“You’re very good at sneaking up on me, aren’t you?” Sheilah observed dryly without opening her eyes.

“Rude.” Fialla accused. “I haven’t ‘snuck up on you’ at all. I was keeping watch.”

Sheilah sat up, dusted the dirt from her hands, and rubbed her face to clear her mind; her dreams had been especially vivid.

“A man lives and dies by their own strength.” Sheilah replied, and Fialla laughed.

“I have roots and vegetables I baked in the coals, as well as some fresh meat.” She offered generously.

“Tempting. I have to make some water, first.” Sheilah replied, and Fialla nodded.

Sheilah returned to the campfire and accepted the food with a wry look. Fialla passed the food over as if she hadn’t seen the look and they ate in silence.

After they ate, Fialla buried the remains of their meal along with the fire, shouldered her spear, and gestured for Sheilah to lead.

“You seem eager to go.” Sheilah remarked, and Fialla nodded.

“Of course. It’s not just you that’s been having... problems.” She explained. “I feel... irritable. Eager. Frustrated. Impatient.” She paused and shrugged. “I can’t explain it, but I just know that I...” She held up her hand and examined it. “I don’t belong there alongside Sellia and Kellia, preparing. I’m ready. I feel the call.”

Sheilah passed Fialla a honey drop, who examined it briefly, eyes wide, and tucked it in her mouth with a murmured thanks.

“I dream of my ancestors, calling to me. It’s strange to see my human great-grandmother that I have never met urging me to hurry to the Ash Wastes.” She gave Sheilah a baffled look. She paused and then added, “It’s hard, seeing them all human. I love my mother and my father, of course,” she explained, “but my father is a Wild Elf. He tells me stories of the Wild Elves so that I will remember my heritage, but they’re so different from what my mother teaches me of the Valley.” She frowned, looking down at the ground. “I stand between them, neither human or elven.” She fixed her gaze on Sheilah. “It’s hard for me, to have one foot in one people, and to have the other in another.”

Sheilah blinked. She’d had no idea her friend felt that way.

“My family’s weapons feel strange in my hands, as if I don’t quite belong.” Fialla continued. “How should I feel about that?” She asked the taller girl. “You’re truly from the Valley, right? Do you know what I should to do to...” She paused, and Sheilah, could see Fialla’s eyes flicking back and forth as she racked her brain for the best way to finish her sentence, “...belong?”

Sheilah didn’t have an answer for her. She felt the same way, as if she both did and did not belong. She didn’t know how to answer the half-elven girl.

“I think that if you’re going to keep an eye out for things, you should probably keep an eye out for things.” Sheilah offered, and pointed to a short cliff off in the distance, roughly half her height.

At the base of the cliff was a number of lizards, each about as long as her hand, slim and nimble. They were predatory and carnivorous by nature. A single bite from one of them wasn’t difficult to deal with, though they were mildly poisonous. What made them dangerous was that they moved in swarms. Somewhere under that cliff was a vast nest of tunnels, and inside that nest was the queen, a much larger lizard that required a steady supply of meat in order to lay more eggs and breed more of their kind.

“Have they spotted us?” Fialla asked in a whisper.

“If they had, we’d be running until they caught us.” Sheilah replied. “We’ll go east for a bit.”

Fialla nodded, and the two of them backed away from the nest as quickly and stealthily as they could.

After several miles, Sheilah and Fialla let out relieved sighs that they didn’t know they were holding.

“I’ll do better, Sheilah.” Fialla promised. She impulsively threw her arms around Sheilah in an embrace. “I won’t fail you. I’ll do better.”

Sheilah patted the half-elven girl awkwardly on the back. “We both will.” Sheilah promised, and Fialla agreed.

They resumed their march towards the Ashlands, keeping an eye out for all of the things that could kill them. The Valley was a harsh place to live, and there were a number of things that could kill the unwary, from deadly monsters, animals, and insects to risky terrain. Giant boulders that could crush you, gravel pits that could suck you to unknown depths, plants with lethal poisons and deadly spines.

“Tell me about the Wild Elves.” Sheilah urged her shadow.

“Even though you ask me like that, I don’t know what to say.” Fialla replied.

“Well...” Sheilah trailed off in thought as they carefully picked their way through a path of shale. The thin, flat rocks snapped and crunched under their feet as they traversed it.

“Wild Elves... we came from the northern continent.” Fialla explained.

“What’s a continent?” Sheilah asked, to which Fialla shrugged.

“Anyway, Father says our homeland was similar to the Valley, but we had forests and rivers, and that’s where we lived until the High Elves came and took us away.”

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“What’s a High Elf?” Sheilah asked. Fialla shrugged her shoulders again, and prodded the ground ahead of her with the butt of her spear to test the ground.

“There apparently are three types of elves: The High Elves that rule over everything, The Dark Elves that do whatever the High Elves ask, and then the Wild Elves, who preferred to live with neither of them.”

“...okay.” Sheilah replied, watching where Fialla placed her feet and following the shorter girl’s path.

“The Wild Elves were made slaves to the High Elves. As for the rest... well, your father probably told you that part already.”

Sheilah stopped suddenly, while Fialla continued prodding forward with her spear. She stopped and looked back at Sheilah.

