"Didn't you already witness all you needed to?" Norx stepped forward, his red eyes scanning the new greenery on the scroll with pure distaste. "The 'experiment' is over. You felt the sun, you saw the dirt, and you tasted the bread. What are you doing now? You're turning a perfectly good trial zone into a garden."
"You were right that I needed to witness it first-hand," Alias said, his voice warm and certain, disregarding the spite in Norx's tone.
He turned back to the scroll, adding a cluster of fruit trees near a particularly deep oasis. "I learned that struggle is one thing, but despair is another. I know exactly what I need to do to help them now. Thank you, Norx."
Norx froze. The 'thank you' hit him like a physical blow, catching him completely off guard. Usually, Alias would argue with logic or ignore his teasing entirely. He had never thanked him, and definitely not with such... humanity.
