
"Nothing I can put my finger on, just little things. I dip my head and let my hood fall forward. "Sometimes I get the feeling… something's different." Gaelin stops and squints at me. Straight from the manufacturer ," Gaelin-4 says. "You think we come back the same every time?" "I do. "Yeah… he'd love that." "You two having issues again?" I shake my head in a stiff, narrow lie. Have Gilgamesh tune you then." I chuckle. I feel slower." "Uh huh." "Just not like what I used to feel like. "Why? You're immortal." "And you're not?" "I know, but I'm… slower. "You know I literally tune myself, right?" asks the Exo Hunter. "Besides, you know I can't go back there." I straighten the leather wrap around my Tex-foundry rifle. "No, I mean this thing." I run my hand over my body. I swear, she kept us like a pack of strays." I sigh. "That shipwright still around? She used to make cider in the autumn.

Been running too long without cutting the engine," I say.

Our rifles low, our Ghosts high in the canopy like sentry drones. Gaelin-4's war beast leads us through balmy Venusian jungle. "Long, short, they all end the same way." -Katabasis
