He starts running, and her own legs come unstuck. He shouts, and all at once it’d be the easiest thing in the world to take off and keep moving. To peel away from this place and never come back.

But —

“Sarge!”

The word croaks out in hoarse surprise, like she’s just not gonna believe it until she says it out loud. Melys drops her pack, legs sprinting to meet him in the middle; and if this isn’t real, isn’t solid, then that's going to be someone else’s problem when she gets there, arms shooting out in a flash to wrap around his shoulders. The right clangs heavy and loose, the left dug in with bony fingers, a grip for dear life.

And maybe that’s not real decorous, but shit, she hasn’t been a soldier in ten years.

She’s grinning like a catfish, but it’s all wrong, all twisted up and stretched too thin. Uncertainty scratches at her tongue.

“Thought they didn’t shine on necromancy out here.”

That’s a joke stacked on two, if what she’s been hearing out of the road is any kind of fucked-up-true. Still, it’s a bitch of thing, to find him walking around unburned, on top of the earth. It's skin too close to a candleflame, all knotted up tight in her chest.