††† Sally †††

The campfire's crackling was the fitting background music to the hearty atmosphere in their little shelter. Watching the others sharing stories, joking and laughing was an uplifting experience for Sally. It felt unconstrained and honest. The mood was contagious enough to let even her relax as she munched on a piece of roasted bear meat.

Haylee, in particular, was a joy to observe. The cat-girl's vibrant bearing made her seem so unrestricted, so free. The way she giggled, cheered and expressed herself with animated movements to every emotion.

"Do I have something on my face?" Haylee asked nonchalantly, pointing at her cheek.

Sally felt her face heating up as she realised she had been staring with a dumb smile all the time. "I — Uhm, I wasn't —"

The group broke out into roaring laughter, and Sally instantly had to join them. She still felt her skin glowing from embarrassment, but somehow, it didn't bother her. She laughed with all her heart until she had to wipe tears from her eyes. And then she laughed a bit more, even as the others gradually calmed down.

It felt so liberating.

Then, a short hiccup intermitted her giggling, and Sally felt her eyes water again. She covered her mouth with one hand against the last snicker and closed her eyes, feeling a single tear rolling down her cheek onto her fingers. She didn't cry. She wasn't sad. She was overwhelmed.

After wiping away the tears, Sally still smiled brightly. "Sorry for that. I just can't remember the last time I laughed like this," she explained.

“Are Enforcers not allowed to make merry?” Siegfried asked jokingly.

“It’s not like that. I was just… not often part of such activities with my peers,” Sally admitted. “I was mostly keeping to myself.”

Siegfried stared at a random spot on the ground before his gaze snapped back to her. “Something to do with the fact that you can’t lie to each other?”

He was sharper than Sally had anticipated. She fidgeted under his scrutiny and ultimately averted her eyes. “There aren’t many like me. Few enforcers would choose to go rouge if given the chance.” She picked up a stick and poked idly into the embers, sending a wave of sparks into the sky. “We are being conditioned from an early age, and those who are not taking well to the priesthood’s dogma are being sorted out latest by the age of fourteen when we undergo the rite of Akali to receive her blessing.”

She stared into the cackling flames, trying to keep the memory from surfacing.

“What is this rite about?” Haylee prodded her to continue.

Waking from her absent-mindedness, Sally cleared her throat. “It is something a teenager wouldn’t be able to do if they didn’t truly believe in the words of the priests,” she spoke in a small voice. “I would’ve failed if I hadn’t been prepared beforehand by an older priest. A kind man who thought that all intelligent beings had a right to live.” Her cheek and brows twitched slightly as if her body wasn’t sure whether to smile or frown at the memory. “His name was Callum, but everyone called him Wheezy because of his funny laugh.”

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Haylee leaned forward on her haunches, “What happened to him?”

The half-emerged smile died on Sally’s lips. “He was betrayed by someone he trusted.” She could almost see the curiosity for details in Haylee’s eyes, but this wasn’t a memory she wanted to share right now.

Of all people, it was Siegfried who read the mood and came to her rescue. “If we’re already on the topic of enforcers —” he said, sliding his sword out of the sheath, “— I’ve been itching to know how they make swords that can break normal steel without taking a notch.”

“A good question,” Sally replied gratefully. “We — they don’t. They never found a way to work the metal. The priesthood says that Akali used her power to bring an asteroid into our atmosphere.” Noticing the confused stares, she quickly clarified, “A giant rock from the sky. The metal inside that rock was compressed into a material harder than anything you can find on the surface. Akali then shaped that metal into five hundred swords.”

“Only five hundred?”

“Yes, only the first-class enforcers get a sword of their own. The others are distributed to whoever has to leave the first district.”

“And how many enforcers are there?” Haylee interjected.

“Less than you would think. There are never more than a thousand and five hundred third-class enforcers, two hundred second-class and only ten first-class.”

“Only ten,” Ryden murmured. “And one of them is hunting us.” Suddenly, the healer clapped his hands, making Haylee jump. “Now, time is flying by, and you still have to finish half of that clawbear, Sieg. Chop, Chop!”

Haylee snorted while Rak eyed both the clawbear and Sieg with suspicion.

When the bulky shapeshifter reached for his sword to cut some more meat off the animal, Sally raised an eyebrow at Ryden. "That was a joke, right?"

"How do you think he got that big?" Haylee snickered. "In the city, they had to butcher a cow every day to keep him fed," she laughed out loud.

Ryden joined in right away, and even Sieg failed to hide his smile completely.

After a short cough, Siegfried elaborated, "It's not really my appetite or something," he put his chin into his fist. "Not sure if I should tell you more either."

"Oh, if it's about your ability, it might really be better if I don't know," Sally exclaimed, raising her hands defensively. "I've kept enough dangerous secrets to know that sometimes ignorance can be a blessing."

A cute yawn interrupted them as Haylee stretched her limbs.

The gesture was contagious, and Sally soon joined her, albeit a bit more reserved. "I think I'm going to get some sleep. We should move out early tomorrow," she suggested and made herself comfortable.

The following day, Sally was the first one to wake. She took a drowsy look around the temporary camp, and her jaw dropped when her gaze fell on the remains of the massive clawbear. Only a few flakes of drying flesh and skin hung from the carcass. Siegfried must have eaten several times his own weight while she slept.

Looking at the hulking warrior and noting how his body sunk into the mossy ground like a small boulder, she remembered the unusually deep footprints he left on the forest ground. Maybe his weight wasn’t so far from a clawbear’s after all.

Time was short, so she dismissed the thought and started to stretch her stiff limbs awake while the others awoke, preparing for a long march without using her powers.

Their pace was brisk but not overly so, as Siegfried had to tread carefully. At least without her reinforced mantle, she was able to keep up.

The forest slowly changed around them. The flat ground turned into hills and slopes while the mammoth trees got sparse, leaving space for smaller fir trees, and the world around them brightened a bit as the dense canopy broke. The sound of rushing water became ever more distinct as they neared their goal after half a day. It was almost deafening as Sally climbed the last hill and stared down into a massive canyon amid the forest.

It looked as if Akali herself had split the word in twain, leaving a massive, rocky wound in the landscape. Tons of water cascaded over the long side of the canyon, the foamy stream breaking upon the boulders below. At the bottom of the opposite side of the deep crevice, a rectangular black surface accentuated against the grey wall— a giant door of iron or steel.

Sally gulped, looking at Jake with trepidation. "That's the entrance?" she stated the obvious.

Jake raised an eyebrow, smirking at her awed expression. "Welcome to Victor's Bounty, the fortress in the mountain."