I woke up the next morning still in Andrian's arms, with the smell of freshly brewed coffee in the air. I sat up in bed and looked down at Andrian, who had opened his eyes as soon as I moved.

"Good morning," he said with a lazy smile.

"G-Goo-" I tried to answer, but started coughing as soon as I tried. Fortunately, there was still water at the bedside. He poured me a glass and rubbed my back while I coughed. My throat ached. I quickly realized that I wouldn't be able to regain my voice so easily. In my mind, now that I had access to my voice, that meant I should be able to talk. I was clearly wrong. I could only manage a few words at a time, and my throat hurt with each attempt.

"No need to push yourself," he reminded me, "it'll get better in time. I wouldn't be surprised if you damaged your vocal chords before."

Estra had mentioned something similar before, something about overusing my voice. I had vague recollections of crying and screaming, but I thought most of it was in my head. I must have given them all a lot of cause for concern these past few days. I screamed and yelled enough to hurt myself, and then I didn't wake up for a few days. I wasn't even sure how many days it had been. I hoped I hadn't put us too far behind in our travels.

“Smells like dad is boiling coffee. Do you want me to bring you some or do you want to try getting up?” As he asked, he patted the bed and pointed at the door, creating a way for me to answer without trying to speak.

I pointed at the door without hesitation. I’d been in bed for at least two, possibly three days, so I didn’t want to waste another day laying around. Besides, I was hungry. All I’d had in those few days I was asleep was that small bowl of porridge the night before.

Andrian nodded and said, "Alright," before getting out of bed and walking over to the closet. When he opened it, I could see clothes on the inside and our two travel bags on the bottom. He pulled out clothes for both of us and threw them on the bed. Instead of starting to get dressed himself, he turned to me and added, "Give me a moment and I'll get something so we can wash before breakfast."

I nodded and he disappeared out the door, returning almost immediately with a fresh basin and cloth. I reached for the cloth, but he stopped me by holding out his hand.

“Let me take care of you,” he insisted, “Just take off your shirt and I’ll do the rest.”

I agreed, but felt shy as soon as I’d removed the shirt I was sleeping in. I sat back down on the bed, my face feeling suddenly hot. He took the cloth and began wiping up and down each of my arms before moving to my shoulders and back. The water was pleasantly warm, and everywhere he wiped had goosebumps from the cold air hitting my skin once he was done.

After he finished with my back, he knelt in front of me and began to wash my chest. Even though there was a cloth separating his hand from my skin, the whole experience felt incredibly intimate. He worked his way down my chest to my stomach, looking up at me questioningly when he reached the waist of my pants. Understanding what he was asking, I lifted my hips to allow him to remove them.

As the air hit my exposed lower half, I felt a jolt of shock as I realized I was naked on Andrian's bed. However, the faint sounds from outside the door told me that we weren't going to do anything but washing me. Andrian took my foot and began wiping it before massaging my calf with the cloth and moving up to my knee.

"Mmm..." As he began to wash my thigh, I couldn't help but make a small noise. Embarrassed by my reaction, I covered my mouth with both hands. The heat I felt in my face increased tenfold and crept down my neck to my chest. I wanted to hide under the blankets. Andrian just chuckled and moved on to my other foot.

By the time he reached the thigh of my other leg, I was prepared enough not to make a sound, but I couldn't hide how breathless I was under his hands. It was different from before. My heart still pounded at his touch, but I didn't feel any of the instinctive fear I'd felt before. He squeezed my inner thigh gently for a moment and gave it a final little rub. It felt good. I wanted him to touch me more, but as soon as he was done, he stood up and planted a kiss on my head.

"All done. I'll have to make sure to wash you again when there's no one on the other side of the door," he said with a wink, "but you should get dressed before you catch a cold. By the time I've finished washing you should be safe to leave the room." With that, he took off his own shirt and dipped the cloth back into the water.

I was confused for a moment. Safe to leave the room? Why wouldn’t it be safe? I wondered what he meant by that, right until I looked down and realized I was in no shape to be seen by others. I was pretty sure my entire body turned bright red at that point and I once again considered hiding under the blanket. I hastily donned my new clothes and waited on the bed for Andrian to finish washing.

I was 'safe' to leave the room before Andrian was finished. The main room of the house looked much as I remembered it. All redwood from floor to ceiling, just like the bedroom. There was a metal box in one corner that burned wood to keep the house warm, and another in the other corner that was lit for cooking. The one for cooking had a flat piece of metal on top that served as a stove. Two long countertops made of the same redwood extended from either side of the stove, with storage above and below. One counter ended in another metal box, which I realized I recognized as an icebox, a box enchanted with magic to stay cold all year long for the purpose of storing food. We had ice rooms in Vrayna that served a similar purpose, but the ice had to be collected during the winter and stored in a deep dungeon for year-round use. There was a redwood table and chairs for eating, a large couch that matched the table for sitting, and a couple of huge round cushions on the floor that looked big enough for a lion to curl up on. Everything, right down to the coat racks, was exactly as I remembered it.

