Erani and I stood in front of the decapitated corpse of our prisoner, Nantuth. Next to us stood the Dryad, who had just killed him. Blood oozed from the body’s neck, saturating into the ashen ground and turning it a dark, slimy red.
I looked down at the sight, sickened. Sure, we’d killed people before – I’d killed, myself, back in the explosion at the barricade – but this man was innocent. He was cooperative. I heard Erani gasp and turn away.
“Why would you do that?” I asked the Dryad in as calm a manner as I could.
She frowned at me. “Thought you were okay with killing bad guys. This was bad guy, am correct?”
“Well, yes, he was on the bad guys’ team. But we didn’t have to kill him. He wasn’t even against us – he just helped us by giving away information. Wasn’t trying to hurt us in any way. We can’t just kill people for the fun of it.”
“How does it hurt us if kill him?” the Dryad asked.
“It doesn’t hurt us. It hurts him. That’s the point.”
“If killing bad guys only hurts bad guys, will not stop killing bad guys.”
Was she seriously refusing to apologize? And not only that, but it didn’t seem like she had any intention of stopping, either. “Okay, listen. Believe what you want to believe, but you can’t just kill people like that without even asking us first. We could’ve found a better way to deal with him that didn’t end in him dying.”
“Bad guy dying was the purpose. If asked you first, you would say no. So did not ask.”“I… what?” She didn’t ask because she knew we’d say no if she did? How did that even make sense?
“Can you talk to her about this?” I turned to Erani, who was still turned away from the gory sight. An innocent man, killed just like that.
She nodded and closed her eyes, presumably to focus on communicating with the Dryad. While they did that, I guided them both away from the scene, holding Erani’s hand so she wouldn’t trip while walking blind. Ignoring the fact that it was just unpleasant to look at, the corpse would also inevitably attract Ghouls with their strong sense of smell, so it would be smart to get away from there.
Besides, at the end of the day, we had no idea if that man had been transmitting his location somehow while we interrogated him, so we needed to leave just in case enemies were on their way. The Dragon had done its rampage, anyway – we’d heard its roars while we interrogated Nantuth – so we knew it’d be safe to enter the wasteland.
While the two talked telepathically, I was left in my own thoughts. The shock of watching a man unexpectedly die in front of me had worn off, and logic was starting to kick in a bit more. At the end of the day, we hadn’t really had a way to deal with the man without killing him. Even if he didn’t want to hurt us, his existence would do us harm all the same. So it wasn’t like I didn’t understand where the Dryad was coming from.
But still, it didn’t even seem like she was doing it because we didn’t have another choice. She’d labeled him as a ‘bad guy’ so he needed to die. Even if we had a perfect way of keeping him alive, I suspected she wouldn’t have cared. And, most important of all, we couldn’t let her get away with just killing people for no reason, especially without even consulting anyone.
What if she saw some random traveler who wanted to help us and decided to kill them? What about once we got through Kingdom’s Edge, to the Barinruth Empire? Regardless of what was the right decision in this specific case, she needed to understand that we disagreed there.
After a few minutes, Erani opened her eyes. “I couldn’t get through to her. Seems pretty set in her ways.”
“But why? What’s the point of even killing him? Did she just want to avoid compromising our location by leaving him alive?”
“No, no,” Erani sighed. “I asked. Nothing like that. She just wants to kill all the ‘bad guys’. Doesn’t think they deserve to live.”
“But he wasn’t doing anything wrong,” I argued. “He was forced into service because of the draft. Did you explain that to her?”
“She and I have already had a conversation about this,” Erani sighed. “She doesn’t care about any of that. Said that if someone was forced into service, they should just let themselves be killed instead of becoming a ‘bad guy’.”
I didn’t know what to say, so instead I just shook my head.
“What should we do?” Erani asked.
“What do you mean?”
“About her. I mean, like, what should we do now that she’s just killed someone innocent? And wants to do it again?”
“What can we do? Kill her? Lock her up in prison? At the end of the day, we need her on our side. She’s too valuable an asset to give up. We’d have died without her multiple times over, by now. After we get through Kingdom’s Edge, though… who knows. We’ll see where she’s at. Maybe then we can give her to the authorities, I don’t know.”
