Kiur could use an extended break or simply a very long vacation—preferably on the beach.

He had had enough of the desert after so much walking even though he and his people were raised by it. His lips were chipped and parched, and his rations were gone before he even noticed, not that it was much to begin with.

The three Reiszer who accompanied him had sent him on his way after half a day of walking because the Escapees were leading a guerilla warfare against them. So they risked being targeted while escorting Kiur.

They didn’t even spare Kiur a horse simply because the Escapees would know to target them and risk Kiur’s life as well but that was just a pretext.

This was also the Scorpion People's territory which was smartly chosen by the escapees to have a buffer between them and the Reiszer, forcing them to take long routes around the perimeter.

Kiur knew how to navigate around it thanks to the desert peregrination he and all his people underwent at a young age, they understood the desert and its dangers.

Unfortunately, though, Kiur never finished it.

“How much longer do I need to go, I wonder?” Kiur heaved himself through the slope and picked up his stone staff. Ragnar’s sword weighted heavily against his back.

What was he supposed to do except for dragging it along? He wasn’t trained in using it nor would it do him any good fighting. Before he could even lift it someone would either shoot or slice him down.

Worst case? Kiur will accidentally stab himself.

“I better keep to something I am familiar with, huh?” Kiur playfully twirled the staff in his hand, over his arm and then his shoulder.

Throughout the last few weeks, he remembered more and more of his past as Lotte which also came in handy in terms of skills. Sadly, Kiur was still missing the right amount of muscles to use it but he knew that wouldn’t help against monsters or Reiszer.

It was a practised skill from her time in school and she never used it against others.

Except against Hessian. The sheer mention of his name gripped Kiur with anger and he accidentally broke his stone staff into pieces.

“Shoot, need to repair it–”

“That’s not how you do it.”

Kiur shook his head as he thought he heard Xander’s voice but there he was. Right in front of him was Xander but the image flickered and Kiur gripped his parched throat. “When was the last time I had a drop of water?”

“Concentrate, this isn’t how you use magic.” Reprimanded Xander’s image and formed an orb of water in his hand. Kiur moistured his dry lips—what he wouldn’t do for a sip. “You have no control over your magic. You are feeling too much and should focus more on understanding what you see.”

Kiur replied as he did back then, “Well, this is how we were taught. We don’t think about it, we feel the magic.”

“Then you were taught wrong!” Xander barked and turned the orb to ice. Cool and unbothered by the heat. “Think, don’t feel. Your current You relies too much on feeling things, you should think on what you do.”

Heeding Xander’s advice Kiur did just that. He spotted a nearby rock and concentrated on it. He could feel or rather see the particles surrounding it. Pulling on them the stone nudged over but that’s it.

Kiur tried again but the stone barely moved at all.

Anger flared up inside Kiur and he pulled violently, showering the desert with rocks and pebbles.

“This went well,” Kiur heard Cylia laughing at the attempt just like back then. “He is a lousy teacher, isn’t he?”

Cylia had her arms crossed before her chest and grinned at Kiur. His lips quivered when he saw her, even if she wasn’t real, she looked alive and well.

“A little bit of heart doesn’t hurt, right? I say trust your heart.” Cylia pointed at her heart and then at Kiur’s. “Trust your heart more, won’t you? It’s your special part. Xander is all brains but has no heart, I trust my gut and you have your heart.”

Cylia’s image flickered and was replaced by another woman. She stood in her uniform and with the usual rebellious tick of wearing pants despite the rules. Her brown hair danced in the wind and gave Kiur the smile he was so used to when he was Lotte.

“You are perfect the way you are, why should you overthink and try to change? Trust that your heart leads you the right way.”

Their mind split, Kiur/Lotte wanted to say something to the afterimage of Liara. She looked so real as she stood in front of them but nothing came out of their mouths.

How should they respond? Who should they be to respond?

A headache brought Kiur back to his senses and Liara’s image was gone. For a moment he had lost himself, something he couldn’t afford to do in the dangers of the desert.