“Good morning kiddo,” Andrian’s father greeted me from beside the stove. He was tending to a large pot that seemed to be the source of the coffee aroma. Shidah and Luxania were already sitting on the couch drinking from steaming cups. I smiled and gave him a little wave to say good morning. Andrian went over to the stove and began ladling two more cups out of the pot.

“Estra left this morning to send word of our late arrival. He said you would be ‘perfectly fine’ without him and he should be back by tomorrow morning,” Luxania volunteered as I accepted my steaming mug from Andrian. Beastland coffee didn’t remind me at all of what I was given at the Royal Palace. It smelled almost the same, but it looked entirely different. I took a sip and my eyes widened in surprise. It was sweet. Luxania laughed, “First time you've tasted coffee that isn't that horrible concoction you humans call coffee?"

"Humans make coffee by pouring hot water over ground beans, right?" Andrian's father inquired. I nodded that he was right. "Come on over, I'll show you." He waved me over to the stove. It seemed that the coffee pot was pretty much empty. He placed the used pot in the sink at the end of the counter opposite the ice box and pulled a new pot out of the cupboard. He prepared the coffee as he explained, "First, you take the coffee beans and crush them into smaller pieces with the handle of a cooking knife and toss them in the pot. You want a small handful of beans for each cup. Next, add some boiling water and let it simmer. While it simmers, add a few spoonfuls of honey and a handful of vanilla beans." He walked over to the ice box and pulled out a pitcher. "And once it's simmered for a few minutes, we add some milk and wait for it to boil again." He poured a mug's worth of milk into the pot and put the pitcher away.

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I took another sip of my coffee. The sweet and creamy flavour made a lot more sense now. I couldn’t believe I ever enjoyed the bitter, acidic version I drank previously.

"If you like, I can also show you how to make spiced milk tea," Andrian's father offered and I smiled and nodded.

"I hope you don't mind, but I'm planning on taking Falyn out today," Andrian interrupted before his father could start showing me another recipe. He quickly looked at me and added, "If you're up for it, that is." I nodded.

"Of course we don't mind," Shidah replied, "We're here until Estra gets back anyway. Go have your fun."

"You'll stay for breakfast though, right?" Andrian's father inquired.

"Yes, we're having breakfast. Falyn hasn't had a proper meal for days," Andrian replied. I was glad to hear that. I was willing to go wherever he wanted to take me, but I didn't want to go on an empty stomach.

We each took one of the big round cushions on the floor and waited for his father to prepare our food, just like when we were kids. I felt a warmth deep inside me that I'd forgotten I could feel. This was what home felt like. It was a good feeling.

It wasn’t long before breakfast was ready. With incredible efficiency considering the lack of the cooking tools that were so common in Vrayna, Andrian’s father had prepared us heaping plates of game meat sausages fried in a pan and small round cakes grilled directly on the flat top of the stove. I took a hint from how the beastmen ate and spread honey on the grill cake before wrapping it around one of the sausages. Before I knew it, I’d eaten four servings and was left feeling overfull. After such a long fast and only a bowl of porridge the night before, I’d been hungry to the point it reminded me of when I was starved by my father. I couldn’t help but keep eating until I could burst when I remembered the hunger pangs and the fear I’d be left to die like that. I didn’t mean to overeat so much. My hands and mouth just moved without me thinking about it. I felt a little ashamed of myself, despite the beastmen all eating at least six. I was pretty sure that Shidah had eaten twelve.

Once my stomach had settled and I'd learned how to make spiced milk tea, Andrian led me out of the house. We walked hand in hand towards the forest. I was a little nervous. I'd heard that monsters roamed freely in the Beastlands. I knew that Andrian had brought a sword, just in case. In Vrayna, the monsters only came out at night, and mostly in the deep part of the forests. I had a feeling it had something to do with the borderland, the magical barrier that was supposed to keep magic out of Vrayna. It was a known fact that the magic of the borderland had deteriorated over time. It was the reason why Vrayna and the Beastlands had begun to come into direct contact again. The borderland had existed for almost two hundred years. It had remained unchanged for the first hundred years, but after that, it had slowly deteriorated. Fifty years ago, monsters began to appear, and twenty years after that, humans accidentally came into contact with the beastmen again. Perhaps Vrayna's lack of natural magic made the monsters weaker, or perhaps there was some real power behind the Golden Palace and the King of Vrayna, chosen by the gods. Either way, the monsters in the Beastlands weren't limited to the night so I felt like I should be on alert.

