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Some notes: This is indeed for Jindal's (still unnamed) story. May call the story "Tales from a Liar," since I plan to have Ky introduce right away the fact that he's a liar. (I... question the word order of that sentence...)

Also: This is... missing a bit. It had to be under four pages long, and the part would take too long to give the background for. I plan to write it... eventually.

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Dawdon hesitated before the curtain that divided Jor and Remany’s side of the caravan from Sirinka’s. “Sirinka?” he ventured quietly. “I’d like to talk to you. May I come in?”

There was no answer from the other side. Dawdon had been expecting as much; Jor, Sirinka’s father, had told him that Sirinka had been refusing to respond to anything for almost two days. Still, Dawdon thought it was more polite to at least ask first.

He pushed aside the heavy gray curtain and stepped into Sirinka’s room. He found her just as her parents had described her: lying face-up on her bedroll, her eyes closed, her hands folded in the attitude of a coffined corpse. Her long red hair, though she habitually braided it to sleep, was spread under her. The pale blue robe that she normally wore over her dress lay, discarded, on the other side of the room, so her arms were bare. The intricate tattoos on her arm were the remnants of another time.

She did not look over when Dawdon entered, though she had probably heard him. Dawdon walked to her side and knelt, and he simply watched her. For about ten seconds, she did not breathe at all; then she desperately sucked in air and let it out again in a sigh of disappointment. She did this over and over.

She was trying not to breathe.

Dawdon felt awkward just staring at her, so he let his eyes wander across the floor. He almost flinched as he saw what Jor and Remany had warned him to expect: shards and chips of polished, rounded bone, lying discarded.

“…Sirinka,” Dawdon murmured finally. “Your father tells me that you’ve been feigning death since yesterday.”

Sirinka made no response.

“Ever since Jindal’s death, I mean.” His voice cracked. Jindal—Jindal was dead. Jindal, who had been like Dawdon’s little brother; Jindal, whom Dawdon watched grow from a boy to a capable, kind man; Jindal, whom Sirinka had loved and relied on and needed, was dead.

Lost in his own thoughts, Dawdon almost didn’t notice that at the tremor in his voice, Sirinka allowed a crack to slip between her eyelids to send an empathetic glance at him.

“I know you’re sad, and I understand that, Sirinka. But…” With trembling fingers, Dawdon picked up a piece of the polished bone. “Why did you break your flute?”

She didn’t answer.

“Do you remember when we first met, Sirinka? You were trying to play it. Did Jindal ever tell you that we saw that? You sat in front of your caravan, your posture perfect, like you were about to perform… and then you started crying, because you couldn’t remember how to play. Jindal was fascinated… We didn’t know, back then, that anyone here could still cry because of his own emotions, not just because of the nightmares. And you told us that the flute was your purest love, your greatest happiness. And that Hakiara took it away from you… but why would you break it?”

As Jindal and Sirinka became friends, it had seemed to Dawdon that Sirinka had made Jindal, rather than her flute, into her happiness. She lit up only when Jindal was around; she clung to his arm like a child, despite being three years older than he; she repeatedly begged Jindal to stay with her forever. He had promised to do so.

And then he had been struck by the guard, and he had been powerless to keep his promise.

“Why did you break your flute?” Sirinka hadn’t answered. Dawdon shook his head; it was foolish to expect him to bring Sirinka out of her misery. They had been connected to each other only through Jindal only, and now he was gone.

But then: “She takes everything away from me.”

Sirinka was speaking. Her voice, usually so gentle and musical, was hoarse from lack of use, and her eyes were still shut, but she was speaking. “Why? I know what we did, and I’m sorry. Can’t I at least keep some happiness?”

Her voice was hollow; she already knew the answer. She had accepted the tribe’s fate long ago.

She said, “There was no point to keeping that flute any longer. It would only mean more pain for me. I couldn’t take it.” Suddenly her eyes, the eyes that were the color of the sky on a stormy day, flew open, and she threw herself into Dawdon’s shocked arms.

“Dawdon, I can’t take any more pain. You always kept Jindal from falling apart, didn’t you? Please—I’m sorry—won’t you do the same for me?”

In the scentless forest, Sirinka’s skin smelled of salt. She had been crying again.

“I will, Sirinka. Trust in me. I will.”