“Keep yourself together, you are Kiur. We can sort out our identity later, I need control–”

A cold breath hit Kiur’s neck and his hair stood up on all ends. A shadow cast over him; slowly he turned around to stand face-to-face with the demonic visage of the Asag. One of its eyes had an arrow embedded in—courtesy of the late Cylia.

Golden blood trickled down on Kiur’s face and the Asag unhinged its jaw to speak.

“Child of the Dead,” spoke the Asag in such clarity it startled Kiur. “Don’t forget about the dead. Don’t ignore the past or living. Split your mind and you will divide your strength. Divided you fall, united you prevail.”

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The Asag released another cold breath of steam, and Kiur fell into a coughing fit as the air left his lungs. Kiur couldn’t stand his ground against this enemy, so he ran.

He ran as far as he could until he forgot for how long he had been running and where exactly.

“I can’t stand against it. That monster killed Cylia, it lured us out of here, deceived me. I need to run, run, run–”

Kiur stumbled and fell to the ground and almost fell off of a cliff. The ground below was sharp and jagged. Too dangerous to drop to but right behind him stood the Asag, menacingly staring down at Kiur.

“Why do you run, child of the dead? You are close to reaching the End of the River, why do you run?” The Asag let out a steamy roll and thrust its claw towards Kiur who stepped back and went into a free fall—again.

Kiur hit a slope and tumbled further down but was veered off course and landed in the soft embrace of sand. His limbs ached and when he looked up he couldn’t believe his eyes.

“Little brother,” Archil stood before him with one hand stretched out to Kiur and just past him, was Navarre. White columns of red-tiled roofs, green trees and flowing arches of water and with a collonaded temple in the distance. “You are so close to home, what are you hesitating for?”

“I-I-” Kiur’s words hung in his mouth. Navarre was so close in his sight and his brother too. Safety was just a stone’s throw away but the sand blew in his face again.

The Asag hung above Kiur and steamed at his neck. “Your judge awaits your sentence. Decide your path and–”

“Gilgamesh, help me!” Kiur cried out desperately. He knew nothing was real. Navarre was too far away, Archil was gone, Cylia was missing and Xander was willingly staying as a hostage so Kiur could find his people.

He was at his limits and needed aid.

The images around Kiur parted alongside the mist holding them up, revealing a sad excuse of a hero-king. His onyx black eyes regarded Kiur as they stood in the middle of an ashen cavern, Irkalla.

“You called?” he asked and arched a brow. “I can’t get used to this form of yours.” Waving with his hand the mist rolled over Kiur, turning him into the form of Lotte. “Much better, what do you need, sunshine?”

“I don’t understand this stupid sentence thing you pushed on me!” Lotte cried and hit the ground with her hands. “Just judge me, do what you need to do. I don’t understand anything, my head hurts, I’m tired!”

Gilgamesh cocked his head and gave Lotte a sad smile. “This isn’t up to me. You are not ready to be judged and besides,” Gilgamesh motioned for his chest, pointing with his thumb at his left side, “your heart hurts, not your head. You are hurting because you try to understand. Keep going, the boy’s past is awaiting you in Navarre.”

“There’s more?” Lotte cried and her right side changed to Kiur. “I cannot do this anymore. I have enough trouble as it is with my own past. Why did you have to put me into this boy’s body? I am a woman for christ’s sake!”

Gilgamesh shook his head and sat down before Lotte. First, he reached out with his arms but hesitated and pulled back. Instead, he patted her shoulder. “Keep going, don’t stop, you are doing good.”

Lotte grumbled. “Some hero-king you are, I admired your story but you are nothing what I expected.”

Gilgamesh eventually pulled her in, holding her tightly. He didn't say anything as he rubbed her back. She wanted to push back but couldn't, she was so tired.

—❂—

“Hey, hey wake up.”

Someone poked at Kiur’s back as he lay face-first in the sand. He had no recollection of when he had fallen asleep or hit the deck but his estimation was between the revivified Cylia and the talking Asag.

“Think he is dead?”

“Looks like it, how else would you explain his sun-bleached hair– woah!”