Andrian, on the other hand, seemed confident as we walked down a narrow path. It looked very familiar to me, but I couldn't quite put my finger on why. I assumed it would come to me as we walked. All my different memories were present, but they were still integrating, and I couldn't recall things as I pleased. Some things would come to me at random moments, others were still a mystery waiting to be revealed. It was comforting, though, to know that it was all there. My assumption was that even people who never had a memory lapse didn't have perfect recall of every moment. Memories weren't perfect, they were intangible, coming and going with the flow of current reality. Otherwise, people wouldn't forget to do things or suddenly remember what they forgot to do.

Andrian left me alone with my thoughts as we walked through the familiar and strange forest. The forest of the Beastlands looked nothing like the forests of Vrayna. Both forests were lush and full of vegetation, but the Beastland forest was brighter, greener, and the underbrush was incredibly dense, filled with large plants with giant drooping leaves, ivy traps, and the most vibrantly colored wild flowers I’d ever seen. I realized that this was where Andrian and I first met.

I was completely lost. What was I going to do? I was pretty sure that I had passed through a weaker part of the borderland, so weak that I didn't even notice it, and was in beast territory. Mom would kill me! Which way should I go to get back? The trees here were so lush and leafy that they completely blocked out the sun, which I was pretty sure was at noon anyway. I had no means to orient myself and wandered aimlessly through the trees.

I thought it would be a grand adventure to see the borderland with my own eyes, but I didn't notice it at all. Instead, I walked right through it. I only realized that something was wrong when the vegetation changed. It became more lush, more colorful, and the sounds of the forest creatures were all different. It was when I heard the call of an unfamiliar bird that I realized what I'd done. When I tried to retrace my steps, I only became further lost in the dense jungle of Beastlands.

I wasn't sure if I was imagining it or not, but I felt like there were things watching me from the trees. I imagined monsters and wild animals just beyond my line of sight, waiting to devour me. I was terrified. I'd never been so scared before. It was awful. I started sniffling and hiccuping as I walked, and eventually I sat down with my back to a huge tree and started crying my eyes out. Forget about seeing the stupid borderland, I just wanted to go home!

I heard a rustling in front of me and looked up, afraid of what I would see. My tears immediately stopped, but the ragged breaths and hiccups were not so easy to stop. I found the source of the noise and was relieved to see it was a small lion cub. It wasn't a monster, and it was too small to see me as prey. I was probably safe, but I was still tense and frightened as it approached me. It walked right up to my side and made a strange sound, halfway between a growl and a normal cat's meow, and then gently head-butted the side of my arm. If it were a normal cat, that would be a sign that it wanted to be pet, so I reached down and rubbed the little cub's head. It took a step back and looked confused at the hand on the back of its head, but it allowed me to continue stroking it for a moment. It was soft. Although the creature was at least twice the size of the largest barn cat, it was absolutely adorable.

I calmed down a bit with the cub by my side, and I found myself telling it how I'd gotten lost and didn't know how to get home. I didn't know why, but I felt like it could understand me. It nuzzled me and acted like it wanted to comfort me. I hugged the little lion and refused to let go. It stayed with me without fuss until a much larger lion came running out of the trees. I was terrified that he was going to attack me because I had touched his little cub. But then the larger lion turned into his human form and I realized my mistake. There was a person inside that little lion cub. No wonder it looked confused when I treated it like an animal. So the little cub was a lion beastman, and he was really trying to comfort me. His father told me he'd make me something to eat and then show me the way home.

"Falyn?" I heard Andrian call to me. I realized that I had stopped moving at some point and was just staring into the trees.

I cleared my throat carefully and slowly said, "Here... where we... mmmet."

Andrian's eyes twinkled and he replied, "Yes, we're almost at that big old tree. I knew I wanted to take you back here when I suggested we visit. Just a little further." He held out his hand and I took it. He began to lead me a little faster through the narrow path in the thick underbrush. After a few moments, we came to a small clearing, centered around a tree that dwarfed the already large trees around us. Yes, that was the tree.

I walked over and touched it. On impulse, I sat down with my back against it, just like the day he found me. I held out my arms to Andrian and waited for him to join me.

"You're adorable," he said as he hurried to me. Seeming to know what I wanted, he laid down and rested his head on my chest with one arm wrapped around my stomach. I hugged him tightly and relaxed against the tree. I was still a little worried about monsters, but I was able to push that to the back of my mind. Instead, I focused on the sights and sounds of the thriving jungle and the warmth of the man in my arms.