“She’s just a kid, Arlan. If anything, she needs proper guidance, not to be killed.”
“I didn’t say we’d kill her, just give her to the government. They’d figure it out.”
“And do you really think they’d do anything other than kill her? At best, she’d be sold into slavery for some noble. But she’d probably just be slaughtered for XP. It’s either she stays with us, or she dies at the hands of some other Humans. I know you know that’s it.”
“She could also just go back to living in the wilderness,” I suggested.
“Somewhere she doesn’t know at all? She wouldn’t even be in the same country anymore, much less a territory she’d recognize.” Erani sighed. “I can’t just abandon her, whether that means certain death for her or not. I mean, yes, she’s clearly misguided–”
“A murdering psychopath, more like.”
“Don’t call her that!” Erani frowned at me, and I could tell she was genuinely angry.
“I– okay,” I sighed. I really was being too hard on her, especially after she did something that just boiled down to her trying to help. “I’m sorry. I know she’s a child. And she hasn’t really interacted with Humans before – at least not in any sort of healthy light. She definitely could benefit from some moral lessons. But, I mean, how would we even do that? She’s not Human, herself. Is it even possible for her to feel true empathy for us?”
“I don’t know. But we have to try. I want to travel with someone eager to kill innocents as little as you do, but I’d rather we actually try to fix the problem, rather than just throw it away. It’s like you said. She didn’t make any sort of choice to be thrown into the life she’s currently living. She was given the same options these innocent soldiers were – start fighting or die. And so, really, isn’t she just as innocent as they were? She had to learn violence, to learn to never trust another Human, to learn to kill on sight, and refuse to acknowledge the lives she was taking as anything other than worthless. Because if she didn’t, she’d be killed. She was just as forced into this as anyone else was. We can’t judge her for learning the way she did. But we can help her view the world in a less black-and-white way.”
I sighed. “Fine, yeah, you’re right. What should we do to teach her, though? I mean, what should we even say?”
Erani didn’t immediately answer that. Instead, we just kept walking and thinking for a while, the only sounds in the barren forest our tattered shoes crunching against the dry, gray dirt.
“You are not mad anymore?” I got a sudden message from the Dryad, startling me. It was always a bit creepy to be reminded that she could tell my exact emotional state and attitude toward her at all times.
“Um, no. I’m not mad at you anymore. I still don’t want you to do what you did, though.”
“You do not want to hurt me?”
“No, I don’t want to hurt you. I do want you to not harm or kill people for no reason, though. I get that sometimes, leaving people alive will harm us. But other times, we may be able to find a way to keep someone alive. We can make allies and encourage people to help us, since we helped them. At the very least, ask before doing something like that. What you did back there wasn’t okay. There wasn’t any reason to kill him, and you shouldn’t just do that for no reason.”
“But did have a reason. Was killing a bad guy.”
“Well, maybe we don’t have to kill every bad guy. Maybe we can leave the ones that don’t want to hurt us alive.”
There was a pause, and I could tell the Dryad was taking a moment to think. After a bit, she messaged me once again, “but you do that.”
I blinked. “What?”
“You kill when no reason. Kill things that do not want to hurt.”
“W-what? When?” I’d taken care to not kill people unnecessarily. The only time I may have gone against that was when we’d blown up the barricade. But those people definitely did want to kill me – I’d experienced their murderous intent first-hand – and I needed to do that to prevent myself from getting overpowered by our enemies in the future, anyway.
“Constantly. Kill animals, wildlife, that does not want to hurt you. Do it all the time.”
Oh. “Well, that’s different.”
“How?” She seemed like she was genuinely curious.
“First off, I don’t just kill animals for no reason. We have to eat somehow, so–”
“You can eat Human, too. So killing Human was not bad.”
I blinked. Cannibalism was an entire other jar of worms that I was not ready to get into with her. “Okay, but I also do it for XP. If we don’t get stronger, we’ll die.”
“I get XP from killing Human. So that also makes killing Human not bad.”