Kiur immediately stirred awake when he recognised the language they spoke. The two dwarves and therianthrope backed away and held up their fists, ready for a battle.

“By the Earth Lady’s name, he’s alive!”

“I told you not to poke him with a stick!”

“Don’t you recognise his clothes? He’s one of us.”

One of them conjured a stone backrest and propped Kiur up against it. The elderly dwarf of the trio approached Kiur with a waterskin and helped him drink a droplet before Kiur grasped the entire thing and drank out the entire water supply.

The fog before his eyes cleared and he huffed for air as some of the water ran down from the corner of his mouth.

“Easy there,” the dwarf reassured Kiur. “You’re safe here, don’t worry. Why don’t you tell us who you are?”

“Clearly he’s an escapee–”

“Don’t interrupt,” the other two companions bickered but the elderly dwarf focused his attention on Kiur who was still disorientated, unsure if they were real or a figment of his imagination.

“Calm down, how about a name? My name is Shabra and I’m from the Larsa City-State, and you?”

Kiur swallowed the dry air and looked at the dwarf. He needed to remember who he was again. Not Lotte, but, “Kiur, I’m Kiur from the Nippur City-State.”

This piece of information flashed a glint in Shabra’s eyes and he stroked his beard happily. “You are in luck, child. People from your home are at our camp, how about we return there together?”

“People from home?” Kiur couldn’t believe his ears.

Taking the hand of the white-bearded dwarf Kiur was escorted back to their camp which was hidden in a basin with sharp rocks all around the edges, appearing like the maul of a large monster.

No way Kiur would have found it.

The base below was fashioned like an underground settlement with buildings carved into the stone. Fresh water was flowing all around the centre and stone arched bridges with people working like a busy beehive.

It reminded him of one of the desert settlements close to Navarre and Idaris—minus the monster maw entrance.

“We found someone, bring the lift!” called Shabra who held on to Kiur’s arm to make sure he wouldn’t stumble into the basin, as shaky as he was on his feet.

Two female dwarves operated the lifts with their earth magic which was a simple platform of hard granite. Their yellow robes were once a beautiful colour but like Kiur’s the colour had faded and was torn in so many places.

They nodded and smiled at Kiur and the lift descended when they stepped on it.

People gathered before the lift and during its descent, Kiur had time to think.

What would he say to them?

“Hey, awkward request. Please trust the Reiszer, the one that sent me is a really good guy!” Kiur had to swallow down his resentment for his predicament, especially at the worn state of him and everyone else.

He and everyone else had suffered so much under the Reiszer and they were lucky enough to have escaped their clutches. Most of them didn’t.

Archil had stayed behind for Kiur so he could survive, how could he go and ask them to trust the Reiszer? What would stop him to ignore this stupid request Ragnar had given him and go away with his people?

“Whatever happens, promise me we will escape together,” Kiur remembered Xander’s words back then when they were prisoners. They promised each other to do this together and then there was Cylia who joined them on their escape.

Now she was gone and Kiur couldn’t help but think that it was his fault, not Xander’s. Ragnar’s sword weighed heavily on Kiur’s back, the burden was too much. “If only I haven’t listened to the Asag’s words–”

“Is that him?”

“It’s him. He survived!”

“It’s Kiur!”

Kiur was swarmed by the people he had grown up with in Nippur. They pulled him into a big group hug as they shed tears of joy upon his arrival.

Old dwarves who Kiur had visited as a child. Therianthrope cousins he accidentally helped to resolve their family issues. The occasional classmate from their days at the temple school and others who were simply happy to see a familiar face.

Faces of the past only the original Kiur could appreciate the most.

Then through the crowd, a little girl jumped into Kiur’s arms and wrapped herself around his neck. At first, he didn’t recognise her but when she stared at him through her watery eyes and brown hair he recognised her.

The girl he promised to protect when her parents couldn’t. He failed back then so seeing her now did something in him.

“Ninda, you are well.” Kiur cried and hugged her tightly. “I’m so glad.”

He found his people but what now? His task has just begun.