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“We should, uh, probably take these bandages off now,” Will said, because he needed to say something instead of just ogling the man’s leg. “Or change them? I don’t know how clean…” he trailed off, at a loss.

“What are bandages? What was the purpose?” Itori asked.

Will busied himself plucking the knots free. It was harder than it looked with the fabric drenched. “They were to, um, to press against the wound. To stop the bleeding. I don’t actually know if it helped you,” he admitted. “I don’t know if you have similar anatomy to me.”

Anatomy was the wrong word. It made him think of last time, of all the differences in anatomy he’d witnessed. He swallowed around a lump.

“I see,” the creature said. “Helped, I think.”

Will finally got first knot undone, and started unwinding the fabric.

It revealed only part of the gash, which was now a scabbed and closed wound.

“I would not have needed bandage before. But now I am weak. Healing slow.”

Will got the other two strips free to reveal the whole wound. He sucked in a breath of relief. The cut was large, but it didn’t look infected. It was all scabbed and healing. Itori said this was slow healing, but for a human it would be miraculous.

“You’re weak?” Will asked.

Itori inclined his head. “Because of the tear,” he said, but gestured at the lake. “I was attached here and they pulled my core out.” He made a gesture at his chest and then his belly, looking at Will meaningfully.

Core?

Will looked at the water, at the dark shadows of the diggers. “I don’t know what you mean,” he said.

“It is… vitality,” Itori said slowly, like he was searching for the words. “My life. They injured it, tore it.”

Will looked from the excavators and back to Itori. “Like your leg? It hurt you somewhere else?”

Itori made a breathy sound that might have been a sigh. He gestured back at the water. “Not like leg pain. Inside pain. My life,” He touched his chest. “My leg will heal; this will not. I will bleed out from the tear, and eventually die.”

Fear grabbed Will so intensely that it choked the words out of him. They’d only just met, had barely talked, but Will didn’t want him to die. Itori was the most amazing, most interesting thing that had ever happened here.

“Die? How–how can we stop it? Can we stop it?”

“The tearing must stop,” Itori said, pointing at the machines.

Right. Right. Okay. They needed to stop digging. It was killing Itori somehow.

“Okay,” Will said, trying to wrap his head around that. “Stop the digging.”

“You talk to them?” Itori asked. “Tell them to stop?”

The idea was almost laughable. No one listened to Will, and it wasn't like he could go up to some business suit and tell them to stop digging up the land because it was killing a sentient, swamp species no one had ever heard of before.

But Will had to do something, didn’t he? He knew what happened when he didn’t.

Will took a deep breath, and then tried to explain to Itori how this had come to happen. How men had purchased this land, and were unlikely to listen to a twenty-something about why they should stop messing with it.

“But I’ll figure something else out. Some way to stop this,” Will assured him.

“I do not understand how they own me,” Itori said. He’d been quiet through the explanation, but now some of his teeth were showing, like he was angry. “Am I misunderstanding? I have your language, but putting the pieces together is difficult.”

“No, it’s–it doesn’t make sense to me either,” Will said. “But I promise, I’ll help you. I won’t let you die.”

For the first time in years, Will felt a flicker of anger in his chest. He’d long ago put his anger about the world to bed. Had let himself slide back into a cool, uncaring place where the indignities of his existence slid off him like water over a duck’s back.

But he hated the thought of Itori experiencing anything like that. He wasn’t even human, he shouldn’t–shouldn’t–