D-down.

It's pushing back, pushing back like nothing has ever pushed back before, a fist pummeling against his head, hammering, flat and bloody-knuckled.

Down, he pushes again, desperately, and beyond the hazy, tunneled vision, in the blurred periphery, something silver set high on the steps behind the monster is moving, shimmering, melting. Finn's breath hitches.

The claws twitch.

DOWN.

The wrist flicks.

And the hurtling alloy seizes on Finn's head like a helmet, a muzzle, gripping tight.

Finn is a firefly, flickering in this metal darkness, his abdomen blinking a weak green-glow. Every time he goes out, her face flashes in the gloom, twisted, snarling. It's an unbearable pressure, pushing in on his forehead, his temples, compressing everything down into that finite black, that empty space.

It's shoving in, caving, and Finn wants to give in, to yield, to bow, to break, to end this pain—

One soul, the echoes of time, space, understanding say, for a thousand.

Finn thinks of Lei in the dirt, puffing out dust. He thinks of Caj on horseback, looking away but still reaching out. He thinks of Tara, grinning at him like sunshine. He thinks of Fae, leaning beside him in the firelight, stroking his hair. He thinks of Hiran, throwing his arm around him; Hiran screaming on the other side of the rock fall.

It's all quiet now, quiet like the breath before dawn, quiet like a breeze through grass, a bird flittering from tree to tree.

Finn knows what to do.

The monster is screaming words at him inside this cage, but Finn only reaches out, snaps something like a twig, a reedy stem. And the thing on the other end twitches, spasms, inky black and roiling. And it swipes back one, final time.

Maybe, in the end, I did have more friends than friendlies, Finn thinks, and then he feels something like pricks on his skull.

A thorn lily, Finn realizes, and everything collapses.

Dust, dirt, cold stone ground. A collection of little things, little moments, crumbling out like sand, like water between fingers. There are, he knows, so few of them left now. He might be strange, but he was never foolish.

Finn breathes. In, out, in, out... Nothing looms in this darkness when he blinks. Nothing, nothing at all.

And Finn flickers out.

A/N: My baby... you were too sweet, too kind, too good to endure what came for you, but you stood against it all the same. For your friends.

Now excuse me, I have to go hide somewhere untraceable and untrackable because I am going to literally be murdered for this.

Chapter notes: Finn first talks about needing violence for peace in Partisan's "The Final Seven," protects Lei in "A Hostile Environment," and stops Isati's creatures with his Skill in "That Was A Mistake." Allayria's italicized quote is from Prodigal's "Secrets in the Hollow Stone," and her question about one life for a thousand is from Paragon's "Removing the Linchpin." Finn's memories of his friends are from the following: Lei, Partisan's "A Hostile Environment;" Caj, Partisan's "House in the Twinkling Light;" Fae, Partisan's "Map of Consequences;" and Hiran, Partisan's "Map of Consequences" and Prodigal's "A Red Day." The thorn lily story is also in "Map of Consequences."