“Huh?” Sheilah asked dumbly.

“Huh?” Fialla replied back, a confused look on her face.

“Father doesn’t speak much of anything about ... what happened before.” Sheilah replied numbly.

Fialla blinked in shock. “Well, there are stories aplenty. You’ve heard them as well as I.” She gestured. “There’s better footing just up that way. Let me check it out and then we’ll have a water break.”

The lithe half-elf carefully prodded her way over to a slight rise, peered over the side, , and then waved for Sheilah to follow.

Sheilah followed Fialla, again in the other girl’s footsteps, until she was on the slight rise with her friend.

“Your father, who was a slave to the Stormheim prince, met the princess of the Wild Elves, who was a slave to a High Elf.” Fialla passed a skin of water to Sheilah, who took a small swallow to cut the dust in her mouth, rinsed and swallowed, took one more, and then passed the skin back.

“According to my father, Davian accidentally courted Ladria in the same way a potential suitor might; and between the two of them, they organized a revolt against the High Elves and their Dark Elf underlings.”

Sheilah took a breath in shock. “Mother is a princess?” She exclaimed, baffled. “I never heard of this!”

Fialla stared at her, her mouth agape. “They never told you?”

Sheilah shook her head numbly. “In retrospect it’s obvious, but they never spoke of it directly and I never put it together.”

Fialla rubbed her face lightly with her fingertips. “I had no idea. I thought you knew.” She murmured.

She took a breath. “The rest is like the stories say: He led us from the Northern Continent, through Stormheim lands, fought a duel with the king of Stormheim and won the right for us to live in the Valley and the ownership of the Redstone Valley would remain with the Clans. Stormheim was driven out, and here we are.” Fialla finished.

Her head whipped around and she stood in a flash, leveling her spear.

Sheilah scrambled to her feet, nocking an arrow.

Off in the distance, a lone figure trotted toward them.

As the figure got closer, it resolved into a young man with silvery-white hair, who, once he spotted them, waved his hands over his head.

Sheilah tucked her arrow back in her quiver.

“A clansman.” She muttered.

“Not a Dragon.” Fialla replied back quietly. “Maybe a Thunderbird, or a Spider.”

Sheilah nocked her arrow again. It wasn’t unheard of for clansmen to kill each other, nor was it unheard of for clansmen to kill each other in the Trials. There was plenty of bad blood between the Thunderbirds and the Dragons in particular.

A man lived and died by his own strength in the Valley.

He drew closer and hollered up at them. “My name is Olin, of the Glass Spider Clan. Can I rest with you?”

“We have nothing to spare for you.” Fialla called down, and he shook his head.

“That’s fine.” He called back.

“Should we let him up here?” Fialla asked.

“My judgement hasn’t been so great lately... I’ll leave it to you.” Sheilah replied. “I will keep my arrow nocked, though.”

Fialla settled her spear and waved him to come ahead.

He scurried up the hill nimbly and then threw himself down with a sigh. “You have no idea how happy I am to find a safe spot to rest!” he gasped. He fumbled out a waterskin and drank a few swallows.

“Your Trial?” Fialla asked, and he nodded.

“I set out with my brother.” He explained. “We ran into... Hive Lizards.” He paused, and shook his head. “He didn’t make it.” He was out of breath and sweating profusely.

Fialla and Sheilah traded looks at that.

He looked up at the two of them. “You don’t need to worry about me. I figured if it was safe enough for you two, it’d be safe enough for me. I needed a spot to rest.” He paused. “I haven’t stopped running since...” He shrugged.

He fumbled out a ration bar and wolfed it down, and chased it with another drink from his skin.

“So, what clan are you from? Mountain Cat? Horned Snake?” He asked curiously.

Sheilah and Fialla’s faces both went flat and cool.

“Dragon.” Sheilah replied.

His eyes went wide at that and he scrambled to his feet. “I’m sorry to have bothered you!” He immediately barked, flinching back.

“This isn’t our territory.” Fialla remarked drily. “Rest as much as you like. We’re on our way to the Deathlands as well.”

He nodded and straightened. “Can I sit?”

“Sit, stand, crawl or walk, it makes no difference to us.” Sheilah replied. “We’re heading for the pass, same as you.”

He slumped to the ground in relief and visibly relaxed.

“I heard Adlan’s Rest was nearby.” He offered. “I think I’d like to see it.”

Sheilah raised an eyebrow at that.

“You know of my great-great-grandfather?” Sheilah asked, incredulous.

Olin’s eyes popped open at that, wide with shock. “You- I- He-” He stammered, and then he ran his fingers through his hair.

“He’s famous in the Clans. Who wouldn’t know of him?” He asked in a baffled voice. Sheilah nodded. Adlan was famous, a man who followed the ancient ways.

Sheilah could suddenly feel the pressure of the Dragon behind her eyes, and so she closed them for a moment, trying to force it down and back.

They stayed that way for a long moment while the arid wind blew through the Redstone. Olin turned over on his side, and Sheilah elbowed Fialla. The boy had fallen asleep, it seemed.

Fialla gave Sheilah a baffled look, and pointed north. Sheilah nodded, and they quietly left Olin to his nap.

A man lived and died by his own strength.