“Are you crazy?! You hit him too hard!”

“Crazy? Are you fucked up?! Who is normal here? Who?! You spend so much time with them, have you seen your normal Nik well?” Lis eloquently looked at the leg of Nikto, blood continued to flow from the deep cut.

“Did you see him stoned? When he is stoned and having fun? His favorite pastime is to get hold of Arel’s cock or ass or of his own, and drive everything that comes to hand into it. Or fuck Arel for several hours without a break. You have a bad idea, Kors, about the whole degree of douchebaggage of him and Arel, and what they are doing. When Nikto collapses into insanity, he mutilates Arel and himself, and he doesn’t give a damn that scars remain. This is his only favorite pastime. Have you seen his body, his face?”

Kors covered his ears:

“Gods, why can’t you do without such an abundance of obscene words!”

“Because what they are doing can’t be named in another way!”

Nikto stirred with a soft groan:

“Li-i-is, where are your handcuffs?” Nikto held out his hands. “Close me.”

“Maybe you should be attached to the pipe?”

“I'll rip it out, probably,” Nikto raised his impersonal face to Lis, “Lis, I allow you to erase the jester’s mask and pull out the bell. Your soldiers need you. Be what I made you in the Limit.”

“Silver fox?” Lis grinned, he took out his handcuffs, with which he never parted, but was in no hurry to close Nikto’s hands.

“Silver fox is more expensive than an ordinary fox…”

“Are your unclean ones coming soon?”

“They have about one day left to get to Riverside.”

“Maybe you should go to meet them? You will wind down, do something and take your mind off your madness?”

“Yes,” Nikto agreed.

And Lis looked at Kors and said:

“Thanks,” and left.

“But I haven't had time to ask for you yet, oh devil!”

3

The trip

Black water chomped loudly over the side of the ferry raft. Nikto was sitting with his back against the side, his legs bent at the knees and his straightened arms resting on them, his head was lowered. He wasn’t moving.

Kors looked at him closely.

“Nik, are you high?”

Nikto raised his face covered with a mask:

“Yeah,” he drawled.

“And strong? Completely stoned? Yes, Nik?”

“Uh-uh… yes,” Nikto answered a little more clearly, but in unclean, “Nik, you're high,” he repeated and laughed softly.

“Gods, you’re finished! You are really finished, and you will catch an overdose again!”

Nikto answered, dropped his head between his hands again. And Kors saw now only his white top and long bangs with a black strand.

“It’s really difficult with you! Nik… I don’t understand. Do you feel so bad in a human body? In our world? Is it so unbearable?”

“Leave me alone, how tired I am of you all!”

“Nik, speak to me in black, please.”

Nikto raised his head again, and straightened his hair, slightly removing it from the mask:

“I'm fine,” he said in black, still responding to Kors’ request.

Arel, standing nearby and holding his horse by the bridle, as usual, silently listened to their conversation. Smiling slightly, he raised the flask of the unclean to his lips, taking a good sip of it.

“Nik,” Kors continued, “I think you’re doing the wrong thing. You are going crazy from your supposedly limitedness in this body. You have too much pride and no humility. Rather, you completely misunderstand him, you confuse humility with humiliation.”

“As if you understand!”

“Yes, I understand.”

“And, of course, impeccable Vitor Kors, who knows and understands everything!”

“At least I try. I am walking this path. I made peace with Lis, and I understood him. And you continue to mock and humiliate him, yes, then you allow him to hit you on the head, but this is not humility! This is a perversion! And I realized that the half-blood is no worse than me, that he is the same! He’s a man too! And we are equal. And you – no! You, Demon, don’t want to accept the fact that you are the same as us!”