I sighed and shook my head. I just wasn’t getting through to her. “Listen. Killing something intelligent like that just isn’t okay. Humans are intelligent, and so are some other species. Like, I saved you from the Demons back when we’d first met – that was because you were intelligent. And–”
“What is ‘intelligent’?”
“Oh, intelligence is, like, how smart something is. Its ability to solve problems, communicate, build a better life for itself, that sort of thing.”
“No. Not what is ‘intelligence’ definition. What do you think is ‘intelligent’?”
“What?” I wasn’t sure what she was asking.
“How do you decide what is ‘intelligent’? What makes Human intelligent, but not Wood Wraith? Or Anacap? All creatures are intelligent, in own way. Just because cannot communicate with you does not mean not intelligent. Just because hold different values from you does not mean not intelligent. Just because want to kill you does not mean not intelligent. You save me because I was nice, did not hurt you. I know that is why. Your emotions say so.”
“I– listen. Not all animals are intelligent. Some are just objectively dumb. A worm, for example, just doesn’t have the breadth of thought that a Human does.”
“You do not know. You do not know what thinks, and what does not. Some animals do not think like Humans, and those you say are dumb. Worms can make tunnel, keep track of location, navigate underground better than Humans ever can. You only think I am intelligent because I think like Human. Because I give gift like Humans do. Because I am social like Humans are. But animals that are smart but not social, or that are social but not gift-givers, can all be intelligent.”
“What, so you think I should just stop killing anything ever? That every single life, down to the smallest insect, is just as precious as that of a Human?”
“No.”
“Well then what are you saying?” I demanded angrily.
“You can kill animals when want to. All animals kill animals. But you must let me kill Humans when want to. Everything kills something. I kill Humans.”
“I just– listen. I don’t want you to kill Humans. I don’t care if you think it’s reasonable for you to do, I don’t like it.”
“You don’t like because you are also Human. That is okay. Will stop doing it in front of you. Because you are ally. Care about you, and do not want to hurt you. But if you care about me, you let me kill Humans.”
I shook my head. “Killing things mindlessly is no way to live. Just murdering people for the sake of murdering – taking lives, people with families, and people who care about them – you can’t just keep doing that.”
“Why can’t keep doing that?”
“You just– it’s meaningless! It’s violence for violence’s sake. When all you do is kill, that just makes you a husk of a thing. You’re barely even alive. If you want to get stronger so you can protect yourself, or to protect others, or just because you want to get revenge on the person who actually made the decision to do this to you, fine. I’d fully agree with you, actually. But you’re killing people who barely have anything to do with this. Why would you want to define yourself by your enemies? By the things you hate? Why not try to live for the things you love, instead?”
“Do not have anything that I love. Was all taken from me.”
A chill went down my spine, and for once, I genuinely didn’t think I could respond.
“Bad guys killed everyone I love. Killed all animals I love. Killed mother. Killed forest. Killed landscape. Killed home. Killed all surroundings. Killed everything I knew. I hate them. Why can not live for that? Why you kill my hate, too?”
I looked over at her, and saw tears running down her cheeks. White fluid leaking from white eyes. I struggled to think of something to say. “I– I didn’t–”
“If hate meaningless, I meaningless. My life meaningless. Everything else gone.”
“No, no, you’re not meaningless. I’m sorry.” I grabbed her and pulled her into what I hoped felt like a fatherly embrace, her wet tears staining my forehead. I don’t think she even noticed me doing it, she didn’t react to my touch. But still, I didn’t know what else to do. Really, what could I even say to that? I’d been so caught up with my own feelings and desires, I’d forgotten to consider what she’d really gone through in all this.
It was at that point that Erani noticed what was going on. “Oh gods, what happened? Arlan, what did you say?”
The Dryad pushed me away, simply continuing to sob on her own. Erani looked back and forth between us, eyes wide, as the Dryad leaned against a tree and wiped her eyes with her arm,
I just watched the Dryad cry, speaking to Erani without looking at her, “I don’t think we can convince her to stop killing people.”
“Why?!” Erani demanded.
“Because if we did, we’d be taking away the only thing she has left.”