"I would like to meditate." Isaac grumbled as they walked. "But the risk is too high."

Lenna nodded. "Shamesh and I can fight off most things, but there is no telling what might come after you, especially if it can sense your injury in any way." Lenna agreed. "On second thought, we could give it a try."

Isaac eyed her skeptically. He had made too many mistakes recently and wasn't keen on making another. "What if an ancient dragon shows up to eat me or something?" Isaac wondered.

"It is a full moon." Lenna replied. "Now is the safest you are likely to be until we get to Alten."

Isaac looked up at the full moon and thus the goddess watching over them. "Is that really a good idea?" He asked Lua as much as he asked Lenna or himself. When Lua didn't answer, Isaac looked back at his wife. "I am going to take that as a no." He told her. "She has a limit to the amount of power she can throw around during any given length of time, and I am pretty sure she has used quite a bit of it for us recently."

Lenna bowed her head slightly. "You are right." She acknowledged Isaac. "I apologize for being presumptuous." She told the moon goddess. "I am afraid that I had begun to think too lightly of your divine intervention. Thank you, my goddess, for all that you have done for us." Lenna finished. The moon goddess did not reply but Lenna knew that her message had been received. Not all prayers needed to be answered, even if all of them should always be listened to.

"We still do not know what the favor is that the Reaper is owed." Isaac wondered aloud.

"What favor?" Lenna questioned him.

Isaac froze in his tracks. He had, somehow, forgotten that he had intended to keep it to himself. He figured that if it was something that he could do alone, then he would. "Ah, um, I owe him a favor." Isaac settled on just telling Lenna most of the truth.

"You said 'we'." Lenna caught him instantly.

"Well, yeah, I figured you would be helping me with it, if it wasn't something that I had to do alone." Isaac tried to parry.

"What aren't you telling me?" Lenna blew through his guard.

Isaac gave her a confused look. "What do you mean?" Isaac attempted to dodge.

"Don't lie to me Isaac." Lenna cut him off before he could escape. "You know what I mean."

Isaac sighed deeply in defeat. "Fine." He acquiesced. "The Reaper waited a few extra seconds to take my soul and a favor was owed for it. I took the debt from you because you already paid enough for my resurrection."

"Isaac." Lenna said calmly. "That was not your place." Isaac visibly winced at the admonishment. It both surprised and hurt him in a way that had never felt before. He wanted to shoot back with something but he really didn't have any ground to stand on, especially after her next words: "I was prepared to pay any price, take on any debt, if it meant saving you. That is my debt to have, it shouldn't be of any concern to you unless it somehow affects you in the future."

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"What is your obsession with taking hits for me?!" Isaac demanded with his voice raised, not quite to a yell but loud enough that it carried for a good distance. "You shouldn't be paying for my mistakes at all, let alone entirely. Why do you insist on bearing every consequence? Do you think I like watching you get hurt? Do you think that I want you to take the negative repercussions from my actions? Because I bloody well don't."

"That's not what I think." Lenna tried to reply but barely got even her first sentence out before Isaac continued.

"Every time you do that it makes me feel like some helpless child having mom pick up the mess!" Isaac went on without cooling off in the slightest. "You aren't my mother Lenna. You are supposed to be my wife. And this isn't a broken glass, it was thirty, almost sixty years of your fu-freaking life." He almost swore at her but at least had enough self control to stop himself. "I know that to you those years may already have been given to me, but to me they are not. If the Fatebreaker dies before we get there, or if your wish cannot be fulfilled like you want it to be, you will need those years. There will be people you will need to look after, things you will need to do, centuries after I am gone. I don't know if I am mortal or not Lenna, but I am pretty damned sure that I am. I supposedly have around sixty years left on this beautifully ugly giant rock and I'll be damned if I let you throw away your potentially infinitely long cycle of reincarnation for me. You almost killed yourself, forever, in a vain attempt at bringing me back. If those five hadn't all stepped in, your immortal soul would've been destroyed and someone would have eventually resurrected me, alone. It wouldn't have taken me very long afterwards to figure out what had happened to you. Can you imagine how that future would feel for me?! Do you know what the world would've looked like for the next sixty years before Fate cut my string?!" Isaac finally stopped to breathe and he was gasping for air after his massive tirade.

"Would you have tried to do the same?" Lenna asked Isaac with a voice so utterly calm that it gave Isaac chills just from the lack of inflection. Isaac opened his mouth to answer but Lenna cut him off. "I know I am not your mother, Isaac. I am your mate, but I am also your shield as you are my sword. Whenever possible, I will continue to take every consequence, every negative repercussion for your actions, every injury, every curse, and every hardship that I can. Not just because I swore that I would, but also because I love you and I know that I am more resilient than you. And that future you spoke of, I may not be as strong as you, but as you said, I will have centuries more time than you. The inverse might've been worse."

"Regardless of how I feel about it?" Isaac demanded in reference to her continuing to take every conceivable hit for him.

"Yes." Lenna said simply. "If you do not like it, find a way to make it that I will no longer have to."

"If it was that freaking easy I would have by now." Isaac shot back.

Lenna reached up and unbuckled the strap on her helmet. She quickly took it off and dropped it on the ground next to them. She closed the distance between them in one quick step, grabbed him by both shoulders, reared back, and smashed their foreheads together. Isaac had been so utterly caught off guard by her actions that he hadn't even reacted until their foreheads collided. He stumbled back in a daze. "Calm. Down." Lenna ordered him.

A light wave of death flames washed through Isaac's head to clear it and to stop the spinning as he staggered backwards. He blinked a few times to clear his vision as he tried to process what had just happened.

"And don't raise your voice at me." Lenna continued. "I know that you are upset. I know that there is a lot of anger in there that you need to sort out, but do not take it out on me."

Isaac felt like he had just been ripped out of time and then set back down entirely detached from everything that had just happened. It took him a moment to regain his bearings and to process everything that had just happened. He slowly started nodding and sat down on the road as he ran through everything that had been said in near perfect hindsight. Lenna waited patiently for him to finish.

"Did you sort yourself out?" Lenna asked with a raised eyebrow after around a minute.

Isaac slowly nodded up at her. He was surprised that she seemed entirely fine after her headbutt that had instantly given him a concussion. Her forehead wasn't even bruising. "Y-I'm working on it." He told her honestly. "I'm sorry. You are right. I should never have raised my voice at you. You deserve better. I owe it to both of us to be better than that."

Lenna knelt down in front of him. "Yes." She agreed. "And I will forgive you, tomorrow."

Isaac was once again blindsided by her, but this time in a verbal sense. "What?"

"You are also right, you do deserve better from yourself. I know that there is 'better' inside of you." She went on. "Now, from now until tomorrow morning, I will not be saying another word to you. This is your punishment." She finished and rose to her feet. She walked over, grabbed her helmet and put it back on. Lenna then took a few steps in the direction that they were traveling and stopped to wait for him. When Isaac didn't immediately follow, she turned and looked back over her shoulder at him.

Isaac was just watching her. "Can I have a minute to fully process what just happened?" He asked her. Lenna just tapped her foot three times. "I'll have plenty of time to think while we walk?" He guessed at what she would've told him. Lenna nodded once. Isaac sighed and got to his feet. "Fine, you're right. It's not like there is anything else to do." He reluctantly agreed and then followed after her. He was just glad that she was only going to give him the cold shoulder until morning. He looked up at the moon and noticed that it was after midnight. 'Shit… does she mean the next morning or tomorrow morning…'

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